by Jayci Lee
“I’m in the middle of a production with a partner company. If you remove me now, the partnership and the production will suffer, as well as the film itself. I know my company and my teams better than anyone else. Are you willing to gamble with Rotelle Entertainment’s success after everything I’ve built up? How happy do you think the shareholders will be at my sudden dismissal? You can’t deny that Rotelle Entertainment is one of Rotelle Corporation’s most profitable branches.”
“You overestimate your value. Rotelle Entertainment is profitable because it’s a part of Rotelle Corporation. But I am too busy to deal with finding your successor right now.” That was his way of capitulating without giving her credit. He knew that Rotelle Entertainment would falter if he removed her before the film was complete. “I will allow you to remain as the head of Rotelle Entertainment for the time being, but don’t fool yourself into thinking your disobedience will go unpunished.”
“Oh, no. I would never doubt your ability to hold on to a grudge.” Jihae gasped behind her hand. She couldn’t believe her own recklessness.
“Such impudence! How dare you speak to me this way?”
She needed to appease him if she wanted to hold on to her position at Rotelle Entertainment. Jihae had to keep her promise to Colin and see Best Placed Bets to its completion with him.
“I’m truly sorry, Father. Please forgive me. The stress of being on bad terms with you has made me hysterical. I still can’t introduce Yami Corporation to NAM, but please let me keep my current job. I only want the best for Rotelle Corporation.”
He took a huffing breath on the other end of the line. Jihae smiled bitterly. Her groveling had done its job. With his ego stoked and her pride in tatters, he was going to give her an inch. “Like I said, you can remain in your position for the time being. But what happens after that depends on how you deal with Yami Corporation.”
And that was the end of the call. She listened to the dial tone for a blank moment before sluggishly putting down her phone. Production was going smoothly, and so was her relationship with Colin. It was going so well that she sometimes forgot Rule Three—no promises—and dreamed of more. The call with her father was a rough intrusion of reality. She would be returning to Korea sooner rather than later. That much was certain. Her defiance in the Yami situation had cemented that outcome. But she would never change her mind about the introduction. What Yami intended to do was contemptible and she would have no part in it.
Her father was hiding something from her. If he was desperate enough to get her involved in the first place, it was something very big. It was time she dug for some answers. She pushed back from her desk and poked her head out the door.
“Hey, do you have time to have dinner tonight?” Jihae asked.
“I’m not sure. Let me check my very busy social calendar,” June replied, pretending to flip through a calendar. “I would have to move a couple things around, but I can squeeze you in.”
“Does Korean barbeque and soju at my place sound good?”
“Pork belly from that butcher on Third Street?”
“Hell to the yes.”
“Meh,” June said, deadpan. “I’m not holding back on the soju, so plan on making it a dinner-slash-sleepover.”
“Done deal.”
Jihae closed her office door and walked back to her desk. It would be wonderful to vent about her father to her best friend and figure out a way to uncover his secret. The only reason she wasn’t grinning from ear to ear was that she had to cancel her date with Colin. They’ve been together for a few months, but she still couldn’t get enough of him. But taking a break tonight was for the best. The mess with her father and her eminent return to Korea meant it was a bad idea to get more attached to him. She needed to create a cushion to protect her heart.
Despite her decision to distance herself a bit, it still hurt not to see him tonight. Rather than torturing herself more by calling, she texted him instead.
Hi.
The ellipses appeared on her phone immediately.
Hi.
I need to cancel our date tonight.
This time the ellipses took a while to pop up.
Is there a particular reason?
Yeah. Emergency girls’ night in.
Is there something wrong?
Not really. Well, there’s something. I’m just having some daddy issues that I need to vent about to June. She knows my history.
She stopped herself from explaining any further. She had every right to hang out with her friend. But Colin’s answer brought a smile to her lips.
I hope it isn’t anything serious and you could still have a fun time with her.
Not to worry. We’ll have fun. It would be hard not to with pork belly and soju in the mix.
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.
I can’t make any promises, she typed without thinking.
There was another pause from him, and she realized that she’d inadvertently brought up their no-promises rule. She hadn’t meant to fling that out like a defensive mechanism. While she wanted to maintain some distance, she didn’t want to remind him that they weren’t meant to last. Was she overreacting? Colin probably never even thought of having something long-term with her.
She wanted to tell him that she would miss him. She missed him so much already, but heartfelt confessions weren’t conducive to not forming an attachment.
After they texted their goodbyes, she tried to focus on her game plan to dig in to her father’s secret. Jihae had people she trusted within Rotelle Corporation, but she wanted to avoid asking them to outright spy on their own company. She would have to figure out a legitimate way to have them look for a connection between Rotelle and Yami Corp., no matter how minuscule. If she didn’t know about it, it wouldn’t be easy to find, but her people knew how to open doors.
If they found nothing then she would have to play a dangerous game, and get June involved in her mission. But that had to be the very last resort. It involved using June’s connections in Rotelle’s accounting department to follow the money. With her father, money was always the focus of any situation or problem. Whatever he was keeping from her had to involve payment of some sort, and no matter how deeply it was buried, someone from the inside should be able to unearth it.
But Jihae was terrified of what she would find. And it was the ultimate act of rebellion against her father. What if she discovered something bigger than she could imagine? She wanted the truth, but she didn’t want to put any of her friends in danger of being disciplined by the company. Hopefully, her friends in high places would be able to sniff out some minor scandal, and she wouldn’t have to get June involved.
She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. It was too much. She wanted to forget about her suffocating life, and the strangeness that was seeping into it. To forget that she would soon have to leave Colin. She wanted the world to fall away as she fell apart in his arms, where nothing mattered but the two of them being together.
A humorless laugh escaped her. She was the one who’d decided to cancel the date. She was the one who needed the reminder that their relationship was finite. But now all she wanted was to wrap herself around him and hold on. Hold on tight.
She stopped herself short. Bloody hell. How long had it been? How long had she been on the precipice of falling in love with Colin? The frightening part was that despite everything—including her guaranteed heartbreak when she had to leave him—she wanted to let herself fall.
* * *
Colin was becoming an expert at creating legitimate business reasons to spend alone time with Jihae. The latest and most brilliant idea was this location-scouting trip. It wasn’t just an excuse to get away together. It was an important part of the production. They’d been discussing the possible location for a scene they both loved.
“I’d never been on a road trip,” Jihae said in a singso
ng voice as she adjusted her sunglasses. She had her legs up on the dashboard and the sun glinted off her pink-tipped toes.
“So you’ve mentioned...about six times in the last couple hours,” Colin teased. She leaned over and delivered a decent punch to his arm. “Hey, there will be no abusing the driver. I’m guessing you’re new to road trips, so you may not be aware, but distracting the driver is a no-no.”
“It is?” she asked in a suspiciously innocent voice.
“Yes. A big no-no.” He shot a quick glance at her to see what she was up to, but she just gave him a wicked grin.
“So...let’s say I unbuttoned myself, like so.” She undid the top button of her thin, loose shirt. Then reached for the next button. “Then unbuttoned another one, like so. Would this be considered distracting the driver?”
“Not at all,” he growled through clenched teeth. “By all means. Make yourself comfortable.”
Her laughter felt like a caress down his body, and he frowned harder. How did he always manage to get into these situations with Jihae? She was relentless and he was helpless against her bold moves.
“Then I’ll just undo one last button, so the top of my white lacy bra peeks out. Oh, look! It’s your favorite one.”
“You know I’ll get you back for this.”
“I don’t know what you mean... I’m new to road trips and just don’t know how to behave. Am I being bad?”
“As soon as we check into our hotel, and I hang the Do Not Disturb on the knob, I’m having you against the door.”
“What the hell?” The top of her chest, exposed through her unbuttoned shirt, turned pink as color traveled up her neck. “It’s all right for the driver to turn on and distract the passenger? That’s a double standard. Who made up these ridiculous road-trip rules?”
Helpless laughter escaped him, affection tangled up with frustration. He reached out and patted her thigh, his fingers a hair’s width short of the inseam of her pants. “Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it.”
“Ugh. You’re incorrigible,” she said, squeezing his hand before she slapped it away.
Colin drove the next three hours with blue balls and anticipation rushing through his veins. When they at last entered Death Valley National Park, the sun had begun its descent, painting the sky and mountains with splashes of red, orange and violet.
“This is brilliant,” Jihae breathed, leaning forward in her seat to look out the windshield.
“It is. The rest of the park is spectacular but you can’t beat the sunsets against the mountains.” He turned into one of Death Valley’s two hotels. “So are you ready to rough it for two nights? We’re on the same travel budget as location scouts, so the accommodations won’t be up to your usual standards.”
“I’ve stayed in hostels before.” She crinkled her nose at him. “A standard room in a four-diamond hotel isn’t roughing it.”
“When did you stay in a hostel?”
“Around seven years ago.”
“But what kind of accommodations do you usually have?”
“Presidential suites and penthouses. Fine. I get your point. You don’t have to rub my nose in it. I never asked to live like a spoiled princess,” she said glumly. “So how do you rough it, Mr. Self-Made Millionaire?”
“I usually camp when I come to national parks.”
“Camp?” Her face held both horror and fascination. “Like as in camping? In the outdoors?”
“Wait a minute. You can’t be serious.” He turned to stare at her after parking the car. “You’ve never gone camping?”
“You probably don’t know a lot about my family, but my father isn’t exactly the type to load the family into the car and go camping,” she said a little wistfully. Colin shrugged to hide his discomfort, because he did know quite a bit about her family. Before he could think of an appropriate response, she continued, “But I do want to try it.”
“I’ll take you someday,” he said before he could think.
Did she think he was making her a promise? That they would be together long enough to reach someday? Maybe they could have their someday. He could come clean to her. Every moment he’d spent with her had been real. His every word and every touch had been true. But no. It was too late. She would despise him if she found out about his identity and how he’d betrayed her trust.
“Let’s see if I could survive a couple nights in a standard room,” Jihae said with a small, sad smile that broke his heart. “Besides, I don’t think Best Placed Bets has a camping scene.”
During the check-in, Colin requested adjoining rooms, so they could spend the night together without sneaking back and forth. When they got to her room, he was the perfect gentleman, opening the door for her and placing her suitcase just inside the entry.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, and left Jihae with her mouth gaping. Once he let himself into his room, he promptly found the entrance to hers and knocked. He heard shuffling and a muffled oof before she flung open the door.
“Hi.” He grinned at her wide-eyed expression.
“Is that your room or the rest of my room?” she asked, getting on her tiptoes to look over his shoulder.
He laughed, and stepped aside to invite her in. “Welcome to my room.”
“So this is the whole room,” she said, excited about the new experience.
“Sure is.”
Her eyes took in his room, identical to hers, in a quick sweep, then pressed herself against one wall. Then she took measured strides until she reached the opposite wall and burst out laughing.
“You could walk from one side of room to the other in less than twelve steps. It’s so small and cute.”
He walked over to her—in ten steps for him—and leaned down to nuzzle her neck. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Mmm-hmm. I do. It’s so fun.” She leaned her head to one side to give him better access. “And I love our connecting door. We could finally have a sleepover.”
He placed his hands on her waist and walked her backward until her back met the door that led to the hotel hallway. She gasped in surprise and stared at him.
“For real?”
“Hell, yes,” he said before he crushed his mouth against hers.
Jihae’s surprise was short-lived as she eagerly pressed her body against his and deepened the kiss, urging him to respond. He growled deep in his chest, his desire for her bursting into dangerous flames.
He reached between them and ripped open the blouse she’d carefully unbuttoned in the car. Impatient to taste her, he pulled down her bra until her breasts came free. He took her in his mouth until she moaned, digging her hands into his hair. He suckled deeply then moved greedily to her other breast, his hands reaching behind to cup her round backside.
Her hands tugged and tore at his shirt. He leaned back only far enough to pull it over his head, then reclaimed her lips. He shivered as she explored his chest and stomach, and smoothed her hand lower.
“God,” he groaned. “I need to be inside you.”
Rather than answering, she hurriedly unbuckled his belt and pushed down his jeans, then made short work of her own pants. He ran his hands over her naked body then stepped away to sheathe himself as quickly as his trembling hands would allow. Desperate beyond coherent thought, he wrapped her leg around his waist then lifted her up and brought her down on him, tilting his hip so he was buried inside her to the hilt.
“Colin.”
“Yes, baby. Talk to me.”
“Faster.”
Her breathless demand pushed him over the edge and he pounded into her again and again without even a pretense of control. He was so damn close, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could last.
“I need you to... I don’t know if I can... Jihae, please.”
He shifted her in his arms to give her more contact where she needed it and pumped harder, willi
ng her to come. Just as he thought he wasn’t going to make it, she screamed, tilting her head back against the door, eyes clenched shut. He joined her in climax and pushed into her one final time.
His limbs still trembling, he gently lowered Jihae’s feet onto the floor and leaned against her.
“I’ve been dying to do this to you for hours,” he mumbled against her warm, smooth neck. “You make me so crazy.”
“And I can’t get enough of you,” she said huskily, her hands moving up and down his sweat-slickened back, both soothing and arousing him.
“We’re going to shower first then I’m taking you to bed. Then we’ll order room service to replenish ourselves, and go again. I’m not letting you out of my arms until tomorrow morning. Thoughts?”
“Oh, just that we’re going to need to order a ton of food.”
Eleven
Jihae opened her eyes slowly, savoring the feel of Colin’s body wrapped around hers. Waking up next to him felt so right. She had never felt such warmth and security before. She wanted more, but this stolen night was the only chance they had to spend in each other’s arms unless they could plan more location hunts without making everyone suspicious. Not only that, it also wasn’t right using project funds to pay for their rendezvous.
She sighed, clutching at the arm Colin had wrapped over her. She shouldn’t be worrying about having more of him, but making the best of what she had now. And right now, she had a hot hunk of a man, naked in bed with her. Letting go of her desperate hold on his arm, she reached behind her and wrapped her hand around him. Mmm. She smiled with her eyes closed. He was already hard.
“Hi, are you awake?” she whispered, slowly pumping her hand up and down his erection.
“You’re insatiable, woman. Not even letting me rest after a long night,” he growled, his hand sliding up to cradle her breast.
“From the state you’re in, you’ve hardly had enough yourself.”