My Client's Former Best Friend | MEANIE/MINWON

Chapter Nine.

  Forty missed calls. In the short time he’d been at the mansion, his phone, still on vibrate, had gone off forty times. Under other circumstances, he’d have berated himself for missing so many urgent messages. Under the current circumstances, he felt annoyed. As he pulled out of the tree-lined driveway, he also felt distinctly shitty.

  Walking away was the only option, he told himself again. Going off on a hostage retrieval mission meant risking everything: his secrecy, his other clients, all that he worked to achieve.

  What sort of precedent would it set if I was willing to go to those lengths for a client? Next thing I know I’d be personally involved in all my cases.

Wonwoo shuddered.

  It wasn’t like he was breaking any agreement. In the mess of Minghao’s presumed kidnapping and his ex-boyfriend’s ill-timed arrival, he hadn’t given Junhui the contract. He worked for him in word only, and that he had no trouble breaking. He shouldn’t even be writing him a press release without upfront payment and a nondisclosure agreement, but after seeing that hurt look on Junhui's face, not to mention the stunned betrayal from Mingyu, covering their tracks felt like the bare minimum of guilt appeasement.

  Only Wonwoo wasn’t supposed to feel guilt. He didn’t do guilt. Still, his gut, the instinct he didn’t listen to because of its stupid self-righteousness, piped up. It reminded him that he’d been waiting for something like this for years; eight years, to be exact. It reminded him of the resentment he’d held toward Seungcheol when he’d left Wonwoo his business, his mortgage, his mountain of problems. The young boy who’d wanted to experience something besides the dark underbelly of humanity but who’d had to accept his life for what it was. He dealt in that dark underbelly. He handled other people’s problems, other people’s ill-conceived adventures, other people’s lives.

  His gut told him that an opportunity had just been thrown at his head and he’d blocked it. This was his chance, his adventure. It had everything he loved—scandal, secrets, and hot men.

  His car stopped at a red light, his blinker ticking, counting the seconds as the door of his call to adventure closed. Mingyu and Junhui would be flying around in the Wen private jet, hunting down the bad guys. They would find Minghao, tackle his kidnappers, get to the bottom of his murder attempts, and save the day. They would do it all without Wonwoo. They would get the credit and the glory, and he would manipulate the press so no one knew the whole story.

  Then there was his life ahead. The empty house that was never home. The endless parties where no one knew who he was. Jeonghan was the only person he’d consider calling a friend, and he worked for Wonwoo. He had no friends, no family he knew how to contact, no home. Pathetic didn’t begin to cover it.

  Wonwoo’s anger won out over despair. No. There was no way those men were leaving without him. No way he was going to subject himself to a future of loneliness and meaningless sex. Well, perhaps the meaningless sex. But he wanted friends, goddammit. He wanted parties where he knew people and they knew him. He wanted to go a whole day without dealing with a self-absorbed, drug-addicted celebrity.

  Wonwoo was only a few miles from the mansion and hadn’t met city traffic yet. He screeched his car into a dangerous, dramatic, illegal u-turn, pissing off everyone around him. Then his phone rang.

  “If this is Rosé,” he muttered, swiping the screen. “Jeon Wonwoo.”

  “Wonwoo, it’s Soonyoung.” The model’s signature purr was gone. Instead of a contented kitten, he sounded like a short-fused bomb with less than a minute to blow.

  “Hello, darling. Look, this isn’t a great moment to talk—”

  “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.” Soonyoung cut him off, his tone shorter.