Chapter 15

Ji Won slammed the door shut behind her, threw her keys inside her bag and dumped it underneath the coat rack. Then she kicked her shoes off and ran into her bedroom. The drive from the restaurant had taken half the time it normally would have and it was a surprise that she wasn't pulled over by the cops.

How dare he kiss her? After all that had happened, how could he possibly think that he could kiss her? What an assh.ole. Fu.cking successful men and their fu.cking sense of fu.cking entitlement. Did he think that she was some kind of toy he could play with for his amusement? She fell on her bed and hid her face. Boy was she stupid. As mad as she was at him, she couldn't ignore her role in the whole shenanigans. The idiot obviously had a penchant for pretense so if she hadn't enjoyed watching Joon Young squirm, things wouldn't have escalated as they had. If she hadn't let him put his arm around her, there was no way he would have thought that it was okay to kiss her. But no more – it would never happen again. It wasn't her birthday but she felt many years wiser and with this new found wisdom, she was even stronger in her resolve to end everything with him.


She sat up and looked at all his chapters scattered over her desk. Then she got up, walked over, picked them up and stacked them in her hand. She sighed as she read one line off his manuscript. Was it sad that she still wanted to read the rest of his story?

She certainly still enjoyed reading his words and when it came down to the work itself, he'd been her most consistent writer by far. He was prolific and talented so she'd never had to babysit him. And there was no question that working on his memoir was a huge step in her career. But was that all worth working with someone she loathed for a few more weeks?

She bent over, opened the left desk drawer and pulled out a large brown envelope. No, it's not, she thought as she stuffed the chapters in the envelope.



***

Ji Won looked at the envelope and after pasting close to twenty stamps on it, she knew she'd definitely gone overboard on the postage but she wanted to make sure there would be absolutely no problem delivering the package. She opened the cold mail box and exhaled. The minute she dropped it in the tin box was the minute her working relationship with Yoon Pil Suh ended. In the note she'd included, she'd written a few words thanking him for the opportunity to work with him after expressing regret about her inability to continue the relationship. She looked at the thick package one last time then dropped it inside the box. She heard it hit the bottom then sighed. It was all over. It was obviously going to take some time to forget it all but at least she'd taken the first step to putting it behind her.


She was turning around when she heard a car screech. Then someone call her name. She spun around to see her friends waving at her from Kyung Ho's car.



***



"It's a scientifically proven fact that men are stupid," Eun Hee said. She was the tallest and thinnest in their group and only returned to the country three hours earlier. After Kyung Ho filled her in on all that had happened, she'd insisted that Ji Won needed comforting. So on their way to her place, they'd stopped by the liquor store, amongst other places, and bought four 6-packs of beer – one for each of them.

"Hear! Hear!" Mi Na said before gulping down some more beer. She was the resident fish in their group and even though she constantly ingested copious amounts of alcohol, no one had ever seen her truly drunk.

"I think it has something to do with having their genitals outside of their bodies," Eun Hee said, putting her hand over her pelvic area. "There's no way that having to look at their penises everyday doesn't screw up their brains."

Ji Won smiled. They'd been over for over ten minutes and even though she knew why they'd stopped by, was glad to have them around. It also helped that they'd also brought by some groceries that would save her at least one trip to the store.

Kyung Ho put down his beer then raised his hand. "There's a flaw in your argument, Eun Hee yah. Not that I agree that men are stupid but aren't women's breasts outside of their bodies?"

"Like it's the same thing," Mi Na said, rolling her eyes. "When was the last time you heard of a woman cumming from someone touching her boobies?"

"I have!" Eun Hee said with her mouth full of pizza.

"Yeah, right," Ji Won countered.

"No, wait. Let me finish what's in my mouth." After she'd chewed and swallowed, she said, "You know when you're sixteen and everything is so hot and erotic? And all a guy has to do is touch your face and suddenly, your belly is doing flip flops, your heart starts beating rapidly, your breathing becomes heavier and you start feeling all sexy and wet just because a guy's dirty finger grazed your skin?"

They all burst out laughing.

Kyung Ho announced that he knew nothing about that.


"Well, I think I came one time just from something brushing up against my breast. But," she said, tapping her upper lip, "now that I think about it, was it just static electricity?"

Kyung Ho groaned. "You've started with your stories again. You don't know the difference between static electricity and an orgasm?"

"Hello? I was only sixteen and I felt a jolt so I must have thought, "Oh, so this is what an orgasm is."

They laughed again.

"Eun Hee, get a life."

"Whatever," she said, getting off the loveseat she was on, walking over to Ji Won, sitting next to her, then hugging her. "Hun, I'm so sorry you had to go through this."

"Yes, it just stinks," Mi Na said solemnly.

Ji Won didn't say anything but hugged her back. Her spirits really were lifting.


When they were done, Eun Hee reached over to the bowl of chips and picked one. "I think you should sue, though."

"It actually doesn't sound like a bad idea," Kyung Ho piped in, "because this whole thing doesn't make any sense at all. Why would they even do this? They didn't even know you and just decided to pull a prank on you. Why?"

"Because they are deranged –that's why. Unnie," Mi Na said, "you don't have to accept this. I am sure there is some kind of professional misconduct here. It's just so ridiculous."

"Yes, talk to your lawyer about this. There has to be something you can do," Eun Hee said.

"And if that doesn't work, we can rough him up – I know some people."

"Kyung Ho, this isn't the time for jokes."

Ji Won listened to her friends being so supportive from offering to help with the lawyer's fees to starting internet rumors to destroy his reputation that she couldn't help but feel a little bad. Even though she was disgusted with Shin, she still felt guilty about keeping the full story from them. If they could come to her aid like this, they deserved to know the truth. She took a deep breath in and said, "I slept with him."

Kyung Ho narrowed his eyes then scratched his head in confusion. "Can you repeat that? I think I misheard you."

"Yeah, I totally misheard her too," Mi Na said.

"Yeah, me too," Eun Hee said.


Ji Won frowned. What was wrong with them? "I said that I slept with him."

The room fell into silence other than the sounds coming from the television.

Eun Hee was first to recover from the shock. "I don't get it. The whole time you thought you were in love with the writer, you were sleeping with the person you thought was the agent?"

"No." It was funny how she'd been hiding the secret from her friends but now that she was telling them, it really didn't seem like such a big deal. "I met him before. In Aruba."

"Unnie, now I'm confused. If you already met him, why didn't you know who he was?"

Ji Won turned to her sister. "I met him in Aruba. I was Alex and he was Shin. We had a one night stand. The end."

The room fell into silence for the second time but this time, it was Kyung Ho's turn to recover first.

"Hmm… Ji Won ah," he said, moving his finger in an anti-clockwise fashion, "back it up a few hundred miles and start from the beginning. But this time, don't leave out any details."





***



The first thing Ji Won did when she walked into work the next morning was check her messages and just like she'd expected, she found one from Jin Mo – the real one – asking her to return his call. The second thing she did was walk into her boss's office.

Ms. Jung was a former model who'd turned to publishing after her modeling career ended. She'd studied biology in college but had slept with enough powerful men so when she turned twenty-seven and discovered that she could no longer land sizeable contracts, had managed to turn one of those trysts into a job in the publicity department of a major publishing house.

But not long into the job, she'd been transferred to the non-fiction department and it became quite obvious that she had the ability to find gems in the company's slush pile. And not just the well written work but also the badly written ones that could earn the company millions.


She'd climbed the ranks in the ten years and even though she was not nearly as thin as she'd been in her modeling days, she was still very attractive. And intimidating.

As Ji Won waited for Ms. Jung's secretary to let her in, she practiced everything she was going to stay to her. She knew it wouldn't be easy but she didn't have a choice. A few minutes later, she was standing in her boss's office.

"Hello, Ji Won," she said, smiling brightly at her. "How are you doing? Why don't you sit down?" As Ji Won did, she asked, "How's the Yoon memoir coming along?"

Ji Won cleared her throat. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

Ms. Jung dropped the pen in her hand. "What about it?" She'd always been good at reading people so she already knew what she wasn't going to like what she was about to hear.

Ji Won inhaled and tried to look confident. "I don't think I'll be able to work on it any longer."

"Excuse me?" She smiled even though it was clear that her eyes were far from pleasant. In the past month alone, she'd already had two editors quit in the middle of major revisions and didn't have the patience to accommodate a third.


Ji Won looked directly into her eyes. "I've tried but I don't think I'm a good fit for this project. I think someone else should take it over from me."

"You're only the first editor so someone else will work on it after you're done."

"I know."

"You're saying that you can't even finish this much?"

Ji Won nodded. "I'm sorry."

"Why not? And if you're having problems, why am I only hearing about it now? You must at least be halfway through it by now. Am I correct?"

Ji Won nodded again. "I'm sorry but please give it to someone else. I don't think I can work on it any longer."

She smirked. "Is this some kind of joke? Weren't you the one who begged me for this opportunity? How many meetings did you have with me because we wanted to try something different? And after going out on a limb for you, even though you have no experience with this, after giving you a high profile project, you've decided to fu.ck it all up?"

Ji Won looked away. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head in irritation and hissed. "Go and apologize to someone who gives a sh.it. Are you out of your mind? You know you're not working with a newbie writer, right? If we have problems with this project, there's a good chance it will get leaked to the press."

"I know. And I'm sorry."

"I don't want to hear that again! I don't give a fu.ck about your apology." Her voice softened. "What's the problem?"

Ji Won looked down and didn't say anything. It's not like she could tell her boss the real reason.

"Miss Na, your career is on the line here. If you want me to take you seriously, you're going to have to give me a good reason for dropping this project. I read the synopsis and this book has the potential to top the bestseller lists for months. Give me an explanation that makes sense!"

Ms. Jung was still waiting for Ji Won's response when her secretary buzzed and informed her that Shin was on the line for her.

Intrigued by the coincidence, she glanced at Ji Won then picked up the phone.

"Hello, Mr. Yoon, how are you doing? I haven't heard from you in a while."

"I'm fine Ms. Jung. I just called to touch base with you about the book and heap praise on your editor, Miss Na," he replied cheerfully.


"Oh really?" She raised her brow then studied Ji Won who'd adopted a poker face. "Coincidently, Miss Na is in my office right now. May I put you on speaker?"

"Please do." When he was on speaker and Shin and Ji Won had exchanged forced pleasantries, he said, "A few minutes ago, I was reading some of the comments I've received from Miss Na and I must say that they are very insightful. One gets used to writing a certain way and it's certainly great to see one's work from a different perspective. I think that my writing will be the better for it." He paused. "I think this just might be my best book yet and it's all because of Miss Na. I'm already thinking of the follow-up book and I'd love her to work on that too."

After praising her some more, and having some small talk with Ms. Jung, the call ended.

Ms. Jung turned to Ji Won. "That was interesting." She'd been studying her employee throughout the call and from the way her body had tensed up when she heard his voice, she could bet a few thousand Won that sex was somehow involved in this whole mess.

She cleared her throat. "Is he hitting on you? Sexually harassing you?"

Ji Won looked up and shook her head. She knew that if she dared accuse him of that, her letters to him would come back and bite her in the as.s. Talk less of Aruba. "That's not it."

"Well," her boss said in frustration, "if you're not going to give me a reasonable explanation, I'm going to assume that you're someone I cannot trust. The client loves your work yet you don't think it's a good fit for you. I'll give you some time to think about it. Come back on Monday and give me your final decision."





***



Two days later, Ji Won got home and found a package lying in front of her door. It looked like it had been messengered over and received by one of her neighbors. She picked it up, walked into her apartment, shut the door and ripped it open. Just as she'd suspected, she found the chapters she'd previously mailed to Shin. She pulled them out and checked to see if he'd included a note but there was nothing. It wasn't like she wanted an apology but if he seriously wanted to keep working with her, didn't it make a little sense to apologize? Instead, he sent back the package as she'd sent it - including the note she'd attached - essentially refusing her rejection.

She dumped the package on her dinning table and sat down on a chair. What was she going to do? Should she send the package back and make it clear that there was no way she could work with him? She bent her head over. It was all so tiring. She reached for the package and tapped her fingers on it. Could she really risk her career over this B.S.?