by Arthurs, Nia
He clamped his lips shut.
Hanna pushed out her bottom lip. “You agreed to marry me easily enough. Dating should be nothing.”
Looking into Hanna’s eyes, Sun Gi realized that he couldn’t say no. “Okay.”
Hanna pumped her fists. “No refunds. You’re mine for three months.”
Her words settled around him like a noose.
What the hell did I get myself into?
Lunch ended and he still didn’t have an answer to that question.
Sun Gi returned to work and delivered Bo Young’s food. After waving off her inquiries about lunch with Hanna, he left the office to visit his other businesses. Hopefully a change of scenery would clear his head.
On the way to his first stop, Sun Gi turned on the radio to drown out his thoughts.
A familiar melody broke his concentration.
Sun Gi straightened.
That song…
It was the one that Nightingale—Jo—had sung the night she first performed at The Hidden Reef. He pictured her in the mask and short skirt, slim arms dancing delicately at her sides, her voice trembling through his soul.
Something pricked the inside of his chest.
Sun Gi turned the music down and rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb.
A few days ago, he’d been tempted to get in touch with Jo. Gone as far as to call up Sweet Treats so he could ask Sky for her phone number, but he didn’t.
Something held him back. Pride? Fear?
He didn’t know or care. There were too many complicated emotions linked to Jo—both as her regular self and her sultry alter ego. Sun Gi knew a bad investment when he saw one and chasing after Joana would lead him through a complicated maze, one he’d get lost in, one he’d never be able to recover from.
Pining for Sky from afar had been one thing. Deep down, Sun Gi knew he didn’t stand a chance with her. Sky was so desperately in love with Joon that she’d never consider him.
But Joana? She was a different story. Something told him she wasn’t the type of woman who would be flattered by his interest.
She could hurt him. And he didn’t like those odds.
He tried to shake away his useless musings. Now it didn’t matter what he felt for Jo. He’d promised to give Hanna three months of access to his heart, cold as it may be.
If he planned on giving his fiancée a real chance, Sun Gi had to put Jo and her sultry voice away from his mind.
Shouldn’t be that hard to do. As long as he avoided Sweet Treats, he never had to see Joana Lee Gregory again.
18
Jo finished ringing up a customer and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. It was another scorching hot day. She pulled her shirt away from her chest and flapped it, struggling to find relief from the heat.
“Is this a joke to you?” a voice hissed.
Jo spun and found Rhia leveling her a blistering stare that rivaled the exorbitant weather. Geez. If looks could kill, she’d be locking her arms in a casket right about now.
Rhia’s friends, Jennelle and Erica, flanked either side of her, their mouths locked in severe frowns like pretty, multicultural bodyguards.
“Uh…” Jo knew she was being judged, but she had no clue what had ticked Rhia and her crew off. “No?”
Rhia folded her arms over her chest. There was a whole loft of hate simmering through her thinly held composure, as if she wanted to explode on the job but was too afraid of making a scene.
Again, Jo had no idea what she’d done to deserve this maximum-death-threat glare.
“Who told you that you could put up batteries around the cashier station?”
Jo’s eyes darted to the displays that had already been attracting customer attention. “Well, technically no one.”
“Exactly.” Rhia flipped her neat, Siamese twists over one shoulder. “I get that you’re the boss’s favorite, but that doesn’t give you the right to mess around with the merchandise without asking.”
“Oh.” Jo blinked. “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“Well, it is,” Rhia spit, her thin eyebrows meeting in the middle of her forehead. “The last time we jumped around and tried to implement our own ideas, the Big Boss had a huge fit.”
“We can’t just do what we want,” Jennelle said, her neck creaking from left to right.
Curiosity pried her mouth open. “Is this really about the batteries?”
“What else could it be about?” The other girl—Erica—sneered. Jo had never seen anyone curl her lip like that before. Not unless they’d just smelled garbage… or a rat carcass.
Was she the carcass in this scenario?
Jo cleared her throat. “Brighton.”
“Ha!” Erica laughed, but the sound was hollow, like a man with tuberculosis in the Dark Ages.
Rhia spoke curtly. “Look, Joana,” her name might as well be a disease, “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I don’t have anything with Brighton. I’m just trying to keep my job.”
“Yeah, Brighton’s just dumb.” Jennelle rolled her eyes.
Jo wondered if Jennelle had been after Brighton too and had gotten rejected. Her handsome co-worker struck her as the type that broke hearts.
“We have a rule here. We don’t date in the store,” Erica said.
“Does that apply to customers too?” Jo asked. She’d seen a lot of cute guys she wouldn’t mind getting to know better passing through those doors.
“This isn’t personal,” Rhia added, slanting her a consolatory smile so fake it would give the plastic fern in the corner a run for its money. “We’re just trying to educate you on how things are done here—”
“All of a sudden? You’ve ignored me since the moment I was hired. What changed?”
It wasn’t that Jo particularly cared, but she and Rhia had formed a sort of understanding. Whenever she entered a room, Rhia left it and whenever she asked for something, Rhia ignored her.
Why screw up a good thing?
Jennelle stared at her in disbelief. “We weren’t ignoring you.”
“We were giving you space,” Erica added.
“What do you think this is? High school?” Rhia rolled her eyes. “We’re all adults here. I want my paycheck same as you. I just think it’s unfair that you get to waltz in like you own the place when you don’t.”
Jo didn’t remember doing any waltzing. Most of the time, Rhia blasted music from the local soca and dancehall station so there wasn’t much opportunity to slow dance.
Rhia crossed her arms over her blue polo. “So do we have an agreement?”
“I’m still not sure what your problem is.”
Rhia sighed as if Jo had the brain capacity of a peanut.
“Let me show her.” Jennelle crossed over to the battery display and tossed it to the ground. The thud blared through the room. Battery packs went skittering across the tiles.
Rhia and Erica laughed.
Jo jumped forward. “Hey!”
Rhia’s arrogant gaze landed on her back. “You should probably clean that up.”
“What is wrong with you?” Jo spit through clenched teeth.
Rhia glided forward, her eyes stuck to Jo’s. “Stay in your place,” she warned, an edge to her voice, “or I’ll put you there myself.”
Jo’s fists clenched at her sides as she watched Rhia and her cronies strutting away, chuckling to themselves. Her eyes landed on the flashlights nearby. Her fingers shook.
More than anything, she wanted to drag the heavy-duty tool off the hinges and hike it at Rhia’s face.
See her catapult to the floor.
Face-first.
Still.
Dead.
Murder? Really? You’ll get arrested, Jo. Think this through.
She turned away and focused on the battery packs littering the aisle instead. A customer could walk in at any time. Even if it wasn’t her fault, Jo couldn’t leave the mess there and shame the store.
Dropping to her knees, she gathered the batteries. It wa
s hard to scoop them up when her hands were trembling so badly. Angry tears burned the back of her eyes. Jo hated herself even more for getting emotional.
She couldn’t give Rhia that power. Like the girls said, they weren’t in high school anymore.
But damn, if this didn’t remind her of her lifetime bully—Nina Franko. From primary school—when Nina cornered her in the yard, pointed to her eyes and called her a freak—to high school when Nina officially dubbed her the school’s ‘Black Ching Chong Chang’, the bullying was relentless.
Jo harshly swiped her tears away and moved to rehang the batteries.
Footsteps thudded. Brighton skidded toward her. Eyes wide with concern, he grabbed one of the packs. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” She sniffed.
Brighton caught the sound. His arm brushed hers as he moved closer so he could inspect her face. Jo hiked her shoulders and tried to duck her head into her shirt.
It worked for turtles.
Not so much for her.
Brighton gasped. “Are you crying?”
“No.” She cleared her throat so the huskiness in her voice didn’t give her away. “I think an eyelash must have dropped in there.”
“Come here. Let me see.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“Come on.” He tucked his fingers over her chin. Jo had a flashback to the moment when Sun Gi did the same thing last week.
Suddenly, instead of Brighton’s golden brown skin and bright brown eyes, she saw Sun Gi’s face barreling toward her.
The battery pack slipped out of her hands.
The pressure on her chin increased.
Sun Gi—Brighton brought her close and gently blew in her eye. Her eyelashes fluttered. Her heart jacked up to a speed that had to be unhealthy. Jo staggered and struggled for something to hold onto.
Brighton’s arms were the nearest, most reliable solutions.
She clamped her fingers over his biceps. Felt the muscles contract. Brighton’s face flickered before her and then it was gone, replaced by Sun Gi again.
Jo struggled for breath.
I’m going absolutely insane.
“Is that better?” he asked.
Jo nodded dumbly.
“What is going on here?” a voice boomed.
Jo sprang away from Brighton and stumbled, collapsing on all fours. Pain started from the palms of her hands and rode the wave up to her arms and chest, mingling with her rising humiliation.
Brighton crawled over to her and helped her stand. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Jo pulled away from him and rubbed her hands together, hoping to soothe the sting. She glanced up, expecting to see Eun Jung.
Sun Gi stood before her instead.
Jo rubbed her eyes. Blinked three times. The apparition looked exactly like Sun Gi—same arresting eyes and perfect lips. She looked down and then back up, but the image hadn’t changed. This wasn’t her mind playing tricks on her.
Sun Gi was really there.
The clip of thin heels resounded in the quiet as Eun Jun strode forward. Her nostrils flared and her lips were pinched into a stern line. “Joana? What happened? What is this mess?”
“There was a little accident with a customer,” Brighton said, lying so smoothly that Jo was almost convinced it was the truth. “We were cleaning up.”
Jo cringed and peered at Sun Gi. He stood stiffly, his head high and his gaze on a point beyond them. Slowly, his dark eyes slid her way. Pinned her in place. She waited for him to greet her.
He looked sternly away. As if she were invisible. As if he didn’t know her.
Anger sparked to life. Why was he acting so cold to her? The jerk.
“Hurry up and put this back before someone walks in,” Eun Jung said.
Jo could sense her boss’s annoyance. A complaint launched to the top of her tongue. None of this was her fault. Rhia and her cronies had jacked up the displays.
Her cheeks burned as Jo returned to the ground to finish cleaning up the batteries. She had no idea what Sun Gi was doing here, but the fact that he’d witnessed her at a low point irritated her.
Brighton caught her hand and tugged. “Jo, get up. I’ll do this.”
“It’s fine,” she snapped.
Brighton just applied more pressure to his grasp and didn’t stop until she was on her feet. He pointed to the chair behind the cash register. “Go sit over there.”
Jo heard the thud of Eun Jung’s heels growing quieter. When she glanced that way, she saw Sun Gi mounting the stairs behind her boss. He wore a tailored green shirt that strained against his broad shoulders and black pants.
He looked handsome even from behind.
The prick.
Jo climbed to her feet and stepped away from the mess, but she didn’t walk to the cash register. Instead, she hung around Brighton while he finished packing up the batteries and helped him set the products on the hook.
When he was done, he slapped his hands on his hips and struck a superhero pose. “Don’t I get a kiss for rescuing you?”
“You get my undying gratitude,” Jo mumbled. “That’s all I got.”
He followed her behind the counter. “Who spilled the batteries?”
“Rhia.” Jo scowled.
“Why?”
“Because she’s pure evil.”
Brighton chuckled.
Jo gave him the eye. “What?”
He leaned against the counter and crossed his legs at the ankles. “You’re cute when you’re angry.”
She ignored him and snuck a peek at the second floor admin office. Sun Gi was probably in there with Eun Jung right now. Had he seen her and Brighton? Did he think there was something between them?
Jo shook her head to clear her thoughts.
Sun Gi didn’t give one crap about her.
Jo should know better.
She had to focus.
Maybe it was best if Sun Gi thought that she was dating someone else. At least then, she wouldn’t look as pathetic as she felt.
19
Who the hell was that guy? The question ran circles through his head as Eun Jung droned on about the store’s improved profits and the handling of old stock.
“… Joana’s been a really big part of our improvement—”
Sun Gi straightened. “Repeat that?”
Eun Jung eyed him hard. She was a manager who’d worked with his father when Eric Kim had been alive. Just like Bo Young, she saw him as both her boss and the little boy who used to run around the office like a lunatic.
With a bit of impatience, Eun Jung obliged. “The young lady you just saw was Joana Lee Gregory. She’s a new hire, but she’s got an impeccable nose for business. Since she was hired, I’ve noticed her changing things around to help the store. We’ve seen a twenty-five percent increase and that’s just in the first month.”
“Because of her?”
“Because of her.” Eun Jung bobbed her head. “I try to stay on top of the management, but the store’s been languishing from lack of attention. Jo has been a great help. Despite the state she was in today, I find her to be professional and competent.”
Sun Gi was impressed. Eun Jung held compliments with a death-grip and distributed them sparingly.
“What about the guy she was with?” he asked.
“Who? Brighton?”
“Brighton’s a nice kid.” Eun Jung nodded enthusiastically, her earrings bobbing along her shoulders. “He’s been here the longest so he tends to take the new workers under his wings.”
And under other things, he assumed.
Enough with the bitterness. Didn’t you just pledge to give Hanna a chance a few hours ago?
Curiosity got the better of him. “Are they dating?”
“Who?”
“Brighton and Jo… I mean, Joana?”
Eun Jung’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought of it, but you might be right. Brighton’s a very handsome boy. He’s tall, charismatic, personable. I think he’s very similar to Jo. They’d m
ake a cute couple.”
He gritted his teeth when he thought of the way Brighton cradled Jo’s cheeks. A sensation that was eerily close to jealousy slithered up his spine.
Eun Jung paused and stared at him.
He lifted his chin and tried to backtrack. “What if they break up? It would put a strain on the other workers.”
“Jo is a responsible young lady. I trust her judgment.”
“Still, you should talk to them.” And keep Jo away from that guy. “Remind them to play things professional on the clock.”
“I will.” Eun Jung shuffled her documents. “Now back to the topic at hand. I’m a little concerned about our inventory.”
Sun Gi shifted into work mode. “What about it?”
“Every few months, an item turns up missing from the store room—an electric fan, a power strip, a hammer. I’d ignore it, but it seems to be a consistent pattern.”
“Are you insinuating that we’re having a problem with the way the employees record inventory or are we dealing with a thief?”
“At first, I thought it was a mistake in inventory records, but now I’m suspecting that we’ve got someone with sticky fingers on the roster.”
He sobered. “How long has this been going on?”
“Let me check.” She shuffled through her sheaf of papers. “A little over a year. That’s according to the records that were kept before I started managing this place.”
“And the thefts are still occurring? With the same pattern?”
Eun Jung nodded.
Sun Gi rubbed his chin and stared thoughtfully at the wall. “Then the culprit is someone who’s been here from the beginning. Of the employees, who did you say has been working the longest?”
She pulled in her pink lips. “You don’t think…it’s Brighton?”
He arched an eyebrow.
“Brighton wouldn’t be that stupid…”
“Maybe he thought no one would notice or suspect him.” Sun Gi shrugged.
Eun Jung’s lips tightened. “I’ll have him fired immediately.”
“Launch an investigation first. I don’t want to be sued for wrongful termination.”
“Fine,” Eun Jung said, but he knew that she had already made up her mind.
They discussed other matters for the next hour.