Unexpected (11 page)

Noel tried and failed to keep from
sighing dreamily as she thought of Kai. “He’s the sweetest man I’ve ever met.
He treats me like a queen. He actually flew over here a few days ago just to
see me.”

Rachael’s eyes widened. “Oh wow! You
mean it’s a long-distance relationship?”

Noel chuckled slightly. “It’s most
definitely that.”

“He’s like in New York or something.”

She shook her head slowly. “Actually
Rachael, he’s in Korea. It’s Kai. I’ve been seeing Kai.”

Rachael’s mouth and eyes widened in
stunned surprise. “As in Mr. Gorgeous-Pie-Guy Kai? Mr. K-Pop which you knew
nothing
about until a month ago Kai?”

Noel said nothing, just nodded.

 Rachael ran agitated fingers
through her hair, mussing up the perfect ponytail. “So let me get this
straight. You’ve been seeing the guy I told you I liked and who I was going to
ask out behind my back, right?”

Noel snapped, finally tired of walking
on eggshells. “You see, this is exactly why I didn’t want to say a damn thing
about it. Kai asked
me
out. I didn’t chase him or anything. Hell, I
thought you’d be happy about me finally meeting a man I love and who loves me
back.”

Rachael sneered disdainfully as she
regarded Noel with disgust. “Seriously, you’re in love with a man you’ve only
just met?”

Noel threw her hands in the air. “You
know, there’s just no sense in explaining it to you because you’re just pissed
that he chose me.”

Just as she turned to walk out the door
to begin her shift, Rachael grabbed her arm, practically yanking her in place.
The other woman’s eyes were filled with rage. “So Noel, how’d you snag him?
There’s no fucking way you could ever compete with me, so what did you do to
him?”

Noel was shocked. She never thought in a
million years her best friend would turn on her like this over a man. She fumed
over the unjust accusations, snatched her arm from Rachael’s grasp and stepped
into her former best friend’s personal space, her eyes narrowed warningly.

“Don’t you ever, for as long as you
live—and that might be a short time as pissed as I am right now—put your hands
on me like that ever again,” her voice pitched dangerously low. “And let me
make things perfectly clear, sweetheart, you couldn’t compete with me because
you were never
in the fucking game
!” Rachael recoiled as if struck. “If
Kai had wanted you he would have sought you out. He was flirting with
me
all that time and it was
me
he chose so get over yourself, okay?”

“But why,” she asked in a harsh whisper,
unable to process the turn of events. “Why
you
?”

Noel shrugged carelessly. “Maybe he
knows
quality
when he sees it.”

For a few minutes, the two women
regarded each other like wary strangers. Noel exhaled, her eyes slid from
Rachael’s. “I thought we were tight, Rach. I thought you’d be happy for me, but
you’re just another backstabbing bitch who wants what they can’t have. Well,
nice knowing you. I’m taking ten days off and flying to Korea to be with the
man I love, and when I get back, pretend not to know me because I sure as hell
won’t know who
you
are. I wonder now if I ever really did.” Noel stalked
out, back ramrod straight. She would never let Rachael see the tears of hurt in
her eyes.

The rest of the day at the diner had
been hell, though Noel tried to make the best of it. She forced herself to be
civil to Rachael despite the daggers the redhead shot in her direction. By the
time she clocked out later that night, Noel wished she was on a plane to Korea
right that second.

Once she stepped in the door of her
apartment, the stress of the day drained slightly, but the anger at Rachael’s
response remained.

“You could have been happy for me,” Noel
protested to the empty air around her as she kicked off her shoes. “And yeah
maybe it’s
you
who couldn’t compete with
me
!”

After a long hot shower using the citrus
body wash Kai had left behind and a quick bite, Noel felt a little better by
the time she booted up the laptop to check her e-mail. A minute later Kai’s
gorgeous face was splashed over the monitor.

“Good evening
Jahgi
,” he said
cheerfully. “How was your day? Did you get the time off?”

She nodded slowly, tears welled in her
eyes. His face fell. “What’s wrong
Jahgi
? You can’t come?”

“No, I got the time off.” Noel’s face
betrayed her emotions. “I told Rachael about us.”

Understanding and anger flared in his eyes.
“What did she say to you?”

“She liked you and was planning to ask
you out and she said that I stole you from her.”

Kai colorfully swore in Korean. “She’s
correct
Jahgi
. You stole my heart the moment I saw you and she never had
a chance.”

Her heart glowed at his words, but there
was still the sting of losing her best friend. “I know I’m not as pretty as she
is but…”

“Don’t you ever say such a stupid
thing,” Kai growled, his eyes narrowed. “You’re a beautiful woman and I think
you know it.”

“But I’m not the kind of woman your
management would like for you to be with.”

“My management can cheerfully go fuck
themselves,” Kai retorted. “I really don’t care what they think. They’ve tried
to get me to date actresses in my country and I’ve said no. I’ve waited for
someone special…someone like
you
,
Jahgi
.”

“But why
me
?”

“Why
not
you, Noel,” Kai demanded
angrily. “Why are you listening to a woman who’s obviously jealous? Even if you
hadn’t been there that night, I would have never chosen her. She may be pretty,
but she isn’t and will never be you.”

Noel closed her eyes as his words washed
away the sting of Rachael’s betrayal.

“I chose you
Jahgi
, because you
are beautiful, funny, sexy and you love me for who I am. Not Kai Park the
famous singer, but just Hyunki Park the man.”

There was nothing else to say to that.
As if she could feel his fingers lifting her chin, he said softly, “
Jahgi
,
don’t think about her. Think about me. I cannot wait to show you my city.”

It worked for Noel no longer spared a
thought for Rachael, the giddy excitement bubbled to the fore. “So, where am I
staying this time, and please don’t spend a lot of money on a hotel.”

“Well, if being spoiled like you deserve
is a problem, you can always stay in my apartment.”

Her eyes widened. “Um, isn’t that going
to be a bit awkward with G.K. and Kibum around? What if we…well, you know,” and
she flushed to the roots of her hair as Kai grinned impishly.

“You mean if I want to take all your
clothes off and make all kinds of love to you?”

Noel’s nipples hardened instantly and
for a moment she hated how far away he was. She shifted her body so that the
silky material of her gown wouldn’t rub between her legs.

“G.K. said that they would go stay with
Kwan and Young which means we’ll have the entire place to ourselves.” He
wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “And since my uncle will be in Gwangju this
week, there will be no interference from him.”

“Then I guess it’s settled.” Noel smiled
then stifled a yawn. She glanced at the clock. “Oh crap, we’ve been Skype-ing that
long? I’ve got to get some rest. Goodnight Kai.”

Just as he was about to wish her the
same, she saw Boom’s face peering at her over Kai’s shoulder.

“Bye Bye Noel! See you soon,” Boom
teased as he made silly kissy faces at her. Kai smacked him on the back of the
head.

“Ouch,” the aggrieved bandmate rubbed
his head theatrically. “You see Noel, he’s a bully.”

Noel couldn’t believe she was watching
her own personal sideshow as G.K. entered the scene and roughly shoved Kai out
of the chair as Kai swore bloody vengeance in Korean, which made her crack up
even more.

“Good night Noel. I for one will be glad
when you get here because he’s impossible.” She never found out why as Kai
heaved him out of the way. “Both of you,” he yelled behind him, “Get lost!”

Kai’s vigorous workout did nothing to
stem the tide of excitement and nervousness over Noel’s first visit to Korea.
He pushed his body to the limit, elated that his woman was mere hours away from
being in his arms and that she would be his for ten days.

His woman
. Just the thought of Noel as belonging
to him brought a silly smile to his face.

Of course, it seemed his uncle suspected
something was amiss and did his best to delay his trip to no avail. Still, his
last words to Kai were full of warning.

“Do not disappoint me this time,
Hyunki,” the older man warned as he walked out of his apartment. “I expect
exemplary behavior from you while I am away. If you comply in this, I shall be
more lenient in the future.”

Kai mumbled something which must have
sounded like acquiescence for his uncle gave a brusque nod and was gone.

Anger at the man’s high-handedness lent
strength and stamina to his routine. No one had the right to keep him from Noel
and if he wanted to use his own considerable funds to bring his woman here that
was no one’s business.

G.K. entered the small gym area as Kai
wiped away the sweat with a towel.

 “You might want to go shower and change,”
G.K. said, suspecting his cousin’s mood. “Noel will be here in a few hours and
you don’t want to meet her smelling like sweaty old socks.”

Kai playfully whacked him with the
towel. “I don’t stink and I’m trying not to think about it. I feel like a
teenage boy instead of a grown man. So many things could go wrong…that she
could have missed her flight, her job called and said she needed to work…”

G.K. laid a comforting hand on his
shoulder. “Everything is going to be okay so stop worrying. At least the old
man is gone.”

Kai breathed an audible sigh of relief.
“Good. It was like he barely wanted to leave, but before he did he told me to
behave myself.”

G.K. cocked his head to one side. “Well,
you did bring it on yourself when you took off to America without telling
anyone.”

“That was my personal time and what I do
with it is no one’s business.”

His cousin held up his hands as if to
ward off Kai’s annoyance. “Hey, I understand why you did it, but father
doesn’t. I think he blames Noel for why you’ve been distracted of late.”

“I haven’t been distracted,” Kai
countered hotly. “I just feel more balanced now that she’s a part of my life. I
feel that I was missing something vital until I met her.”

For a moment neither young man spoke.
Kai was happy to see the understanding in his cousin’s eyes and happier still
that he’d accepted Noel as being important to him.

“So who’s going to pick up Noel from the
airport and bring her here,” G.K. asked while Kai stretched. “There’s no
possible way either of us could go, nor can you use any of the company drivers
without father finding out.”

Kai ran a hand through his
sweat-dampened hair. “I thought of having her take a taxi, but after that long
flight and going through Customs, she will be very tired. I really don’t know what
to do short of just risking it and go myself in disguise.”

“What you should do about what?” G.K.
and Kai craned their heads around towards the soft voice behind them.

“Oh hi Chunhei,” GK greeted their
assistant, before sending an admiring glance in the young woman’s direction,
but her eyes were fixed firmly upon Kai, eagerly eyeing his shirtless state.

G.K. cleared his throat, and she blushed
knowing that he’d seen her unladylike perusal.

Her eyes widened and she quickly looked
away from him. “I’m so sorry Kai,” she stammered. “I just came in to tell you,”
and she blushed again in nervousness. “I forgot.”

Kai quickly swiped up his errant shirt
and shrugged it on before he placed a brotherly hand on her shoulder. “That’s
okay, sorry about that.”

“Maybe if you had a shirt on in the
first place Chunhei wouldn’t have forgotten. You’ve embarrassed her.” G.K
commented, his tone was full of mischief.

“I think you’re just jealous because all
the cute girls want me.” As G.K. sputtered, Kai suddenly had an idea. “Hey,
Chunhei, are you doing anything later?”

She shook her head as she smiled
brightly.

“I would do this myself but it would
cause too many problems, but could you meet Noel at the airport, get her
through Customs then bring her here?”

Chunhei’s eyes widened with disbelief.
“The girl from America is coming
here
?”

 “She is. I want to keep this visit
a secret, so that’s why I’m asking you instead of using the company car.”

She nodded hesitantly as relief crossed
his features. “Thanks so much, Chunhei. I appreciate it and I’ll be sure to do
something extra special for you. I won’t forget this!”

The young assistant listened intently as
Kai gave her the details of Noel’s flight and cell phone number in case they
missed each other. The young woman typed the information into her smart phone,
her face no longer animated as it had been.

“If you can’t contact Noel, call me
okay,” Kai said as Chunhei turned to exit the gym while G.K. regarded her with
unrequited fascination, something Kai instantly picked up on.

“You really should ask her out.”

G.K.’s eyes fell. “She doesn’t want me.”

What G.K. didn’t tell his cousin was the
look in Chunhei’s eyes as she left the room. It didn’t bode well for Noel.

 In spite of the first class
amenities, Noel was exhausted. She didn’t know how Kai did it; true there had
been great movies, the food was wonderful and all the legroom was positively
sybaritic. The few glasses of white wine soothed her frayed nerves but none of
that made up for the ridiculously long plane ride nor the curious stares of a
few fellow passengers who were obviously wondering what her business in Korea
was.

Worse, the few days that led to the trip
had been awkward and tension-filled as Rachael shot snide comments in her
direction and basically did her best to make Noel’s shifts a living hell. With
all of that, Noel was wound tight as a drum and wanted off the damn plane as
soon as possible. She wanted Kai, a long bath and sleep, and not precisely in
that order.

She was so frayed that the magnificent
architecture of the world-famous Incheon Airport did nothing for her. She went
through the rigmarole of baggage and Customs in a zombie-like state before
exiting the airport to wait for the assistant to pick her up and take her to
Kai’s apartment. He’d texted her the moment she landed to let her know who to
look for.

Forty-five minutes later she was still
waiting and growing more pissed. Finally she grabbed her phone and dialed Kai.

“
Hey Jahgi,” he greeted, a smile clearly in his
voice. “Are you on your way?”

“No. I’m
actually still at the airport.”

Silence,
then a few sworn words in Korean as annoyance turned into anger. “What do you
mean you’re still at the airport? I told Chunhei to meet you in front of the
terminal and she had plenty of time to get there.”

“Look,
I’ll just catch a cab,” she said tiredly. “There are plenty of them here.”

“You will
do no such thing, Noel. You just got here. Riding in a Korean taxi will make
you want to go back where you came from. We are done with dance practice and
the studio isn’t that far from the airport. I’m coming to get you.”

Noel was
adamant. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’ll definitely be recognized and
I don’t want the first day of my visit ruined by a bunch of screaming fans who
will probably want to kill me when they find out who I am.”

She heard
the rest of the group in the background who sounded more like they were headed
off to an amusement park rather than the busy Incheon Airport. In spite of
being weary, she couldn’t help laughing with them as they concocted all sorts
of crazy plans to remain incognito.

They had a
quick discussion then Kai told her, “Give us twenty minutes, okay Jahgi?” He
blew her a kiss over the line.

A
plain black van with darkly tinted windows
pulled up in front of her exactly twenty minutes later. Noel regarded at it
quizzically before the passenger-side window rolled down far enough to see the
top of Kai’s head and a few other figures inside.

The door slid open and before anyone
could see who was in the van, Noel grabbed her suitcase and purse and nearly
tumbled inside the van before it sped off with no one the wiser.

“Well,” she said looking around as she
straightened herself in the seat and tried to find her seatbelt, “I wasn’t
expecting the whole crew.”

Young and Kwan rearranged themselves in
order to make more room and to find the missing belt.

“Neither was I,” Kai grumbled sourly,
turning as far as he could to see her. “But they were all waiting by the van. I
didn’t need them to come.”

“We’re supposed to be at lunch
remember,” G.K. joked as he skillfully navigated the busy highway leading into
bustling Seoul as he completely ignored his cousin’s sour attitude. “It helps
with our cover. Don’t you know anything about
espronage
?”

Noel lightly chuckled at the
mispronunciation. “I think you mean
espionage
and clearly he doesn’t.
Why did you need to sneak out anyways?”

“We’re not supposed to leave the studio
without notifying anyone,” piped in Kibum from behind her. “But we do it anyway
when management isn’t paying attention.”

“Isn’t that going to cause trouble?”

Kwan shrugged. “Probably. But we do need
to eat, so we’ll just tell them we went out for food.”

Noel just shook her head. For grown men,
the members of T4L tended to behave like children at times. It was cute, but it
was also understandable considering the constraints. Suddenly being in a van
with them lifted her tired spirits and Noel was ready for the adventure of a
lifetime.

Less than half an hour later, they
pulled up to a very modern and more than likely expensive apartment complex
that sat in a quiet, tree-lined residential area of Seoul. The deep tinted
windows of the van provided very little as far as view, but all Noel wanted now
was a long hot shower and a bed. As they walked through the posh and
contemporary lobby of the building the jet lag slowly began to creep up on her
again. She tried to maintain interest as Young explained how the company
apartments worked while Kai stood behind her in the elevator, his arm wrapped
possessively around her waist.

“All of us who work for the management
company have an apartment here,” he said as they rode the modern wood-paneled
lift upwards. “It’s supposed to keep us safe,” and here the entire group rolled
their eyes and said something in Korean that Noel was certain was the
equivalent of
bullshit
. “But really living this close means they can
keep an eye on us like we’re children.”

The elevator finally stopped on the
eighteenth floor and the door opened to reveal a lushly carpeted hallway
painted in muted yet welcoming tones of sea foam and honey. There were two
doors on the right side of the corridor and two on the left. With Kai’s arm
still around her, the group made its way towards the door on the farthest
right. With a flourish, he turned the ornate brass handle and ushered her
inside a tiled foyer where she was greeted by a shoe lover’s wet dream. That
is, if the shoe lover happened to be male with a taste for sneakers in
practically every color of the rainbow, as well as dress and casual pairs.
There was even a pair of black cowboy boots in the corner.

She looked at him with weary amusement.
“I don’t want to hear shit about women okay? What’d you do, rob a Nordstrom or
something?”

She kicked off her shoes and stepped
into a pair of the fluffiest house slippers her poor, tired feet had ever
experienced as Kai guided her further into the apartment he shared with G.K.

As she’d expected, it was definitely a
man’s space—sparsely furnished, but of excellent quality, from the brown leather
sectional in the spacious living room to the humongous flat panel television
which hung suspended on the wall. The entertainment center was neatly organized
with DVD’s, CD’s and a rather sizeable selection of games for the video game
consoles which were neatly tucked underneath. It truly was a guy’s house and
she told Kai so as he escorted her into the kitchen area.

“I don’t play them often,” he said as
Noel enviously took in the stainless steel appliances and sparkly black
countertops shining back at her. “My dream kitchen,” she told Kai with an
admiring sigh. There was a small dining area with a low sitting wooden table.
Before the rest of the tour could continue, the rest of the guys decided to
head to their own apartments down the hall.

Young waggled his eyebrows at Kai. “We
know he wants to be alone with his
bay-bee
,” he said with a comic leer
as he tugged Kwan and Boom towards the front door with G.K. following behind.
“Besides I am really hungry.”