The Contract: Sunshine (27 page)

“Sunny, dear child you are so naive when it come
s
to men.  You think they are all soft hearted and kind like your father was.  Trust me and my experience to know in the end you will look back on this time in your life and see that all of it happened for the best.”

“When I become old and bitter like you, grandmother and stick you in a home somewhere when you are no longer able to wipe your own ass like you did your own mother, you will see you were wrong to kill the last part of me that was my father.”

“Bravo!”  Sophia Dupree laughed out with a gleeful clap that could be heard over the phone.  “Spoken like a real Dupree Woman.”

“You’re sick!”  Sunshine tried to keep hold of her fragile control, but she was failing miserably.  “You make everything right!  You hear me?  You make sure Yoon has everything he had before I ruined his life!”

“Or what?”

Her chest felt as if it would burst.  “Or I will make sure your Dupree female bloodline stops with me!”  Sunshine yelled.  She breathed in shallow, quick gasps. 

“What are you saying?”

“Nana Sophia, I will have my tubes cut and burned so that no child will ever be conceived in my belly and when I die I will leave everything you left to me to charity with the stipulation that the Dupree name is never uttered or mentioned in the contribution.  I will make sure your name and contribution to this family is undocumented as if you never existed.

“Okay, you are taking things too far,” her grandmother warned.  “Stop with the drama. I’ve had enough melodrama with your mother being in town this past week.”

“Then you are welcome to disown me,” Sunshine spoke coldly.  “Let me go right now and adopt someone that you can mold to be who you want them to be.  I don’t want your money.”

“Only because you are depending on the money your father left for you,” he grandmother reminded.

Sunshine found herself saying, “You can have that too if you let me go and leave Yoon alone.”

“You really do love this man, don’t you?”

“With all that I am,” she admitted passionately.

“Would he still love you once he finds out I disowned you?  Will he want you as his bride once he discovers you won’t even be getting your father’s inheritance?”

“As you know already, before your interference, Yoon has money of his own.  He didn’t marry me for mine.”

“Not Dupree money,” the elder woman countered.  “If he had Dupree money
,
my interference wouldn’t have been noticed and if he had Dupree power, I would have never been able to infiltrate his business affairs.”

“We have all we need to be happy,” Sunshine said speaking for herself of course.  Yoon didn’t love her, so she definitely couldn’t say that he found giving up all he
’d
worked for was something he would have done willingly.

As if reading her mind
,
her grandmother said, “I will give your man a chance to prove his love to you.”

“What?”

“Tell him all he has to do to remain married to you, to hav
e his business turned to rights
and to become a member of the Dupree board and a shareholder of the Dupree fortune is to forsake his father’s name and take on the name of our family.  If he agrees to this
,
he too shall become my future heir.”

Sunshine swallowed hard, trying to manage a feeble response to her grandmother’s very generous offer.  “He
is the only son of his father and
mother. 
He is also Korean.  Do you have any idea what you are asking?”

“That is my final offer, Sunshine,” she said in clipped tones.  “If his family name is more important to him than you are, then he truly does not love you and dear, wouldn’t it be best if you knew the truth now?”

“But if he accepts, will I know the truth?”  Sunshine asked.  “If he refuses to do it before but chooses to do it after I tell him all that
you
are offering to him,
h
ow am I supposed to know he is doing
it
because of his love for me and not because of the money and power?”

“You speak as if
you are unsure of his love now,
”
h
er grandmother said bluntly.  Sunshine cringed. 

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she murmured chewing on her bottom lip.

“Love or no love, these
are
my final terms, but either way Sunshine Sophia Dupree, I want you home before the night is out until everything is legally resolved to my satisfaction.  If the young man agrees
,
th
e
n we will have an appropriate wedding...Dupree style.”

Before Sunshine could say anything else the line went dead.  The Great Madam has spoken and any threats, pleading or insults she had to say would be left unsaid.

As far as Sunshine was concern
ed,
Yoon need never know about her grandmother’s offer.  She already knew he didn’t love her the way she loved him.  She couldn’t ask him to do something as drastic as changing his last name legally.  The Youngs had welcomed her into the family for the most part.  She still had yet to meet Yoon’s fath
er because of his busy schedule,
but Yoon assure
d
her as long as she had his mother’s blessings his father would go along. 

She wondered if the man would go along if he knew her grandmother was basically cutting his namesake off at the knees to save her own.  The entire situation was primitive and insane in this century.

By the time the taxi arrived in front of Yoon’s place
,
Sunshine had made up her mind.  She would do what was best for everyone.  She would leave Yoon and allow her grandmother to choose her future husband and do her damndest to become the next heir to the Dupree fortune so she could end this ridiculous ritual.  

Her children will be allowed to love and live their lives in peace.  She would make sure they all gained their inheritance
to do with what they will
without stipulations except for
an
adequate age. 

Sunshine decided she would not use wealth and power to control her family and also she would be wise and have lots of children.  That was the advantage to being born average in a family of beautiful people.  Sunshine didn’t have a secret fear of losing her figure by having several babies.  Nor did she fear growing old, fat and happy.  She would happily turn the reigns over to her children if they wanted the responsibility and
was
not above selling off everything if they didn’t. 

A sad but resigned grin came to her lips.  As long as she had a plan in place she knew she would survive leavin
g the man she loved.  What was the
difference?  It would have been even harder for her to let go of Yoon a year from now. 

Ex
cept for his desire to keep his word to her
,
she didn’t know why he was suffering in silence and putting his livelihood at risk for her when he wasn’t in love with her.

Well, maybe she did.  Yoon was the most honorable man she’d ever met with the exception of her father.  It was why she trusted him with her heart, her
mind
and her body.  Her love for him was just as strong as his honor.  There was only one way to end all of this.  She would release him from the contract.

A love contract is as binding as the love itself...

Yoon
,
tired and exhausted
,
finally made it home well after midnight.  His entire office was in
dis
array from the recent upset.  His neglect of late wasn’t any help but it wasn’t because he didn’t want to do anything about it.  Basically he didn’t know what to do about it.

He tried reasoning with Sophia Dupree, but she had made up her mind.  She wanted him to dissolve his marriage to Sunshine, which
h
is lawyers made it sound like that would be the easiest and smartest thing for him to do under the circumstances.

The thing was he couldn’t even bring himself to discuss it with Sunshine.  At first he thought it was because he felt honor bound to give her the year she asked for and God knows with that tyrant of a grandmother he could understand her reason for wanting her independence.

Never in all
h
is years had he come against a finer business component.  Mrs. Dupree had managed to block his every movement, but today he beli
eved he finally caught a break;
h
is trump card against Sophia Dupree.  He would know for sure tomorrow and once the information was confirmed, he would tell Sunshine everything.

He hated keeping things from his wife, but she worried more than any one person should about that family of hers and he was sure finding out what her grandmother was up to this time would truly devastate her.  She might even be foolish enough to think leaving him would be the answer,
just like his stupid lawyers who weren’t worth the money he paid them.

Yoon walked into his office and removed his shoes, shirt and tie.  He did something he rarely did when he wasn’t entertaining clients; he poured himself a stiff drink. 

Once he finished
,
he would go and join the warmth of his wife’s body in bed.  The first smile he had since leaving her this morning appeared on his face. 
Damn, she was something else
.  There were a couple of times he wasn’t sure he could keep up with the crazy things she wanted to try in bed. 

Sunshine had to be the most sexually curious woman he’d ever slept with and he found it very easy to accommodate her wishes for in the end he seemed to greatly benefit from the adventure. 

However, Yoon was prepared to draw the line if she had suggested bringing another person into their marriage bed.  Oddly enough
,
he wasn’t a man that had any desire to share his marriage with a third person, be it another female or male
,
and it pleased him that she seemed just as content with it being
only
the two of them.

Still, that last thing with her finger and that remarkable thing she did with her tongue finished him off.  He couldn’t have got it up again if she had held a gun to his head and threatened him. 

Yoon shook his head with a chuckle.  “I must love her to let her go near my asshole,” he muttered.  The shot glass halted at his mouth.

He stood there at his desk motionless.  Shocked at the realization
.
the glass hit the desktop with a thud as he placed it down before dropping it and the rest of its contents. 
He was in love with his wife
.

The very thought of it aroused old fears and uncertainties.  “I love you Sunshine,” he said the words tentatively as he played with the idea of running into the bedroom to tell her how he felt.

His breath caught in his throat as he felt his heart pounding with the uncertainty of telling her he loved her.  What if the one chance he had at stopping her grandmother from destroying his business completely didn’t work? What if Sophia Dupree’s threat to go after his father and hinder is re-election was her next step.  He couldn’t allow that to happen.  His father had sacrificed so much of his personal time with his family for the political career he had.

Losing all that he had for the sake of love was one thing; but taking everything his parents had away from them also was something he would not be accountable for.

Why didn’t he just go to that fucking dinner party?  All he had to do was insist and even if she hadn’t wanted to
,
Sunshine would have gone inside because she loved him. 

He suppose
d
that is why he didn’t go inside or force the issue with Sunshine.
He knew she would have suffered her family for the sake of love, just like
he
unknowingly loved her too much to allow her to be hurt by her family anymore.

Enough thinking.  Sophia Dupree had drawn a line in the sand and after tomorrow if all went well
,
he would be kicking up a little sand of his own, right in her beautiful aging face.  Sunshine had chosen him to be her champion and he be damned if he was going to let her down.

With hands placed belligerently on his hips he stalked out of his office determined to make love to his wife again. 

By morning she would thoroughly know she was loved even if he hadn’t said the words yet.  Once that call
he was expecting
came through that, he would say the words and he would tell her she was free from her interfering grandmother once and for all.

Yoon’s heavy lashes that shadowed his cheeks flew up as he started to stroll into their bedroom.  He was surprised to see the usual soft lamplight
on the table in the corner of the room
Sunshine
usually
left on for him was off.