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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.”
