Jihae checked into a hotel near the premiere location to get herself ready for the red carpet. Her stylist was scheduled to come in an hour. After a quick shower, She wrapped herself up in a plush bathrobe and dried her hair, absentmindedly running her fingers through it.
She’d chosen a warm, rose-and-gold dress for the occasion. She now only wore white when she damn well felt like wearing white. After the wrap party, she realized that if she wanted to survive, then she had to move on. And the first step had been to break free of her father’s hold on her. Hiding behind Princess Jihae’s persona was what was expected of her. She was not Princess Jihae. The princess belonged to her father. She had been a puppet controlled by her father. Never again.
She was Jihae Park, film producer and business executive. She was the one who had brought Rotelle Entertainment to the next level. That took skills, intelligence, perseverance and plain old hard work. After the premiere, she was going to submit a formal resignation letter to her father. It was time to devote herself to getting her production company off the ground. And with the evidence she had against Rotelle Corporation, her father wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing to stop her.
The hollow, cold feeling where her heart used to be showed no signs of diminishing, but she couldn’t let her life and happiness depend on another human being. It was no one’s job to find happiness for her. It was hers and hers alone. She was still too ragged to feel whole, but she would find joy in her life, and make something of herself.
She wasn’t a nobody just because her father saw fit to discard her like a used paper plate. She had been fooled by a man who claimed to love her, but she wasn’t a fool for it. Someday, these things would make her stronger. It was too soon, but she would rise above everything she’d gone through.
There was a smart knock at the door, and she glanced at the clock. There were still at least forty minutes left until her appointment. Jihae walked to the door and looked out the peephole. It was June.
“June,” she said, hugging her friend. “What are you doing here?”
“I pushed back your appointment for half an hour, so we have a good hour to talk.”
“Talk? About what?”
“I don’t know if this is going to change anything, but watching you put on a brave face every day hasn’t been easy. You can’t exist as a numb shell.” June dragged Jihae to the settee and plopped both of them onto it. “You’re a strong woman. You can fight. You can thrive. But will you ever be truly happy without Colin? Because I’ve never seen you light up from the inside out like when you were with Colin.”
“Was it that obvious I was in love with him?”
“Honey, please.” June waved her hand dismissively. “The way the two of you looked at each other fogged up the office windows.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“About you two being together? Because you would have told me if it was something you wanted to share.”
“It wasn’t going to be anything permanent. I never thought—” A sob broke out against her will. She took deep breaths through her nose. She promised herself she wouldn’t shed a single tear for Colin ever again.
“You never thought you would fall in love with him.”
Jihae could only nod.
“Oh, hon. I think you guys fell for each other the first time you met.” June reached out to squeeze her hand and held on to it in quiet support. “It’s my job to be observant. I wouldn’t be a good executive assistant if I wasn’t. It was hard to ignore how lovesick you guys were.”
“Colin doesn’t love me. He—he was just using me.”
“I know. You told me he kept his identity a secret from you and eavesdropped on your conversation with your father. That was a dick move on his part, but at least he was doing it for his family. And that gets me to the part why I rushed over here.”
“What is it?” Jihae asked, unable to quell her curiosity.
“It’s about Colin’s relationship with his family. It wasn’t only you. No one knows about his connection to the Song family and Hansol. He has kept it a tightly held secret all his life.”
“How did you find that out?”
“Colin’s cousin Adelaide called me a few days ago. She said she didn’t know if you would take her call, so she reached out to me. Colin must’ve told her I was your friend. Someone you would listen to.”
“But why are you telling me this now?”
“You’re trying so hard to put your life back together. I didn’t know if telling you would only make things harder for you. But no. You love him, and you have a right to see the whole picture.”
June explained that his father had coasted through a life of privilege and entitlement on his family’s money and good name. He was hardly a father to Colin. It was his grandmother, Grace Song, who had raised him.
But as he grew older, Colin was desperate to make his name and succeed on his own outside the shadow of Hansol. He didn’t want to be anything like his father. In order to become a self-made man, he closely guarded his identity from the public. He refused to benefit from his connections. But in order to stand on his own, he had to disappoint his grandmother and refuse to join Hansol.
“I know this doesn’t excuse him from not telling you he was Garrett Song’s cousin, but everything in him must have rebelled against revealing his secret. He didn’t even know if he could trust you to keep his identity a secret, so he had gone with his default. Just like in any situation, he would have wanted to be judged based on the merits rather than his connections and his family name.”
Jihae didn’t need to hear this right now. She didn’t want to know that he was an honest, honorable man. That he had to bear the guilt of disappointing the person who’d raised him to be true to himself. When the opportunity arose to allow him to help his family, how could he refuse? No. She couldn’t do this right now. She couldn’t feel her heart wrench for the little boy Colin was, and for the man he became. She didn’t want to feel the tears streaking down her cheeks.
“I’m not telling you this to hurt you, Jihae. You are fierce and amazing, and I’m so proud of you. But I don’t want you to have any regrets. His motivations don’t make his actions right, but maybe it’ll help you look at what happened in a less punishing light. Maybe it’ll help you hurt less to know that what he did wasn’t a coldhearted scheme.”
Jihae abruptly stood from her seat, and wiped her tears away with both hands. “June, thank you for rushing here to tell me all this. You’re a good friend, and I love you for it.”
“But?”
“But I’m going to kick you out now because I have a premiere to get ready for and I don’t want my face to be a swollen mess. I can’t deal with this right now.”
“You know he’ll be there tonight.”
“Of course, I know. All the more reason I can’t show up with puffy, red eyes. I don’t want him to think that I’m still crying over him. Let me keep a scrap of dignity in all this. I won’t have to see him ever again after this.”
“That. I just needed to make sure that was what you still wanted after learning the full story.” June gathered her jacket and got on her feet. “I think my work here is done, and I will bid you adieu.”
“Thank you, June.”
“Have a wonderful night. You earned this, and Best Placed Bets is going to blow everyone away.”
After one last hug, June left Jihae to her thoughts. But she kept her mind carefully blank even as her heart pumped and churned inside her, water raining down from her heart as the ice around it melted.
Jihae arrived near the end of the line for the red carpet. The stylist had chastised her repeatedly for her tears, and it had taken ages to make her look presentable. When she stepped out of the car, flash bulbs burst around her, and she gave them her real smile, rather than her signature Princess Jihae half smile. Despite everything, she was proud to be there, and proud of the film she’d produced.
She heard the expected chatter over the color of her dress and her free-flowing hair. Even her makeup was warm and stormy, unlike her former icy, elegant looks. Appearing before the public as herself was incredible. It freed something inside her. The insecurities and resentment she carried deep within unchained themselves and flew away. She was here as her own person, and she was fiercely proud of who she was.
She stopped and smiled for the cameras for what seemed like the hundredth time when she heard a commotion behind her. From her perch on the stairs, she saw a small group of people walking toward her and the crowd parted like red curtains to allow them through. At that moment, she spotted the tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a velvet, royal blue tuxedo. She thought anyone would have been able to single him out of the crowd, even the Hollywood red-carpet crowd.
He looked exquisitely handsome with his slightly unruly hair slicked back from his forehead. He was even thinner than when she’d last seen him, but he looked sharp and sophisticated...and full of determination. Colin had always been a confident man with an air of authority about him even as his usual, lighthearted self. But the man who stood on the carpet looked like he was ready to take on the world, exuding power from every part of him.
When he came to stand at the bottom of the short staircase, Jihae realized she’d been holding her breath. She let it out in a rush and stretched out her hand to steady herself on the rail.
“Jihae.” His voice was low and tense, but hearing her name from his lips sent a thrill down her spine. “You look so beautiful.”
“Colin, what are you doing?” she said, glancing around at the gathering crowd.
“I just wanted you to know how much I love you.” His voice broke. “I know I’ve hurt you—so much—because of my guilty conscience and hang-ups. I’ve betrayed—”
“Stop that.” Jihae rushed down the steps and tugged him to the side until they were a few feet away from the red carpet. It didn’t exactly give them privacy, but the reporters had now turned to the next celebrity walking down the carpet.
“I’ve betrayed your trust,” he continued as though there was no interruption. “I’ve invaded your privacy by eavesdropping on you. And most of all, I should’ve believed in you and trusted you with my truth.”
“Colin, we’re done. You’ve apologized already and I’ve declined to accept.” She tried to sound aloof and disinterested, but her voice shook.
The thought of him as a little boy without a father he could look up to, and of him as a young man, disappointing the woman who raised him to become the man he was today... It tore at her heart.
“I love you so much and I was so afraid of losing you that I was slowly losing my mind. I fooled myself into thinking that I could let you go when the time came. I tried to convince myself that what we had was a brief affair and no one would get hurt. I told myself to cherish every day with you because it was bound to end. That telling you the truth was only bound to hurt you.”
His confession made her realize how she had tried to fool herself in the same way. She’d told herself she could keep herself from falling in love with him. She had always planned on leaving him. Foolishly believed that she would be able to leave him. She lied to herself to protect her heart, but Colin had still given his heart to her. He had loved her all along, and had fought with the fear and guilt inside him.
“I don’t know if I could believe you. You broke my heart, Colin.”
“I know I did. God, I know. But losing you broke me. Nothing has meaning to me anymore. Please give me a chance to love you. I will dedicate my life to making it up to you. To making you happy. Without you, my world is colorless.”
A sob escaped her. Her life as Princess Jihae had been colorless. She had been colorless, lifeless, until she met Colin. He had filled her life with color, and she was finally able to bring out all the beautiful, powerful colors within herself. And she wanted so much to forgive him. To grab the happiness he was offering her. But she was so afraid.
“I don’t think I could endure another broken heart. I won’t be able to survive next time.” Tears ran down her face, probably undoing all the hard work of her stylist, but it was hopeless. There was no way she could stem her tears.
“I swear to you there will never be a next time. I will never keep a secret from you again. I’m far from perfect, and I may hurt you at times in my stupidity, but I will always own up to it and work harder to be the man you deserve. Please.” Colin kneeled before her on the cold asphalt. “Please give me a chance to love you. Let me cherish you for the rest of our lives.”
Jihae was so entranced by Colin’s words that she didn’t see the group of people who came to stand behind him for a second. Then she drew back in shock. It was the Song family. She recognized Garrett Song and Grace Song from the business papers, and Adelaide Song from the fashion magazines. James Song was also there. Another man and woman stood beside Adelaide and Garrett, and seemed to be their significant others. They all wore warm smiles and earnest expressions. All but Grace Song, who stood in the middle with calm dignity.
“Please forgive him,” James Song said. “He’s so entertaining.”
“We’ll personally kick his ass if he misbehaves again,” Garrett said as though he meant it.
“He’s an idiot but we love him.” Adelaide shrugged. “Could you, too?”
Then Mrs. Song finally spoke. “Will you be a part of our family?”
“Will you give me another chance?” Colin asked, still kneeling in front of her with tears brimming in his eyes.
He had always kept his connection to his family a closely guarded secret. But he had enlisted all their help to win her back. Her tears fell furiously. He had done this for her. Despite the scar in his heart left by his father, Colin wanted to open himself up to her, and in doing so, revealed to the world that he was Colin Song of the Hansol Song family.
“You just revealed your secret in public.” She stated the obvious, too awed to be clever.
“I know. I don’t care who knows. This secret I’d held on to for so long was merely a form of my pride. I wanted to be seen for the man I was, and I wanted to claim my success as my own. But all my life, my family has been there for me, and I couldn’t have done anything without their love and support.”
“Oh, Colin.”
“And I offer you not only my love and support, but my family’s as well. Will you marry me and grant me—us—the privilege of being your family?”
“Yes,” she whispered then said with more strength, “Yes, I will marry you, Colin Song. Please stand up.”
He stood and pulled a small box out of his pocket. It was the one she had messengered back to him. He carefully withdrew the diamond ring, and asked, “May I?”
“Yes.”
He lifted her hand and pushed the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly. When she glanced toward the Song family, Adelaide and Garrett’s wife were wearing tremulous, watery smiles, and even the men’s eyes were red-rimmed. She looked toward Grace Song and she gave her a solemn nod with a gentle smile on her face. They were going to be a family.
“You’re mine now, you know.” Colin raised her hand and kissed her softly on the knuckles, smoothing his thumbs over the ring. “And you can’t back out because we have a ton of witnesses.”
Jihae had been so focused on Colin and his family that she didn’t realize that they were again surrounded by cameras...and applause.
“Oh, well.” She cupped his cheek, all her love shining in her eyes. “I guess I’m stuck.”
“You bet you are.” Colin dipped her back to the roar of their audience and kissed her thoroughly, marking the beginning of their happily ever after.
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