Page 28

Lyric shakes his head. “What a nosy bunch.”

“Yes, they are.” Agreeing with his assessment, I then add, “Let’s go finish eating.”

“We better before my grandmother starts throwing a fit about the food getting cold.”

I wink at him and head back into the house.

“Hey, Rafe?”

I look over my shoulder. “Yeah?”

A sweet blush floods Lyric’s cheeks as he looks at anything else but me. “Thank you. No one has stood up for me in a very long time. I appreciate it.”

I have the sudden urge to walk back to Lyric and kiss him until the pink covers his whole body, like I know it can. But I force myself to walk inside the house. “Let’s eat.”

Chapter Ten

Lyric

Itake a moment to watch Rafe walk back into the house before I turn and face the dirt driveway and the road my father left by. I don’t see his car, but I can still feel his dark presence and toxic attitude heavy in the air around me. As much as I trust what Rafe said, I don’t trust my father.

My father is a shrewd businessman and he hasn’t gotten to where he is now in the entertainment business without breaking some rules. And now he’s sworn to remove Halmeoni from her own house, and I don’t doubt his willingness to do just that—even with what he said to Rafe.

Ruminating over every word my father said, my gut twists tight because I am confused at what he wants from my grandmother. I look around the property, the house—and only one conclusion comes to mind. My father wants this property because of what it is worth. That has been his goal all along.

Knowing Rafe has defended me by blackmailing my father with a video Fig took sends a flutter of warmth through my chest. However, fitting this situation might be, especially when a video ruined my career, I’m glad Rafe established that he would only use it as a deception to get my father to agree.

“Meow.” I glance at Bitty before bending down, picking him up and snuggling him close.

“Now, where’s your girl?” I look around for GiGi, a black feline, but she’s nowhere to be seen. “Did she leave you?” I scratch the top of Bitty’s head before lowering him to the ground.

Then I glance back to the house where my hook-up, his bodyguard and his driver are eating my grandmother’s food. I still can’t believe Rafe is here. I thought I ran him off, back to the U.S., but he’s more stubborn than I realized.

A riot of emotions are ping-ponging in my head while I try to separate my feelings from the physical appreciation I have for Rafe’s body. Do I trust him? I think about that for a moment and realize that I do. Does the man drive me crazy? Oh, heck yes. But he can also be so adorable that every time I think of him, I become breathless and my heart literally skips a thousand beats. Like now.

“Are you coming in, Lyric?” I hear Halmeoni call, and there goes my heart again. I love my grandmother so much and to know that my father has something nasty up his sleeve regarding her is now worrying me. For Halmeoni and Rafe.

“Be right there,” I call back before I raise my face upward, close my eyes and try to breathe out the uneasiness from my body.

I don’t trust my father, haven’t since I was caught kissing Min Jun and he sent me to the States to live with my “aunt,” a woman who wasn’t there for me at all, because she was going to university at the time. She supplied a roof over my head and food on the table, but that was it. Everything else, I had to get on my own.

Shaking my arms out, I glance once more to the gloomy sky and feel raindrops on my heated face. “Crap.”

I quickly head to the house and go inside. As I round the corner into the living room where the low table is set up, I see Halmeoni sitting next to Rafe and come to an abrupt halt.

My grandmother smiles at me and says in Korean, “He told me I need to sit here.” Then she shrugs and waves me over. “Come, sit next to him.”

I glance at Rafe, who’s grinning like a barn cat who caught a mouse. “I said that it wouldn’t be fair that she made all this food and won’t eat with us.”

God, he’s surprising me even more.

His first gesture was coming to Korea. Then he brought gifts to my grandmother and confronted my father. And now, he has talked my stubborn grandmother out of the kitchen to dine with us. I break out into a wide smile.

“Yeong, come.” I don’t argue and do as she says, lowering myself down onto the floor wet clothes and all.

“How come we aren’t eating at the perfectly good normal table and chairs in the kitchen?” Rafe whispers to me as he scoops up a spoonful of seaweed soup.

“It’s the way of things,” I admit, not sure how to explain the cultural aspects of Korean dining on a low table at home. I’m sure things have changed for the younger generation, but Halmeoni prefers to keep to the old ways. “I don’t know. It’s how we always eat.”