Dara entered the kitchen of the Classic Six at seven A.M. Sunday morning. She crossed, bleary-eyed, to the espresso machine, completely ignoring anything else. She was a woman on a mission.

Jiyong was already seated at the table, holding their baby girl in his arms.

"Good morning, Dee," he greeted amicably. Dara grunted something that might have been assent, or it might have been profanity – Jiyong wasn't completely versed in her pre-coffee dialect – and punched the button on the machine. She had done it enough times without loading up the coffee first that Jiyong had taken to getting ahead of her schedule: he always kept the shots preloaded now. It had taken discovering her sipping a cup of hot water, too tired to notice the lack of caffeine, for him to realize an intervention might be in order.

Dara didn't like to be reminded of that episode.

She'd been up three times already that night tending to the baby. Jiyong could tell she was feeling the weariness down to her bones, but she still somehow managed to look completely radiant. No make-up, no hair product, no cutting-edge designer dress. It was just Dara, his wife, standing in a shaft of sunlight in the apartment they shared, naturally luminous – and tantalizingly curvaceous – in the sheer nightgown he had bought for her. She glanced sidelong and caught him looking, but Jiyong didn't avert his eyes. No matter what exhausted mood she might be in, he wanted her to know that he couldn't help looking when she entered the room. When he smiled, she smiled back.

But she didn't hold his undivided attention for long. Their daughter gave a small, gasping choke, and stretched her limbs. Jiyong's eyes dropped, and he rocked her in his arms, murmuring nonsense words until she quieted and fell back asleep. When he looked to Dara again, he saw his wife's eyes shimmering.

"How's our Hayi?" she asked.

"Great. Beautiful. Extraordinary. Like her mother." Jiyong rocked the tiny bundle in his arms. "Why do you ask?"

"Because she hasn't made a peep since you picked her up and brought her out here," Dara said in a tone of fond exasperation.

"What can I say? She's Daddy's girl already." He grinned.

"Is that a bet you're willing to take?" Dara asked. "Because I'd say it's game on, Daddy. I'm going to buy her absolutely everything her little heart desires when your back is turned."

"We're going to spoil her like hell," Jiyong noted.

"You better believe it." Dara turned away momentarily to doctor her espresso. Jiyong watched the elegant movement of her wrist as she stirred in the cream; he observed the minute way her body swayed in place. Meeting his daughter had only made him love the woman who gave birth to her all the more. He had never imagined he would find such utter euphoric happiness, especially not at seven in the morning after sharing another sleepless night with the two members of his