Chapter 13 #2
Jason turned back to the quarterly reports, trying to focus on the numbers in front of him.
He’d barely made it through one page when his phone buzzed with a text from Samantha.
Emergency. Mrs. E is stress-eating ice cream and binge-watching Korean dramas with the staff.
She’s had three meltdowns over dress options in the last hour.
The designers won’t stop calling. She just asked Elena if we could “cancel the whole stupid gala.” Please help.
He smiled despite himself, about to respond when another text came through. Update. She just ordered pizza. And she keeps muttering something about “too many choices” and “this never happened in the book.”
Jason tried to focus on the DP Entertainment proposal. Fifteen minutes later. She’s teaching Gregory how to make ramyeon while debating plot points with Kate. The phones WILL. NOT. STOP. RINGING.
He was midway through a financial projection when he received another. Mrs. Martinez just joined them for episode 3. They’re all crying over something. Even Gregory is emotional. Sir, I don’t know what to do.
Twenty minutes passed. Elena is now taking notes on the drama. Kate’s ordering Korean face masks for everyone. Your wife just declared we’re all having a “self-care afternoon” and NO ONE is taking any more calls from designers.
Jason checked his watch. Three fifteen p.m. A final text appeared. Mrs. E just said, and I quote: “Sam, if one more person asks me about tulle vs. silk, I’m moving to Seoul.” Please come home.
“Barb,” Jason called through the intercom, “clear my afternoon.”
“Already done, sir.”
Jason left the office early, his Aston Martin purring through Manhattan’s afternoon traffic.
The private underground garage was quiet, save for the echo of his car door closing.
It wasn’t until the private elevator deposited him in the penthouse foyer that he heard it—rapid-fire Korean dialogue punctuated by what sounded suspiciously like emotional sniffling from multiple sources.
He followed the sound to find his normally pristine living room transformed into what looked like a drama viewing marathon had taken up permanent residence.
Victoria sat cross-legged on the couch—a position he’d never seen her take—surrounded by enough empty pizza boxes and ice cream containers to feed a small army of heartbroken college students.
Her eyes were red-rimmed, focused on the TV screen where impossibly beautiful people were having what appeared to be the most dramatic conversation in the history of dramatic conversations.
Gregory had abandoned his chef’s whites for casual clothes, scribbling notes with the intensity of a food critic at a Michelin-starred restaurant. “So the secret is to pull the ramyeon off the heat exactly thirty seconds before it’s done?”
“Yes! Then it keeps cooking in the hot broth to the perfect chewy texture,” Victoria explained through a mouthful of pizza. “But the real magic happens when you add the egg at precisely the right moment—right when you kill the heat. It’s like conducting a noodle symphony.”
Elena and Maria shared the love seat, both dabbing at their eyes with tissues that looked like they’d been through war.
Mrs. Martinez had claimed an armchair, muttering something about how her telenovelas had nothing on this.
Kate and Lucy sprawled on cushions on the floor, their perpetually buzzing phones ignored like last season’s fashion trends.
“You see,” Victoria was saying, wielding a pizza slice like a professor’s pointer, “he’s not really the cold CEO everyone thinks he is—he’s actually someone from the future who woke up in the body of his company’s biggest rival from ten years ago!
And now he has to figure out how to prevent his future self from making all those mistakes while pretending to be this complete jerk, but he keeps slipping up because he’s actually a softie who runs a cat café in the future, and?—”
Elena gasped. “Is that why he knew exactly what the heroine wanted for her birthday?”
“Exactly!” Victoria said. “Because in his timeline, they’ve already met and fallen in love, but now everything’s different because he’s in his rival’s body and—oh my God, why is this hitting so close to home?
” She stuffed the entire slice in her mouth, mumbling something unintelligible about parallel universes and cosmic jokes.
Mrs. Martinez spotted him first, launching from her chair like it had suddenly remembered it was actually an ejector seat. “Dios mío! I just remembered I need to… dust… everything.”
Elena’s head snapped up next, her tissue making a graceful descent to the floor. She nudged Maria, who performed what could only be described as a pizza-enhanced gasp.
Gregory glanced up from his ramyeon manifesto, eyes widening. “The soufflé! I suddenly remembered I left a soufflé… somewhere. In the kitchen. Where I should be. Right now.”
Kate and Lucy executed a synchronized scramble that would have impressed Olympic judges. “We were conducting very important research on Korean… professional… things,” Kate managed, while Lucy nodded so vigorously she risked whiplash.
The staff’s retreat could have been choreographed by a Broadway director—a perfect blend of panic and attempted dignity, leaving behind a trail of evidence that included half-eaten pizza slices, tear-stained tissues, and what appeared to be a handwritten guide titled K-Drama Watching Rules: No Spoilers or We Riot.
Samantha sprang up from her corner, looking like someone who’d spent the afternoon herding cats through a designer boutique.
“Sir, thank God. You have to do something. The gala is next month, and she’s—” She gestured helplessly at Victoria, who was now hugging a throw pillow and muttering about timelines and parallel universes.
“I have thirty-seven designers on hold, twelve urgent fabric swatches being couriered over, and your wife just declared that fashion is a social construct and she’s moving to Seoul to become a drama screenwriter. ”
“Give us a moment,” Jason said quietly, his eyes on Victoria. Samantha nodded gratefully and retreated, gathering scattered phones still buzzing with unanswered messages.
Jason moved to the coffee table, deliberately positioning himself between Victoria and the TV screen. She made a small noise of protest as he blocked her view of what appeared to be a very intense conversation between the CEO and his unwitting past-self’s fiancée.
“You’re very distracting right now,” she mumbled, a blush creeping across her cheeks.
“I’m trying to concentrate on whether the CEO will reveal his time-traveling identity, but you’re all”—she waved vaguely at him—“looking like some Greek god in a tailored suit, and this isn’t how it happens in the book at all, and everything’s ruined. ”
She buried her face in the pillow, curling into a tight ball of drama-induced distress. Jason felt something twist in his chest at the sight. She looked so small, so unlike the polished society wife he’d married. So real.
Before he could stop himself, he gathered her into his arms, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. She made a small sound of surprise—half squeak, half sigh—but didn’t resist as he carried her upstairs. He wanted privacy for this conversation, away from curious eyes and buzzing phones.
The library was a warm, wood-paneled room they rarely used, filled with leather-bound books and afternoon sunlight.
He settled them both onto the oversized modular sofa by the window—a deep-cushioned, cloud-soft piece in rich charcoal velvet.
Victoria curled into his lap like she belonged there, the plush cushions cradling them both as sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Now,” he said softly, brushing a strand of hair from her face, “tell me what’s really wrong.”
She peeked up at him, her eyes vulnerable in a way he’d never seen before.
The afternoon sun caught the tears on her lashes, making them sparkle like diamonds.
“I don’t know how to be her,” she whispered.
“The Victoria who organized this gala. Who knows which designer to pick and how to handle all these people and—” She pressed her face against his chest. “I’m ruining everything. ”
Jason tightened his arms around her, breathing in the scent of her hair—vanilla and something else, something warm and sweet that he’d never noticed before. “You’re not ruining anything,” he murmured. “You’re making everything better.”
She stilled against him, and for a moment, the only sound was their breathing and the distant hum of the city below. Then, so quietly he almost missed it, she mumbled, “The book definitely didn’t mention how good you smell.”
He couldn’t help the chuckle that rumbled through his chest. “The book?”
“Nothing!” She buried her face deeper into his shirt. “Ignore me. I’m clearly suffering from drama-induced delirium and excessive pizza consumption.”
Jason smiled into her hair, realizing he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this… content. This real.
“This is ridiculous,” Victoria mumbled against his chest, her words muffling into his shirt. “Romance novels never prepare you for the actual reality of being inside one. There should be a manual or something. So You’ve Been Transported Into a Book as the Villainess: A Survival Guide.”
He stroked her back as she rambled, fascinated by this stream of consciousness so unlike Victoria’s usual calculated speeches. The afternoon sun painted golden shadows across them, making the moment feel somehow suspended in time.