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His mother looked between our joined hands and us before turning and fuming up the corridor, groping for her cell phone in her Chanel bag.
“Dami is throwing a fit over not getting her way. Ignore her,” he said flatly. “More importantly, I’ve thought about what I need from you.”
“What? Now?” I panicked. I couldn’t keep up this morning. I hadn’t even had coffee yet.
Jae Han frowned at my hesitation. “You said you’d do anything to stay, anything I wanted if I helped you.” A muscle ticked in his defined jaw.
“I will! I’ll keep my word,” I rushed to reassure him.
The slight air of tension eased, and his grip on my hand softened. He nearly smiled but didn’t quite manage it. “Good girl. As far as Dami is concerned, I want her to think we hooked up last night and you’re crazy about me. I want her to think we’re a couple.”
“Oh, so you want to kill her then?”
This time his smirk did materialize. “Let me worry about that.”
Dami breezed back into the room with Hana trailing behind her, looking like she wished she had a bowl of popcorn for the show.
“Song Jae Han, I’ve canceled your date tonight. The Kims are most displeased, but I won’t let you embarrass the Song name further. You are thirty-four and unmarried, and I come here to find you parading a barely legal one-night stand in front of me.”
“I’m twenty-two!” I protested.
“She’s not a one-night stand, Mother.” Jae Han spoke at the same time.
He stood, sliding his cold, elegant fingers through mine and forcing me to stand too. I gripped my bedsheet for dear life. He walked a distance from the table and pulled me to his side. His mother and sister were watching him, one aghast, the other like she wished she was videoing this.
He looked down at me and brought a hand up to cup my jaw like it was something precious. His touch soothed a place deep inside me that had been empty and afraid for a long time. Since Shanghai and before that, in Moscow, with the men I’d met there and run from.
I leaned into him, drawn by his strength. This was a powerful man, and I felt protected by the look in his clear, dark eyes. He had the power to draw me in and make me feel like we were standing in a tiny bubble of peace and serenity.
Then he spoke, and all hell broke loose. “She’s my fiancée.”
CHAPTER4
Jae Han
Silence fell after Dami and Hana left, and the various boxes of side dishes my mother had carted over to fill my fridge—and had decided to use as weapons instead—were cleaned off the kitchen floor.
Kat wandered off for another shower, and I gave her some clothes. I couldn’t have her wandering around in the sheet, even if I now considered it the sexiest outfit I’d ever seen. She was a stunning woman beneath the dirt, and looking at her could easily become an addiction.
Everything was clean, and the smell of lemon soap hung in the air when she wandered into the kitchen later. I didn’t like mess, and I didn’t like staff. Strangers in my personal space made me tense, so I had a cleaner come in while I was out, a chef who left ready-to-go meals in my fridge, and my men who stood outside my apartment door for security.
Kat was the first person to have spent the night in longer than I could remember. I never brought women here. It wasn’t safe to let the location of a boss’s home be public knowledge, especially if you lived alongside ordinary people in an apartment building. Sure, it was the penthouse, I owned the entire thing and had more security measures in place than the Tower of London back in its day, but still, it was a risk.
And I didn’t take risks or chances. I didn’t gamble – until today.
Kat had rolled the waistband of the sweats I’d given her, and the t-shirt slipped off her shoulder constantly, exposing creamy, pale skin. The clothes dwarfed her, and yet, she pulled it off. I couldn’t keep my eyes away.
She was a gamble—my first in a very long time.
“So, your mother’s nice,” she said as she joined me on the couches in the window and looked out over the impressive view.
“I’ll be sure to tell her you think so.”
“Nah, don’t bother. I’m sure she’ll have me killed before then,” Kat breezed.
That tore a surprised chuckle from me. I jolted at the sound while she merely smiled. She had no idea how long it had been since I’d last laughed at anything. My life was grim at best and painfully dark at its worst.
“So, fiancée? I wasn’t expecting that. You think she’d believe a guy like you would want to marry a woman like me?”
