Chapter Three
Istare at the bouquet of flowers sitting on my kitchen counter and wonder when my life became the kind of thing people send congratulatory arrangements for.
The bouquet is from Jinkyung. White lilies and something purple I don’t know the name of, wrapped in cellophane with a little card tucked into the plastic fork holder.
I pull the card out and read it again even though I’ve already read it twice this morning.
Congratulations on your new beginning! Here’s to a prosperous partnership. —JK
He signed it with his initials like we’re business colleagues, which I suppose we are, technically.
Jinkyung got his finder’s fee the moment my signature hit the dotted line, a percentage of the contract value that probably paid for a very nice dinner and then some, so of course he’s feeling generous with the floral arrangements.
I set the card down on the counter next to the vase and lean my hip against the edge, arms folded over my chest.
I spent two full days staring at that contract before I signed it.
Hongjoong had it drawn up within the hour.
A real one, not some boilerplate agency template, but a lawyer-drafted document with numbered clauses and subsections and a termination schedule that read like it was written by someone who bills by the quarter hour.
He’d handed it to me in a leather folio while I was still pulling my shoes on in the hotel entryway, casual as anything, like he was offering me a restaurant menu.
When I told him I needed time to think about it, he just shrugged and said sure, take as long as you need, and let me walk out with the copy tucked under my arm.
I thought about not signing it.
I sat at this same kitchen counter with the document spread out in front of me and a pen in my hand and I thought about every reason I shouldn’t.
I know what I’m doing. I know I’m digging myself into something so deep that I might never find my way back out of it, and the worst part is that I’m doing it with my eyes wide open.
Never in a million years did I imagine this is how I would see Hongjoong again.
I assumed, based on the gulf between our lives alone, that we would never cross paths.
That he would keep orbiting in his world of wealth while I scraped by in my corner of the city, raising my son and taking whatever work the agency could find for me.
I’d made peace with that. Or I thought I had.
I have too much to lose by letting him get close to me again.
There are things I’ve kept buried for fifteen years that could shatter everything if they surfaced, things that would change the way Hongjoong looks at me, the way he looks at himself, things that aren’t mine alone to reveal because they belong to the boy sitting in the next room doing his homework.
And every hour I spend in Hongjoong’s presence is another hour where those things press closer to the surface, where the risk of him seeing something, noticing something, asking the wrong question at the wrong moment, grows a little larger.
But in the end, I couldn’t turn down the money.
The number on that contract is staggering.
I read it three times because I thought there was a typo, and then I called Jinkyung and asked him if it was real and he laughed so hard he started coughing.
It’s enough to retire on alright. Enough to send Sungyoon to any university he wants without scholarships or loans, enough to pay our bills for the next decade, enough that after this contract ends I will never have to take another client again.
I could be done. Permanently. No more strangers’ hands on me, no more waking up sore in hotel rooms that all look the same, no more coming home at dawn and standing in the shower until the hot water runs out trying to scrub the smell of someone else’s pheromones off my skin before Sungyoon wakes up.
And I know Hongjoong can afford it without blinking.
Despite every instinct telling me not to, I’ve followed his career from a distance over the years.
I’ve seen his face on subway advertisements and bus wraps and the sides of buildings, grinning in a racing suit with a helmet tucked under his arm, or lounging against the hood of some foreign car in a cologne ad with his shirt unbuttoned to his navel.
I know he became one of the best drivers in the country, that he has his own personal fortune stacked on top of his family money, that the amount he’s paying me is probably pennies to him.
To Hongjoong this is nothing. Just a service.
A transaction, the same as hiring a personal trainer or a private chef.
And yet agreeing to it feels like I’ve taken a knife and opened myself up from sternum to navel, exposed something vulnerable and personal that even the worst alphas I’ve endured on the job never managed to touch.
Because it’s Hongjoong. Because he’s the one person in the world who could hurt me without even trying, simply by being himself, simply by looking at me with that easy grin and calling me Jae like no time has passed at all.
In the end my pride came second to my son’s future. It always does. So I signed the contract.
I push off the counter now and head for my bedroom, checking my reflection in the mirror on the back of the door.
I’m wearing dark pants and a fitted black shirt, nothing flashy, but I’ve taken more care than usual with my grooming.
My hair is washed and styled neatly behind my ears, I shaved this morning, and I spent ten minutes rubbing lotion into the dry patches on my hands before giving up and accepting that they are what they are.
I smooth the front of my shirt and tug the collar straight, and my stomach turns over with a slow, nauseating roll of nerves.
Hongjoong requested I spend the night tonight.
That’s part of the contract. He can call on me anytime he needs to get off, not just during rut, and I’m contractually obligated to come when summoned.
That’s always how these contracts work, it’s nothing I haven’t agreed to before, but it feels completely different when the name at the top of the page belongs to the one person in the world who used to know me best.
I hear the front door open and close, the thud of a bag hitting the floor, and I step out of my room with a smile already in place.
Sungyoon comes into the living area still in his school uniform, his bag slung over one shoulder and his tie loosened around his neck.
His hair is slightly disheveled the way it always gets by the end of the school day, sticking up at odd angles where he’s been running his hands through it, and his cheeks are flushed like he ran up the stairs instead of taking the elevator.
“Hey,” I say, leaning against the doorframe. “Good day?”
Sungyoon flashes me a grin, the dimple appearing in his left cheek. He drops his bag by the couch and launches into a story, his hands moving as he talks.
“So you know Sihyun, right? The kid in my class who thinks he’s some kind of criminal mastermind?
” He doesn’t wait for me to confirm. “He’s been running a card game behind the gym during lunch for like two weeks.
Charging kids entry fees and taking a cut of the pot, the whole thing.
He had a whole operation going.” Sungyoon’s eyes are bright with the delight of someone who watched a disaster unfold from a safe distance.
“And today Mr. Park caught him because one of the kids who lost money went and snitched, and Sihyun tried to hide the cards in his waistband and they fell out of his pant leg in front of the entire class.” He imitates what I can only assume is Sihyun’s face, eyes going wide and mouth dropping open in exaggerated horror, and I laugh.
“After-school detention?” I ask.
“A whole week of it. And his mom got called.” Sungyoon shakes his head with the grave solemnity of a fifteen-year-old passing judgment on a peer’s poor life choices. “He should’ve at least had a lookout. Amateur stuff.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” I tell him, and he grins again.
His eyes drift over me then, taking in the nicer clothes, the careful grooming, the fact that I’m clearly not dressed for an evening at home. His grin fades.
“You’re going out?”
“Yeah.” I keep my voice light. “I’ll be out overnight. Mrs. Han will be around for dinner, she said she’s making jjigae.”
“Oh.” Sungyoon’s shoulders drop a fraction of an inch. He turns away and busies himself with pulling his textbooks out of his bag, setting them on the coffee table with more care than necessary. “Okay.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He lines up his pencil case parallel to the edge of his math book. “I was just going to ask if we could go shopping this weekend. I need new shoes, and my soccer cleats are toast. Coach said if I show up in them one more time he’s going to bench me on principle.”
I smile and reach for my wallet on the counter, pulling out my card. I hold it out to him and wait until he looks up.
“Get whatever you want,” I say.
Sungyoon stares at the card, then at me. “Really?”
I nod. “I have a new client. You don’t need to worry about the cost anymore.”
His face brightens, the guardedness falling away to genuine happiness, a transformation only teenagers seem to manage, and he crosses the room and hugs me.
His arms go around my middle and he squeezes, and he’s almost taller than me now, enough to almost look down on me, no doubt in a year or two he’ll dwarf me with that alpha height, so I wrap my arms around him and hold on tight.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You’re welcome.” I press my mouth against the top of his head and breathe him in for a second, and the warmth that fills my chest is the only thing in my life that has never once let me down. I hold onto it as I grab my jacket off the hook by the door and shrug it on.
“Be good,” I call over my shoulder.