Tiffany opened to thank the bodyguard but just at that moment, her friends came looking for her.

“Tiffany!”

The bodyguard had stepped back, putting respectable distance between them and Tiffany turned to Yuri who was first to get to her. “Hey.”

Yuri gave the bodyguard a polite smile before turning back to Tiffany with questions in her eyes. “We were wondering where you went and Seohyun got worried so we came out to look for you.”

“Sorry, I came out to talk to her,” Tiffany replied, jerking her head at the bodyguard.

“She your friend?”

“Yeah, I’m her friend,” Taeyeon answers quickly, moving forward to wave a hello to Tiffany’s friends.

At this point, Taeyeon’s friend had come out looking for Taeyeon too and they were introduced. So, it became a group of six, Tiffany, Yuri, Yoona and Seohyun, with the addition of Taeyeon and Sunny. Taeyeon explained that she was from Seoul too when they asked about her and so was Sunny who happened to be on a job assignment here in Singapore. Meanwhile, Tiffany remained silent, privately unhappy about how things had turned out. If her friends noticed anything, they didn’t mention it. Instead, they chatted and laughed merrily with Taeyeon and Sunny for the next hour till Taeyeon and Sunny bade them goodbye.

Back in their hotel room, Seohyun washed up and fell asleep as soon as she crawled under the sheets but Tiffany stayed awake. It was a dilemma for her; a stalemate. Letting her friends know that Taeyeon was really the bodyguard hired by her father was not something she wished to do, but neither did she want her friends to tell Taeyeon too much, thinking the bodyguard was her friend. It wouldn’t have been a problem she had to worry about if Taeyeon hadn’t accepted Yoona’s invitation to go out shopping with them the next afternoon. But it was a problem now and she had to decide what to do about it.

¤¤¤

Tiffany woke up feeling a little less enthusiastic about the day ahead. She had decided to come clean with her friends. It was time to stop the lies. But the trouble with her decision was putting it into action. Admitting the truth was never easy.

Come to Room 3981. ASAP.

The pop up on her phone displayed the message from the bodyguard. There it was again. The cold instruction, ordering her about when she was the employer. Nevertheless, she wanted to tell the bodyguard about her decision, so she got out of bed and got ready to go out.

¤¤¤

The bodyguard opened the door and welcomed her. She entered, looking around the smaller room. There was no one else in it.

“There’s no one else here. I came back alone,” the bodyguard said in a tone with a mocking edge.

It riled Tiffany. “It’s none of my business who you spend the night with but you’re in my father’s employment and you’re on duty.”

The bodyguard cocked her head to the left. “You seem angry with me but I haven’t done anything that warrants it.”

Ludicrous. This bodyguard was ludicrous. “There’s no reason for me to like you, much less welcome you.”

“I agree. But you’ve been trying to get rid of me from the beginning. Maybe you don’t like having a bodyguard around you, but don’t you think you’re taking it out on the wrong person?”

Tiffany bristled. “I did not get out of bed and come all the way down here to get scolded by an arrogant bodyguard.”

A hand grabbed her wrist and prevented her from leaving the room. “We need to talk about what we tell your friends about us.”

Shaking her hand hard didn’t work. “Get your hand off,” Tiffany minced out each word with a hostile glare.

The bodyguard released her wrist but moved swiftly around her to the door, obstructing the only way out. “We need to talk about it now that your friends have met me. Sunny doesn’t know about my job either so we really have to get our story right.”

“I’ve decided to tell my friends the truth. I don’t want to lie to them.”

“It’s not to your advantage.”

Irritation boils in her blood. “My life isn’t in danger, okay. I don’t need a bodyguard. I don’t know why my father insists on hiring one but there’s nothing I can do about it; he won’t listen to me. So just stay out of the way. I don’t want to see you at all.”