There are Many Flowers in Seoul

Chapter Sixty-Six

'Oppa!' Jin-hee reached out for Tae-won's arm to stop him when the elevator doors opened on the third floor. She grasped his jacket at the elbow and asked, 'Where are you going?'

'The men are all on this floor,' he said, tugging his arm free. 'I'm going to my room.' Tae-won looked directly at Rose when he added, 'Alone.'

Rose felt the heat rush to her cheeks and tried to shrink into the back corner of the elevator. All she'd wanted was a little revenge so that Tae-won would understand how she felt when he behaved the way he did. Now, all she felt was shame. It didn't seem fair that he had such control over the sway of her heart while she had to wonder if she could move his in such a way, if indeed his heart could be moved at all.

The doors closed, and the women found themselves travelling the last two floors in silence. Jin-hee flipped her hair over her shoulder before casting a look back at Rose, her eyes pinched with annoyance which was in contrast to the smile upon her lips. 'Isn't my oppa so sweet?' she asked. 'Ah, Eun-young? Could you talk to Si-woo oppa about more couple's shots for me and my honey?'

'Honey?' Hitomi choked on the word. 'You think Tae-won is your honey?'

Jin-hee didn't falter. The woman wasn't stupid, and there was no way she didn't know that Tae-won was interested in Rose. If she was ignorant of his feelings toward her then she wouldn't have tried so hard to get between the pair of them. Rather than stamp her feet and scream that he belonged to her like a child, the woman's smile became sweet and she cooed, 'Of course he is. You probably don't understand because you're not famous, but we have to keep it a secret. That's why we flirt with other people. Obviously, those other people don't mean anything to us. But he's promised that after this shoot we can make it public and get engaged.'

Even Eun-young rolled her eyes. Jin-hee was beautiful and talented, and it made sense that she would be with someone like Tae-won because it would do both their careers the world of good. More to the point, only two people in the same industry could fully understand long periods of absence, or that an actor may need to pretend to love another person on screen without any true feelings, or how exhausted their public life may be and how they'd want to retreat from the world in their free time.

Logical though a relationship might be, it didn't make Jin-hee's claims true.

'Ah,' she said conversationally as the doors opened and the women spilled out of the elevator into the corridor, 'you know he always calls me before he goes to sleep?'

'Hey, do you really think Tae-won is great enough that you need to boast about him?' Hitomi asked in a bored tone. Rose felt her stomach clench and wondered if Hitomi had wanted to say the same thing to her whenever she talked about the man, or if her friend just wanted Jin-hee to keep her mouth shut. Hitomi had already told her that she was tired of hearing about Rose complain about her love life without considering the lives of others. Too afraid of being on the receiving end of Hitomi's temper, Rose didn't dare interrupt. Instead, she pressed her lips together as Hitomi continued, 'He's arrogant, rude, conceited, and not that great looking either. Si-woo is much better. So is Yuta.'

'I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand,' Jin-hee retorted waspishly. 'You don't know what true love is.'

'Is true love him pushing you away all the time and telling you that you're annoying?' Hitomi countered.

Jin-hee stopped in her tracks and turned. 'Do you know I tripped and grazed my arm during our test shoots?'

'Do you really think I care enough to know that?'

Ignoring her, Jin-hee continued, 'Tae-won oppa took my arm and blew on the graze to make it better. It doesn't look like a lot, but I know he would only do that for a person if he really liked them.'

A weight sank in Rose's stomach. Tae-won had done the same for her when she'd grazed her hands during their rooftop fiasco and had told her it was something his mother used to do for him. Foolishly, she'd thought that she was the only person he would act so tenderly towards, as though she was special. After finding out that he'd known almost since they first met again that she was the girl he'd known in his childhood, Rose had presumed that any tenderness he'd displayed was reserved solely for her because she was special. Now it seemed that he'd told just about every girl to cross his path about his mother and all the sweet things she'd done for him.

'Excuse me,' Rose said, pulling away from the group and charging ahead. She didn't want to stand around listening to Jin-hee any longer. The next thing to pass her lips might be a tale about Tae-won building her a fort to keep her safe from the lightning outside, or that he'd stepped in to save her from drunken reprobates in the street and embraced her protectively.

Eun-young shouted after her, 'We'll meet for dinner! Wash up and we'll knock when it's time!'

Rose didn't reply. Once her door was open she disappeared into her room and slammed it behind her. She could almost feel the waves of triumph wafting from Jin-hee like cheap perfume, stinking up the hotel and sitting oily and pungent upon her skin.

Perhaps it was childish to think that Tae-won could have saved all his love for a girl that he had no idea he'd ever see again – that he might never have given an ounce of himself to anyone else before they'd crashed into one another on that fateful flight – but Rose was still a child in so many ways that she'd allowed the fantasy of their romance to consume her until she'd fooled herself into believing these fairy tale notions of hers were true. The fact of the matter was that Tae-won was a mortal man just like anyone else. He'd dated other women – countless other women if the rumours about him were to be believed – and that she didn't know everything about him or his life before they'd met. And, honestly, Rose didn't want to know every single detail about the man he was before they'd been reunited. That Tae-won wasn't the one she'd fallen in love with. It was the Tae-won in her present – maybe even in her future – that she cared about.

Still, it hurt that Jin-hee knew enough of Tae-won's romantic behaviour to fling such careless claims around for anyone to hear. It devalued those precious moments Rose had shared with him, turning them into cheap and nasty bits of gossip any trashy woman could use to imply a deep relationship with the celebrity. If it had been Jin-hee's aim to make Rose's skin crawl whenever she thought about the moments they'd shared while picturing the idol in her place, then she'd succeeded brilliantly. Thinking of that night when they'd made love but with the beautiful Jin-hee in her place made Rose's stomach swim with nausea. Had she not just pissed Tae-won off by hanging off Si-woo, she'd have gone straight to his room and asked him if he'd told Jin-hee about any of the intimate details of his life, or if she'd found out about his habits some other way.

A shudder slithered its way down Rose's spine.

She didn't want to think that Jin-hee might have been spying on them, but they weren't the best at hiding their regard for one another. They'd said that they'd keep the relationship a secret and already Si-woo, Hitomi, and Yuta knew all about it. Rose wouldn't have been surprised if Eun-young had figured it out on her own – the woman wasn't stupid, after all – and it was obvious Jin-hee knew more than she was saying, otherwise she wouldn't be on the attack.

Rose let out a long, lingering sigh and slid down the door until her backside hit the floor. The trip away wasn't off to the best start, and she predicted that things would only get worse from that moment on. It was the first time since she'd left that she'd seriously considered taking her suitcase and catching the first flight back to Tokyo without a word to anyone about her escape.

It was the first time she missed her old life – missed being Rose Porter-Abe – and all the security and superiority her fame afforded her.

After all, Jin-hee might have thought she had an advantage over Rose-the-nobody, but she had nothing to Rose-the-heiress.