Choi Bo-Ra lived in a very beautiful, and very big, house. It was nestled on a mountainside in an affluent neighborhood in Seoul and surrounded by a thick stone wall to keep out what needed keeping out, and to keep in all its secrets.

Inside her world, her father was the king who ruled a small army of hired devotees to cater to his every whim, and her mother was the queen who buried herself under the frosty perfection of wealth and harmonious illusion, pretending not to notice what some of those wilder whims were.

And Bo-Ra was their only child, their perfect little princess.

Even her mirror told her so. She sat in front of it, examining her flawless reflection.

All of these were things she could count on.

But outside the predictably comfortable confines of her castle, the world was not such a steady place. Bo-Ra had come to discover this first hand when Brandon Clayton, her ex-boyfriend, had lifted the veil from her happily naive eyes.

He’d seemed a dream, a dean’s list junior at Stanford with plans to join his father’s prestigious L.A. legal firm after graduation. He was even beautiful, with sandy blond hair, eyes like polished jade, and a real, beach born, tan to die for. And she had loved him madly, though she hadn’t told her parents who would certainly have disapproved. She’d been ready to give up everything to be the future Mrs. Clayton, until she’d found him at an end of term frat party in an unlocked bathroom with his tongue down Sylvia Attwood’s throat and his hand up her skirt. Everything Bo-Ra thought she knew began to decay and flake away beneath the corrosive reality in front of her eyes. She’d seethed in rage and humiliation and then walked away, her head held high though her heart and ego trudged through the dust behind her.

Remembering how she’d bended to please him, the things she let him do with her, to her, just to fit in to his world, to be accepted by his circle of college friends, made her nauseous. She’d made an error, a miscalculation, and the result was a nasty lesson on the facts of life – no man, whether Korean, American or otherwise, could be trusted.

But she’d revised her goals. She had a new agenda, and she would not let Brandon steal that away from her too. She was at the top of her class, and she would get that recognition no matter what. One day, she would relish in the pride overflowing from her father’s face as he watched her speak from the graduation podium, finally recognizing that his daughter was all he’d ever wanted, all he needed, to succeed him in the company and continue the family legacy.

Until two nights ago, she’d never even considered relenting to the endless line of potential Korean son-in-law’s her parents tried to push on her whenever she was home for a holiday. Seung-Bae Kim hovered at the top of their list, and though she hadn’t remembered him then, it wouldn’t have made a difference. After a lifetime of watching the stilted machinations of her parent’s marriage, she’d decided that marriage to a Korean man was impossible, not in her best interest.

But Brandon’s betrayal had changed everything, and when she’d heard Seung-Bae singing at the club and realized just who he was, she felt a stirring, and a plan fell into place in her mind.  She’d left the show to call her father, hinting that she was ready, and her parents had, predictably, run with it and orchestrated a dinner to get things started.

Bo-Ra opened the top of an old card box she’d dug out from the darker depths of her closet.  She placed the lid beside it, on the top of her dressing table, and reached inside the pile of old memories to pull out a card, handmade from red and white construction paper. The inscription was written in the awkward hand of a child. She whispered the words aloud.

“For Choi Bo-Ra, I’m forever yours, Kim Seung-Bae.”

Forever yours.  Granted, it was the confession of a ten year old boy and so much time had passed. But after hearing him sing and seeing him again, she’d thought he’d be the perfect one, the perfect shield to carry back with her to California – a blindly devoted fiancé to stand between her and them. Someone she could count on to never betray her; someone she could control.

The foreign girl was an ugly weed in the construction of her plans, and, suddenly, Bo-Ra felt nervous and uncertain. Seung-Bae wasn’t the type to be easily drawn away from a girl. She should know. After all, she’d been the first, hadn’t she?

She reached into the box a second time and lifted out a photograph of her fourth grade class. The child she once was stood in the front row beaming a bright, toothy smile. Seung-Bae hovered on the row behind, gangly and withdrawn, gazing down at her as if she was his sun. She’d forgotten that look. Forgotten the rush it had given her.

“Bo-Ra darling?” her mother entered her bedroom and approached. The scent of Chanel filled the air. “Aren’t you dressed yet? Our guests will be here soon.”

“Eomma,” Bo-Ra lifted her head to catch her mother’s gaze in the dressing mirror’s reflection. “What if this is a mistake? What if he isn’t interested in me?”

Her mother came to stand behind her then drew a sweeping spill of hair over Bo-Ra’s shoulder and away from her neck. Lacquered fingertips danced at the fragile flesh along her hairline.

“What? How can anyone resist my beautiful daughter? Hmm?”

Bo-Ra drew in her breath and straightened her back. Her mother was right. This time she had home field advantage, and here, in her world, she never lost a battle she set her mind to winning.