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“I’ve never seen someone eat like you before.”
“You’ve never been around poor people then.”
He shook his head a fraction. “That’s not it. You eat like it’s going out of style. You eat like you might not be allowed to finish.”
Yikes, that was a little close to the bone.
I shrugged. “Like I said. Poor people.”
He studied me a moment longer. “Where are you from?”
“Originally, or where was I when I came here?”
“Both.”
“I’m from Belarus, a small, shitty town that would be a waste of map space. I was in Shanghai before I came here to your, erm, place of business.”
“Do you know who I am and what I do?” Jae Han asked steadily.
I put my spoon down slowly. This felt like a test. I sipped my water—even that was in a pretty glass with lemon in it. “You’re mafia.Jopok?Korean America, if I recognized the slang of some of your men. You’re the boss.”
He inclined his head, agreeing with everything I’d said. “Despite knowing that, you didn’t think twice about begging me to keep you?”
His words did something strange to my belly.Begging me to keep you. It was surprisingly sexy in a way I hadn’t imagined.“I—”
I didn’t get to say whatever hare-brained comment was coming next. Instead, a light and airy voice cut through the air, and Jae Han tensed. He swore in Korean and pushed himself back from the table as a woman came into the kitchen, with another trailing behind her. They stopped when they saw us sitting at the table.
The eldest one, his mother, I’d guess, by the resemblance, raked eyes across me like claws. I winced and fought the urge to check for blood after her inspection.
“Song Jae Han, what are you doing?” she snapped. Her voice was like a whip.
“Eating brunch, what does it look like?” Jae Han said, settling himself back in his chair and looking completely unperturbed by being caught sitting in the kitchen with a girl in a bed sheet.
The younger girl was looking excitedly between us.She stepped forward. “Hi, I’m Hana, Jae’s sister, and this is our mother, Dami.” She smiled at me.
“Hi Hana, I’m Kat,” I said, deciding to ignore his mother’s dramatic reaction as Jae Han clearly was.
“And why is she wearing a sheet?” the mother continued.
“Her clothes got too dirty to put back on,” Jae Han said, raising his coffee and sipping it like his mother wasn’t about to throw a fit.
“Who is this?”
“A woman who spent the night here.” His evasion game was top-class.
‘Are you going to send her away?” Dami asked, her voice becoming shrill.
Jae Han shrugged. “No, I don’t think I am. Not right now. I think I’ll keep her around for a good few more nights.”
She watched him, her color rising, and then all hell broke loose.
She started shouting at him in Korean, and he responded with artic-sounding one-word answers. The man was unruffled, and I was impressed.
I stood up awkwardly. I was grateful to this man, and now, I was the cause of a mid-morning familial meltdown. I figured sneaking away and leaving the family to it would be the best course of action.
I pushed back my chair and wondered whether it would be better to army crawl out the door to avoid the crossfire between livid mother and uncaring son. I was still trying to make up my mind when Jae Han’s hand touched mine. It was a shock, and I nearly leaped out of my seat. He didn’t like to be touched, yet something had made him reach out.
“What’s up?” I whispered to him.
