The Takeover, page 8
His lip curls up now, almost in triumph. “Really?” he challenges. “I’ve changed a lot since high school.”
All I have to do is look at him to know that’s true. He’s grown, most likely seventy or more pounds heavier than me, and by his flat stomach, I know it’s all muscle. He was never this good-looking in high school. Cute, sure, but not … like this. I glance at the buttons of his crisp oxford beneath his blazer. Would his chest feel soft … or hard … if I pushed him into the exit door? Just how much muscle lies beneath that expensive suit jacket?
“Really?” I manage, but this time, I don’t sound so cool. So collected. There’s a hitch in my voice. A hitch that I want to cut out and murder right here on this brightly colored carpet. I strangle it and try again. “So that means you’re not going to cheat, then?”
“I won’t cheat,” he promises. “I’ll play nice.”
But in that moment, I realize I don’t want him to play nice. That’s the very last thing I want. I want a bare-knuckle brawl. I want to draw blood. I’m staring at his mouth now, I realize, as if waiting for another taunt.
Not because he has nice lips. Full, soft. Nice.
I force myself to look him in the eye.
“Don’t hold back on my account,” I growl.
He laughs a little, flashing even, white teeth. “You sure you’re ready for another go at me, Miss Salutatorian?”
Miss Salutatorian? Only he could make the accomplishment sound mocking. White-hot fury floods me. I should push him right out of the office. I should …
“Nami?” The anxious voice of Arie drifts down the hallway. Priya is standing next to him, also looking worried.
The hate spell, or whatever it is, breaks. I glance at Arie and Priya, relieved. I won’t be assaulting a high-ranking Rainforest executive after all. Also, a little bit of disappointment pinches my stomach.
“Oh, hi,” I say as Jae steps aside in the narrow corridor, a flicker of annoyance crossing his face. Good, I think. Be annoyed. I have a backup squad. Team: Nami. “Just finished the tour and Jae was just leaving.”
“Out the emergency exit door?” Arie asks, concerned, as he fidgets with his ID lanyard.
“That’s up to him.” I shrug, finally backing away from Jae, the thump of adrenaline still in my temples. “Shall we head back to my office?” Arie glances at him once more and then at me. Then he nods, and Priya moves protectively to my side. It feels like a sheet of armor. I’m glad for them. I need to get away from Jae’s broad shoulders, his sparkling eyes, daring me to … what? Lose my mind?
“We’re supposed to get something on the calendar,” Jae calls after us, thrusting his hands into his pants pockets.
“Why don’t you send me a calendar invite on ConnectIn? Isn’t that what connections are for?” I throw over my shoulder with cold indifference, even as my stomach roils. I’m proud I sound so collected. Inside, I’m shaking.
I hear a low chuckle, but I don’t turn around. I can only hope he doesn’t know how fast my heart is beating. That I feel confused, and a little sick.
Am I attracted to Jae Lee?
I can’t be.
I won’t let myself be. Not in a million years.
SEVEN
Jae
Who took my WEGNER SWIVEL CHAIR? Seriously—IT’S MISSING!!!
DELL OURANOS
PARTNER, CO-OWNER, BUSINESS INFLUENCER, AND TRENDSETTER
#ALL-BULLETIN CHANNEL
TOGGLE INTERNAL CHAT
Your chair is missing?! That’s such a shame. ☹
PRIYA PATEL
SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER
The thief WILL return my chair IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A JOKE.
DELL OURANOS
PARTNER, CO-OWNER, BUSINESS INFLUENCER, AND TRENDSETTER
It’s definitely not a joke.
JAMAL ROBERTS
QA DIRECTOR
Namby is full of surprises.
Just when I think I’ve got her pegged, she backs me into an office corner and … I don’t know whether she was going to hit me …
Or kiss me.
It sounds ridiculous even in my own thoughts, and I’ve half convinced myself it’s all in my head. But … the way she was looking at me. I don’t know. There was a different kind of tension there.
“Earth to Jae, come in, Jae.” My younger brother Sam nudges me with his elbow and I realize I’ve been zoning out on my parents’ backyard patio for Sunday dinner on our quiet, leafy Evanston street. Sam has been trying to hand me a beer, which I take now.
“Sorry, man.” We clink bottle necks, just as Dad plops some thinly sliced beef onto the oversized hot plate at the patio table, where he’s whipping up his specialty, bulgogi. Sam’s twin, Charlie, younger by ten minutes, stands near the hot plate with his boyfriend, Nick, dutifully taking notes of Dad’s technique.
“Should we save Nick?” I lean against the deck railing of our parents’ wraparound porch. The house we moved to when Dad relocated his medical practice to Evanston during high school was a refurbished two-story yellow Victorian farmhouse, complete with small white picket fence out front. Dad became head of surgery at Evanston Hospital, Mom still taught English language classes at the Korean church near Glenview, and everything worked out.
“Dad is starting to talk about why you have to use his special marinating technique.”
Dad hardly ever talks about anything—except food. And, occasionally, traffic. He makes your typical “strong, silent” types look chatty.
“If Nick can handle Charlie’s mood swings, he can handle a lecture on Korean barbeque.” Sam shrugs. “And, listen, we should just be glad Dad’s come around. I mean, would you have believed Dad would be so warm now by the way he acted at first?”
When Charlie came out his second year of med school, it came as a surprise to no one except Dad, who seemed to be completely blindsided. Mom, Sam, and I celebrated Charlie’s announcement immediately, but it took a bit of time for Dad to adjust to the idea. Dad had a whole lot of wrong-headed notions at first, like when he blurted out that he thought only white people came out. Now, he’ll laugh at his wrong ideas, but it took a lot of intervention, earnest nagging from all of us, and a PFLAG support group to bring him over. Now, Dad’s the first one to teach each one of Charlie’s boyfriends his cooking techniques, largely because he knows Charlie burns everything he touches. Without GetGrub delivery, my brother would starve.
Nick, who’s dated Charlie for nearly two years now, seems more interested in cooking than any of the others. That’s a good sign.
“Nick’s really paying attention. I think he’s taking notes,” I point out. “I think this might finally be getting serious.”
We watch the three men for a beat.
“By the way, how’s Isabella?” I ask, watching Sam’s plus-one, his steady girlfriend since college, through the patio screen door, help Mom make potato salad in the kitchen. “Fine.”
“Just fine? Are you going to get married, or…”
“You sound like Mom,” Sam teases. “I don’t need to be rushed. We’re fine as we are.”
“You know, one day, Isabella will wake up and get wise. She’ll realize she can do better than you.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him,” Mom interjects as she bustles out carrying a tray of adobo and rice. Mom, who is half Korean, a quarter Filipino, and a quarter Japanese, was born and raised in Honolulu, though she spent a year after college teaching English in South Korea. She also has bionic hearing, and has probably been eavesdropping from inside the house.
“I got it, Mom,” Sam says. “Message received.”
“Mom, seriously, let me help you,” I say again, trying to take a plate from her busy hands.
“I’m fine,” she insists, as she always does, batting me away with a toss of her head as she sets the tray down on the patio table.
Isabella trails out a second later, carrying a plate piled high with corn on the cob and a bowl of Mom’s spicy kimchi. The bilingual kindergarten teacher is always the epitome of adorable and doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. She’s got her long, dark curls up in a high ponytail, and her sleeveless gingham sundress shows off her bronzed shoulders. “What are we talking about?” she asks in her sweet, peppy voice.
“Well, funny you should ask…” I start, fully prepared to ask Isabella if she prefers princess- or emerald-cut engagement rings, but Sam quickly interrupts.
“I was asking Jae when he’s finally going to bring home a nice girl for Mom and Dad to meet.” Sam flashes me an evil smile.
I glare at him. The jerk.
Both Mom and Dad swivel at the same time and look at me. “That’s a question we all want the answer to,” Mom says, eyeing me with purpose. “You haven’t brought one nice girl by since you moved back home.”
“Yeah, Jae. What’s the holdup?” Charlie grins at me, enjoying my discomfort. Dad clams up, focusing intently on the bulgogi. “I know you’ve been seeing people.”
“You all know why.” I wave the neck of my beer bottle at them. “I don’t want to expose some poor woman to your endless questions. You all are by far the worst.”
“Oh, we’re not that bad.” Charlie grins, knowing full well they all are. The first—and only—time I brought a girlfriend home during college, Dad basically grilled her for an hour about her career aspirations and the number of children she planned to have.
“Oh, don’t blame us,” Mom says, wagging her finger. “You’re the one who’s too picky.”
Dad remains silent, per usual, flipping meat on the hot plate and frowning at it. There’s a Gettysburg Address in that one expression.
“Me?” I echo. “I’m not picky!”
Charlie barks a laugh. Sam and Isabella exchange knowing glances.
“No girl is perfect enough for His Royal Highness,” Mom complains.
“I’m not that bad,” I protest.
“You should settle down,” Dad tells me, piping in for the first time, with an edict that sounds like a command on high. “When I was your age, I was married, owned a house, you were starting preschool, and your brothers were already on the way.” He snaps his bamboo tongs at me.
I sigh. “Yes, and you’ll also get social security when you retire. Those were different times.”
“You are too selfish, Jae-Yeon,” Dad says sternly. “You have to put family above yourself.”
The rest of the backyard grows silent for a second, and Isabella shifts uncomfortably. Here we go again. I was wondering how long before Dad trotted out the You’re failing us as the oldest son routine.
“You should be more like Charlie. He’s a good surgeon.”
Even Charlie looks a tad uncomfortable.
“I’d make a terrible doctor,” I protest. “I’m good at what I do. I like it.”
“Like!” Dad sniffs, unimpressed. “What about what the family needs, Jae-Yeon.”
“Now, now, why is everything so serious? You want to talk serious, let’s talk food,” Mom pipes in, the rodeo clown for Dad’s bull. “Dinner is served. Sit. Eat.” Mom shoos us all to the big patio table, and we take our spots. I reach for the plate of corn, grabbing an ear for my plate.
“Speaking of single girls,” Mom begins as Sam piles Mom’s kimchi on his plate. Sam and I have never been afraid of spice. Charlie, however, eyes the kimchi with worry. Anytime he eats Mom’s spicy cabbage, he begins to sweat profusely and can’t drink milk fast enough.
“Did you call Nami Reid?”
I nearly drop the plate of corn in Isabella’s lap.
“Namby!” Sam declares, thumping his beer on the table. “Why on earth would Jae call Namby!”
“Mom, I told you to keep that between us.”
“You asked for her number.” Mom stares at me. “I had a whole conversation with her mom about it!”
“You wanted Namby’s number?” Sam exclaims. Sam and Charlie both stare at me, shocked.
“Who’s Namby?” Isabella asks innocently as she takes the plate of corn from me and gently grabs an ear with silver tongs.
“Jae’s high school bully,” Sam teases.
“She was not,” I manage, trying to scrape together my dignity. “I gave as good as I got.”
Isabella looks perplexed. Nick, too.
“Nami and Jae always competed for everything,” Mom explains. “A little friendly competition, that’s all.”
“Friendly competition!” Sam huffs, stabbing at the meat on his plate. “She petitioned the school board to have you removed as valedictorian. She spoke at their meeting!”
“Well, the system wasn’t one hundred percent fair,” I manage, holding my chopsticks a little too tightly. “I did rack up credits in summer school. And we were only separated by a quarter of a point.” Technically, point two four five, I hear Nami’s voice in my head.
“She’s just a sore loser,” Sam tells me, taking a bite of bulgogi.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mom says, dabbing at her mouth with a paper napkin. “She was good for you. She made you work hard!”
“Hey, I always work hard. Dutiful firstborn Asian son, that’s me,” I point out.
I feel, rather than see, Dad giving me the side-eye.
“Ha! Like when you blew off your calc final freshman year in college?” Charlie says, mouth full.
“Okay, so I might have had some adjustment problems when I went away to school,” I admit. The whole family laughs. It’s a story the twins relish to tell—the time I actually messed up.
“What happened?” Isabella asks, glancing around the table.
“He got on academic probation all of his freshman year.” Sam smirks at me. The jerk. “He almost got kicked out.”
“He didn’t have Nami there, pushing him,” Mom points out. “See? She was good for you.”
I already know Mom’s right about this. It’s one reason I sought Nami out after all these years. For the challenge.
“Good for him!” Sam spits. “Only if he wants hate notes shoved in his locker.”
“That was only one time, and it wasn’t a hate note,” I point out, wondering why I’m defending Nami. She was never nice to me. But I guess I have my pride. I wasn’t bullied by her, either. I want to make that clear. I wasn’t some sad sack in an after-school special. “She just outlined the reasons she should’ve been Honors Society president and then kindly asked me to step down.”
“Hate note,” Sam heckles.
“Personally,” Charlie sniffs, “I always thought it was all a little heavy-handed. The hate note. Maybe she had a secret crush on you.” He and Nick exchange a glance.
Sam bursts out laughing. “If she was crushing on you, I’d hate to see what she does to her enemies.” He shakes his head. “Not that it matters, I heard she had a surprise party where nobody but family came.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, interest piqued.
Sam pulls out his phone, digging through his social. “See? Here. Her mom livestreamed it.” He shows me an awkward-looking Nami on camera, which pans out to a very small group of people on her mom’s patio. Sam’s right. Besides her cousins, the party guests skew … mid-sixties. Wow, that is kind of sad. And it seems to bother Nami. I can tell. Her too-bright smile fails to disguise her disappointment. I feel just the slightest flicker of … pity.
“Oh, she’s pretty!” Isabella gushes, because she can’t be anything but sweet.
I watch the video, hit once more by how perfect she is: Smoky eyes. Perfect pink lips. How does she get her hair so amazingly glossy? Not a strand out of place. And, as usual, Nami doesn’t have a bad angle.
“I would’ve thought more people would come,” I manage. “She always had admirers.” Throngs of gooey-eyed, starstruck followers praying she would show them the least bit of attention. She never did. She always left a swath of broken hearts in her wake.
“Fools,” Sam declares. “There was no way that ice queen was going to melt for anybody.”
I think about the smoldering look in Nami’s eyes. Ice is not the word for it. Red-hot, flaming heat. She’s a fire queen if there ever was one.
“Why did you ask for her number, though?” Charlie isn’t going to let it go.
“It’s not what any of you think. It’s business,” I say. “Rainforest might be buying her company.” The minute I admit this, I regret it. Everyone at the table stares and blinks at me.
“Seriously?” Mom asks. “You let me get her mom’s hopes up for business?”
“I told you it was business,” I remind her. “I told you it wasn’t personal.”
Dad groans loudly and rolls his eyes, his disapproval palpable.
“Are you just trying to piss her off?” asks Charlie.
“Maybe.” I shrug.
“Be nice to Nami. I am friends with her mother,” Mom chastises me.
“I’m always nice.” I flash a mischievous grin.
“Why buy her company?” Charlie asks.
“Because it’s going to be profitable.” I flash them all a smile. “And because we can.”
“You’re an egomaniac.” Charlie throws a wadded-up napkin at me. “Seriously, your ego is out of control. I’m kind of hoping Nami wins this one.”
“She probably will. No way she sells to this jerk,” Sam adds.
“She doesn’t have to. Just her two partners and the board.”
Sam whistles. “Ouch. There’s the Monopoly Magnate, rearing his ugly head.” Sam’s referring to the debacle that used to be game night in our house, when I always destroyed everyone in the family with a line of hotels down all the orange and red properties. They used to call that part of the board Jae’s Carnage Corner.
“You could’ve bought Illinois Avenue,” I point out. “It’s not my fault you wasted all your money buying utilities.”
“Can I punch him, Mom?” Sam pleads.
“Only if I get to first,” Charlie teases. “I remember when you had me leverage Marvin Gardens for a song, you slumlord.”
“That reminds me, you owe me back rent,” I tease.
