Chapter 2

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Tiffany lazily opened her eyes as she looked around the perfectly clean living room. She was at first disoriented, but she then remembered why she was in jeans and a sweatshirt, with a dust rag over her black curls, and sprawled out on the couch.

She got up slowly, and looked at the clock. It was noon!

Oh shoot!

Tiffany rushed into the bedroom, starting to place the clothes into the suitcase she had already brought out last night, er, morning.

*I must have been more tired than I thought! I actually slept for EIGHT hours!*

She stormed into her desk room, attacking her things with a vengeance as they were all shoved recklessly into her work bag.

After she showered and washed her hair, she blow-dried it, and put on a white turtle neck, a pink angora cardigan sweater, and some light khakis. She drew some of her hair back and clipped it in a pearl barrette. She quickly fastened pearl earrings in her ears. She then stuffed her bathroom accessories into her suitcase and out the door she went, hectic at 2:00 in the afternoon, anxious to catch the subway to the train station.


Yul Kwon paced his guest room as he talked into a phone, outlining a procedure to some doctors of the phone. “You’re sure I don’t need to go and help?” Please say I need to go…

“No, I think we can handle it from here, Dr. Kwon. We just couldn’t read your diagnosis at first…have a good vacation. Merry Christmas.”

*Yeah right. Merry whatever…Bah humbug and hope your new years !*

He pressed the “off” button of the cordless, and carelessly tossed it on the bed. He then threw himself on the soft mattress as well, and stared at the ceiling.

He was trapped. In Hwang Manor…the “Castle”, as everyone called it. It was a beautiful place, but he’d much rather be at home, in Washington.

But no, this time his great aunt WANTED him to be here. Earlier years, she had always sent him off to boarding schools and other things, but this year, she wanted him here.

And from what he’d heard from Irene Hwang’s wailing, SHE was going to be here. The girl that had haunted his very existence ever since childhood. Sure, she skipped to two grades. Who cared? Sure, she was a nice successful lawyer with a penthouse in New York. So what? He’d work hard too.

Tiffany Hwang, the first brat, as he had dubbed her, had too much.

And was a snob, and an Ice Queen, and it was so obvious that she did not know anything about her family, if she wasn’t here already. Her mom had to DRAG her here! Never mind the fact that HIS great aunt had done the same exact thing to HIM two days before. But he’d listened, and he was here, unlike her.

She was in his memory as far back as he could remember. This perfect statue, who would always remain a memory of cool intelligence and snobbery. And now, he was going to meet her, see that face, which he’d always imagined before.

Sure, he’d seen pictures of her in her childhood, from the magazines, since her family was in the spotlight then. But now, she’d faded into the busy world of New York. The very uniquely strange hairstyle she had maintained with her heavy river of hair for goodness knows how long. He imagined her, though. A petite girl very much like her cousins, or maybe even shallow enough to dye her hair to another shade. He imagined cold dark eyes. A frail thin body, for starving and overworking. Her nose would be pointing to the ceiling, and her neck would be arched back permanently, since she had turned up her nose to everyone too long.
He smirked. He’d be HONORED to meet her.

But, he’d heard rumors from his own relatives, and even his cousins. Tiffany Hwang was supposedly one of the most beautiful women in the whole circle, and a whole lot smarter than her cousins.

He hoped so. There had to be ONE woman here that he could find interesting enough to dance with, or else he’d be alone and fall prey to the scheming cousins. Tiffany Hwang HAD to be smart. After all, she IS a lawyer. Sure, he’d hate her for her intelligence, but at least she’d be interesting. And besides, he didn’t want to find out that this stupid little competition all these years was an floozy.
He sighed, as he picked up another medical journal to read.



Tiffany hurried off the train onto the platform in Boston at 4:45. Her family would begin dinner in an hour and fifteen minutes. From the station, the taxi would take half and hour to an hour to get to the Castle, in GOOD traffic.

As she had noticed, the traffic looked pretty okay, and she signaled a taxi. She hurried in. “Hwang Manor. If you make it in less than an hour, I’ll pay you double!”

The taxi driver, anxious to get that double pay, drove quickly. Tiffany quietly looked out the window, watching the familiar sights pass her by.

The Hwang week. Times two.

Tiffany remembered the Christmas week with her family in her teenage years. Even with her crowded schedule, she always spent Christmas Eve, Christmas, and the entire week until New Years Day, with her family. Most of the time, there was a snow blizzard to bring the New Year, and Tiffany had to stay a few days longer with her family.

This year would definitely be different. The Kwons weren’t total strangers or anything like that. She’d met quite a few Kwons as the years had gone by. And her grandmother spoke constantly about them, because Gertrude Kwon, was after all, her best friend. So it was perfectly normal that the Hwang traditional everyone-get-together week was extended to more “family” and the Castle was going to be shared.

But this time, Yul Kwon would be there.

He was never there before at the gatherings, and if he WAS there, then she’d always have some business or test…or if not, her grandmother had that knack of sending Tiffany to do something like skiing with her cousins or on some stupid excursion like that.

No, this time, they’d meet, and she quivered at the thought. Him, her only him, whom she had competed with all these years, yearned to beat. He was a paragon, and now, he is…well…he is going to meet her. And she knew that he probably care less about meeting her.

She could see it now.

Hwang Manor was fondly nicknamed the Castle by all the Hwangs, for Tiffany’s grandmother Gail reigned it like a queen, and the Hwangs who lived in it were her subjects. The Castle was built like a castle as well, by Tiffany’s great-great-grandfather, who loved castles in youth, and decided to have one of his own when he had enough money.

The Castle was a gothic structure, and finely built. Not many repairs had to be made on it. And, as Tiffany remembered, living in the White House was NOTHING like living in the Castle.

All the Hwangs lived in it, at one time or another. For visits, for life, it didn’t really matter, the Castle was so big, one didn’t necessarily see family every day in that house!

Tiffany’s own room in her childhood in the Castle would be hers again this week. Closing her eyes, she imagined the multitude of sleep she could catch this week. She could see her room, the perfect little place where she’d lock herself in many times, especially when she did not desire to spend time with her gossiping cousins.

There was white carpeting, and white walls, bordered on the top edge to the ceiling and the bottom edge to the floor with a line complex golden design on wallpaper. The space between was blank, save for the paintings and other things she had hung up.

There was a shelf of awards, newspaper clippings, magazine pictures of her and her family, and photo albums on one wall, adjacent to her wonderful book collection. There was also a window the opposite side of the shelves. It was very large, and very wide, and also had a window seat. Her room was on the third floor and had a view of the rose garden. She had spent many times sitting on the window seat, dreaming, reading, and studying. Her desk was inside, by the windows. Her bed was located next to the desk, a cozy thing with a white silk blanket with gold embroidery. All her furniture was white.

She shook herself out of reverie as the house came into her view. The trip, as she checked her brown leather-band watch on her wrist, had taken fifty minutes. It was now 5:35. She paid the driver double and grabbed her work bag, her laptop, and her small suitcase and went up to the door, pulling the sash of the doorbell.
Lots of pomp and circumstance.

Tiffany looked sheepish as she saw that it was dark and she just cut it to dinner by 25 minutes. Her mother would have something to say, for sure.

The maid opened the door and Tiffany smiled and greeted her nicely.

“Miss Tiffany! Your mother has been worried sick about you!” the maid began.

“What else is new?” Tiffany rolled her eyes.

It was then when all the people of the house crowded into the foyer and all smiled as they all focused on the very last guest. Tiffany the VERY Late Hwang.