Seungri called for his car and waited in the hotel lobby with Cecelia until it came. He shook his head watching Cecelia walk regally from the hotel. Running interference for Harumi with her mother was going to take vigilance. Cecelia had tried to convince him again to consider a modest wedding by saying it would be cruel to Harumi to make a media event of it when she had so obviously anticipated her wedding vows.

The car had not arrived one moment too soon. Seungri stepped into an empty elevator and pressed the button for his floor. Would Harumi be ashamed to marry him while she was so visibly pregnant? He thought back to what he had learned of her past. She’d been educated by nuns. Hell, maybe she would be embarrassed by a big wedding. She had certainly been upset about the news clipping.

He didn’t want her upset and the part he had played in the breaking of the news story troubled him. He’d seen one of the paparazzi that often followed him outside the restaurant where they had eaten lunch. He hadn’t said anything, had not sent his security man after the film—though as he’d learned in the past, that move was not always successful. His actions could be considered ruthless, but he thought of them as the acts of a desperate man.

She had to marry him. For her own sake because she needed him. For the baby’s sake because he was a Lee. For Seungri’s sake because he needed her. And for the sake of a promise he had made to his grandfather, a second promise when the first had been nullified. He’d thought it would be easy once he found her. She’d obviously wanted marriage before she left Paris, but now she acted like the thought of it was worse than spending the rest of her life in Purgatory.

No matter what she said to the contrary, it was obvious she now hated him. He mourned the warmth that used to shine from her eyes when she looked at him. The smile that had been just for him. Intimate. Special. He’d taken her for granted when he had her. He had ignored the underlying emotional commitment in their relationship. He’d believed they had no hope of a future.

She’d been a career fashion model. It was lowering to admit, but he’d believed she had every intention of moving on when her career took off. He hadn’t known about her family, hadn’t realized she had no desire to be a supermodel. That ignorance had cost him three months of mental anguish wondering where she was and how she was faring with her pregnancy. He’d never once considered she might terminate it…even when he’d gone to the apartment in Paris a week after she left and found her message for him on the floor of the living room.

She’d rejected everything he’d ever given her down to the y nightwear he’d bought her. His fists clenched at his sides when he thought of that neatly folded stack of silk and lace garments. He’d taken one look at the pregnancy test sitting on top and driven his fist through the wall. One look. That was all it had taken for him to realize she’d been telling him the truth.

He hadn’t understood how it could be true, but he had known it was. He’d called the detective agency that very night, but it had still been too late. He’d lost her. He’d spent three months tormenting himself with if-only scenarios. If only he had been thinking more clearly when his grandfather delivered his ultimatum, but Seungri had been badly shaken and had gone into damage control mode.

He would do anything to save his grandfather and he had done, hurting both himself and Harumi in the process. If only he had believed her about the baby from the beginning and told his grandfather then. If only he had come back to the apartment sooner, but he hadn’t been able to face its emptiness, the reality of what he had done to his woman. He hadn’t been able to stay in London either, not after the announcement of his marriage to Phoebe had been made.

Everything had felt wrong about it. He’d seen the looks his brother gave Phoebe when he thought no one noticed. Seungri could not miss the way Phoebe laughed in his brother’s company. But most importantly—the look on Harumi’s face when he’d denied her haunted him. He deserved her hatred, but he couldn’t live with it. He had to convince her to marry him.

He could not consider the alternative. She and the baby needed him even if she refused to admit it. Their son knew he needed her. Would she ever look at him with the warmth of affection in her beautiful eyes again?

Harumi had picked up the paper her mother left behind and was re-reading the article about her and Seungri when he returned. She looked up. “I can’t believe they said all this. It’s horrible. Conjecture about our relationship, your reasons for denying paternity. Where did all this come from?”

Seungri shrugged. “The story ran for weeks in France, even some London papers picked it up. The press release your agency sent out saying you had retired from modelling and wanted to live a more anonymous life was all the more scintillating when news of your possible pregnancy got out. I’m surprised you didn’t see any of the stories.”

She’d avoided the European scandal rags after the announcement of his marriage to Phoebe. Harumi hadn’t wanted to see any pictures of the couple together.

“How did they make the connection?” she wondered aloud.

“I am, unfortunately, followed by a certain amount of paparazzi wherever I go. Once we were seen together, it was only a matter of time before one of them recognized you.”

“But no one else had,” she said helplessly.

“I find that inexplicable.”

A wavery smile tilted her lips. “You certainly weren’t fooled.”

Remembered anger shimmered in his eyes. “No.”

“You were so sure it was me and yet I must have looked very different to you,” she mused.

“You are my woman. I would recognize you in the dark.”

“You did,” she said, helplessly remembering the passion they’d shared the night before.

His smile was predatory. “Yes.”

“ isn’t everything,” she admonished him.

“But it is a start, is it not, my love?”

He resumed his seat beside her and placed his hand against her protruding belly. “And we have this precious child we share as well.”

If only she could believe him, but she didn’t trust him. Did he have an ulterior motive for the marriage?

“You’re afraid I won’t give you access, aren’t you? You think you’ll have more say in our baby’s life if we’re married.”

“I will, but that is not why I want to marry you.”

“Then why?” she demanded.

“You once said we had something special. Perhaps I want that back again.”

“Impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible, my love.” Believing he might come to love her was.

“I don’t know,” she said, achingly aware her desires were at odds with her intellect. She wanted to marry him, but she was afraid doing so would only open her heart to more hurt.

“Your mother will be devastated if you refuse me.”

Harumi knew that all too well. “My mother’s feelings do not dictate my life.”

“You can say that after spending six years living a double life to protect her sensibilities?”

“Living as Alexandra was infinitely preferable to the prospect of living as your wife.” She didn’t know why she’d said it. To wound him as he had once wounded her? Regardless, guilt assailed her the second the words left her.

His jaw tautened, his brown eyes flashing anger. “Think of our child. Life as a legitimate Lee will be infinitely preferable to life as the bastard child of the black sheep of the Hitome family,” he said, throwing her words back at her.

She flinched with the pain the words inflicted. “Don’t use that word!”

His face registered regret and then determination. “I will never use it again in relation to our son, regardless of your decision, but I cannot say the same for others.”

She felt tears fill her eyes and she tried to blink them away. Seungri tried to comfort her but she pushed his hand away.

“Just leave me alone. Please." Harumi begged.

It was quite sad actually. It has been awhile since Harumi locked herself in the bathroom. She was sitting there with her hands on her face and tears coming down. She was thinking to herself. But she felt that she couldn’t face Seungri. She definitely can’t stand that man now.

"SeungHyun would never hurt me." She thought.

Meanwhile Seungri is sitting on the bed. He notices that she has been in there a long time and was looking at the bathroom door. Seungri got off the bed and went to the bathroom door. He knocked on it.

"Harumi.” “Harumi please come on out." Seungri soft pleading voice said to her.

But there was nothing. It was quiet.

Harumi can hear Seungri calling her but she ignored it because the heavy she felt in her head has brought her asleep on the floor.

There was silence. Nothing. Seungri know that he has to open the door but this time he kicked the door down. Seungri found Harumi in the corner of the floor. Seungri ran to her and then lifted Harumi off the floor and carried her out into the bedroom.
 

He placed her carefully in the bed. Placing a few pillow around her to make sure she feeling comfortable. Her tired expression is a heartbreaking for him and soon guiltiness began arousing on his face.

Harumi suddenly felt a churning sensation in her stomach and had to rush to the toilet to relieve herself. She felt the morning sickness she had this morning is the terrible one. It started with nausea and it was terrible for her to handle at all. Last night she have become depressed and having trouble sleeping.

Seungri has persuaded her to eat dinner but she refuses it same as today when she barely refuse to have anything. Seungri thought that she still has the brood mood and it is not good for the baby. But in reality she felt so hungry but wouldn’t tolerate anything to go inside.

Is all he cared is about the baby? The emotional side of her that was dragging her down told that what she’s thinking was true. And she sided with the emotional one. The emotion has made her blind, so blind that she cannot see that Seungri was all the time is staying by her side try to make her comfortable, rejecting to eat the meal because she had refuse to, the one that has neglecting his sleep just when she had to rush to the bathroom he was there to wipe and pick her up.

She suddenly bends over and holds her stomach. A sharp pain in her abdominal and hip that she feels right now is making it extremely painful and uncomfortable.  These abdominal cramps are lasting for several hours and she just couldn’t believe that they are “normal”.

She assumed these cramps were from her endemitros or stress or a mixture. How do I know it that is what they are really from or if it is due to the pregnancy, if it is related to the pregnancy does this mean it’s most likely a miscarriage? I am so confused and lost right now.

Harumi was then sitting on the bed. She was holding her stomach. Seungri ran over to her. He had has his hands on her arms. He was trying to help her as he saw how much pain she was in.

"Harumi talk to me? What’s wrong?" Seungri asked her.

"My stomach. Ouch it hurts." She grabbed onto his arms and was whimper in pain.

Harumi was rush to the emergency room around two in the morning. When she woke up her hand is most likely hooked up to an IV and fed fluids and possibly an anti nausea medication. She was dehydrated which most commonly is caused by severe morning sickness she experience today. Her blood pressure and urine will be monitored and she will continue to receive fluids until her electrolytes have been restored. And as for the severe cramps she felt earlier it was due to the depression.  

"How are you feeling?" A familiar hand her hair.
 

She turned her face aside him and closed her eyes. She had been missing him. She had been guilty to him for neglecting her health and the baby.

"Harumi talk to me?" Seungri asked her.

Harumi was avoiding the question. She turned her face to him as she felt tears fill her eyes. She took Seungri’s palm and kissed it.

"I am sorry."

"For what?".

"For breaking down."

He pulled her against his chest. “Do not cry. I cannot stand it.”

“Then it’s a good thing you weren’t around for the first month after I left Paris. I did nothing but cry,” she said, hiccupping with her swallowed tears.

His arms tightened around her until she squeaked from the pressure. He loosened his grip immediately. “I did not intend to hurt you.”

Was he talking about just now, or three months ago? She looked at him. “Tell me about your parents, SeungHyun. You never have.”

His sensual lips thinned.

“How can you expect me to marry you when you won’t share your family with me? I’ve never even met your grandfather or your brother.”

“I will invite my brother to the wedding, unfortunately Grandfather cannot travel yet. You will meet him when we go to London.”

“What do you mean, go to London?”

“It is where we will live.”

“What if I want to live in Paris?”

“Do you?” he asked with more patience than she expected.

She met his gaze and then looked away. “I don’t want to raise our son in a big city,” she admitted, knowing she was playing right into his hands.

“This is good.” He gently tugged her face back around so she was caught in the compelling brown of his gaze. “The family home is on a small island off the coast at the country side. There is nothing on the island but the home and a fishing village. It will be a wonderful place for our son to grow up. I should know. I was raised there.”

It sounded all too tempting.