FLASHBACK

“This is going to kill Yoona, you know,” Yul said, taking a deep breath. “She wanted out of the public eye.” He shook his head. “And she was so close.”

“What are you going to do?” Jessie asked.

Yul shrugged. “It’s the truth…it’s not a lie. There’s not much I can do,” he said.

“Right,” Jessie said.

“Can you do me a favour and not tell Tiffany yet?” Yul asked.

“Sure,” Jessie said. “You’ll let me know when I can tell her.”

“Yeah,” Yul said.

“And in the meantime?”

“I’ll use this to my advantage.”

“And how are you going to do that?” Jessie asked.

Yul loosened the tie around his neck and sat back, resting an arm along the back of the couch. “Gyuri suggested I hold a press conference to beat the media to the punch,” he told his older brother watching him closely for his reaction.

Jessie wiped the palms of his hands on his knees and slowly nodded.

“What do you think?” Yul asked wanting his brother’s opinion.

Jessie took a deep breath. “I think Gyuri’s right, but it doesn’t change the fact that this all the way around. When are you going to tell Yoona?” he asked.

“When I tell the world,” Yul said.

“You’re not going to warn her?” Jessie asked in disbelief.

Yul shook his head. “No,” he said firmly.

“Why the hell not?” Jessie demanded angrily.

Yul sighed. “Jessie…if she releases a statement before I do, she might tell the press that we’re separated,” he pointed out.

“Which you are,” his brother reminded him.

“We are,” Yul agreed. “But hopefully not for long. I’m just gonna play it like we were having problems and we’re working on them.”

“And you don’t think they’ll eat that up and exploit it even more than they would a separation?” he asked.

“Maybe, but I’ve gotta do what I’ve gotta do to get her back, Jessie.”

“And what about your son?” Jessie asked.

Yul ran a hand through his hair. “Hopefully it’ll be a while before the press finds out about him.”

“Yul…” Jessie said quietly.

“I said hopefully, Jessie. I know it’s not a probability.”

END OF FLASHBACK

As it turned it out, it hadn’t been to his advantage, or Yoona would be here with him right now and their son’s face wouldn’t be flashing across every network on the television.

Yul was standing at the sink in the bathroom of the hotel room in Charlotte that the team had put him up in for the night. He’d just finished dressing for the party that the Bobcats’ organization was holding in honour of him joining the team. He was sporting a pair of charcoal colour dress pants, a light blue long sleeved dressed shirt, and a grey tie with different colour thick stripes. He put his toothbrush back into his black leather travel case and then looked up into the mirror. He studied his face, surprised by what he saw. He’d never seen it before and he almost didn’t recognize it. He saw defeat in his eyes and dark circles beneath them. He knew he looked tired, and he was. He dropped his head in his hands and took a deep breath to gear himself up for tonight. He definitely didn’t feel like celebrating.

He lifted his head once again and then held his left hand up in front of his face. Tonight was his fresh start. Hadn’t he told Yoona that, that was what Charlotte was going to be for him? A new beginning? He sighed as he slowly pulled his wedding ring off and placed it in his travel case next to his toothbrush. He’d put it on the morning of the press conference and he hadn’t taken it off since. Now his hand felt cold without it. He sighed again. He’d get used to it. He had once before.

He left his hotel room and went next door to see if Jessie and Tiffany were ready.

“I know that this party was for you,” he said to Yul, who was sitting beside him, “but they could have at least pretended to welcome me to the team, too,” Taeng joked.

Sunny leaned over and gave her husband’s arm a squeeze. “I thought my welcome to Charlotte present was enough,” she said huskily, her eyes twinkling.

Taeng grinned widely. “I forgot…what was I saying?” he teased.

“Hopefully that you were going to go and get your very pregnant wife a nice tall glass of ice water,” Sunny said, rubbing her protruding belly. She was due any day now.

He stood up and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. “I’m on it, Princess,” he said, leaving the table.

Tiffany stood up and took Jessie by the hand. “Did you see how obedient Taeng was?” she said to her husband in a teasing voice. “Why don’t you do the same and your wife to the dance floor?”

Jessie rolled his eyes and stood up begrudgingly. He looked at Sunny. “Your husband sets impossible standard for us mere mortals to live up to.”

Sunny just grinned as Jessie and Tiffany walked toward the dance floor. She knew how lucky she was to have landed a man like Kim Taeng. She turned to Yul. “For the guest of honour, you’ve been very quiet tonight,” she observed. “You haven’t even mingled with any of your new team-mates.”

 Yul didn’t say anything, just gave her a half-hearted smile. She gracelessly got to her feet with a groan and sat down in the seat her husband had just vacated. “How you holding up, Buddy?” she asked, putting a comforting hand on his arm.

He just looked at her and she saw the sadness in the depths of his eyes.

Sunny nodded in understanding. “I’m so sorry, Yul,” she said.

“Me, too,” he said, lifting a glass of ice water to his lips. He wished it were something stronger.

“Why didn’t you tell her that it wasn’t you, Yul?” she asked softly.

He put his glass back on the table and ran a finger in circles around and around the rim of it. “I wanted her to love me no matter what,” he said, and then looked away. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “She didn’t,” he had expected her to call after the note he’d found mixed in with the remains of their divorce papers, but she hadn’t.

“You ambushed her,” Sunny reminded him softly. “You could have warned her.”

He lifted his eyes to hers and she saw the fire in them. “Why? So she could’ve gone to the press first and told them that we weren’t together? Yeah, I was using a little force, Sunny. It was all I had left.” He sighed. “It didn’t work anyway, so what does it matter?”

Sunny sighed. “It matters, Yul. You know it does.” She took a deep breath. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s over and I don’t think you do either.” She leaned up and kissed him on the cheeks. “And I don’t like that look of defeat in your eyes,” she said. “It’s not you.”

Before Yul could say anything else, Taeng appeared at his wife’s side with a glass of water. “So, how are you liking Charlotte?” he asked, unknowingly changing the subject.

Yul gave a sigh of relief for the reprieve.

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“She wants him back, Jessie,” Tiffany said. They were overheated after their time spent on the dance floor, so they’d exited through the double doors by the buffet table. They were standing outside on the outskirts of a giant, lush flower garden.

Jessie ran a hand through his hair. “What? Babe, she can’t keep doing this to him!” he said heatedly. Yoona was his best friend, but Yul was his brother.

Tiffany’s flight from New York to Charlotte had been delayed, and she’d had to meet them at the party instead of the hotel. This was the first time she and Jessie had been able to talk alone. “I don’t think she’s kidding,” Tiffany told her husband.

“Tiff…”

She put her hands on her husband’s chest to calm him. “Babe…Yoona is in a take no prisoner’s mode right now and she wants her husband back.”

Jessie studied Tiffany’s face for a minute then took a deep breath. “She’s got one hell of a fight on her hands,” was all he said.

When they made their way back to the party, they looked around and Yul was nowhere to be found. “He must be talking to the press,” Jessie said, putting a hand on Tiffany’s back and leading her to a smaller room off the spacious one where the celebration was taking place.

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“Mr Kwon, in the light of recent information being revealed to the press, I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about your wife and son,” a reporter fired off.

“This is not going to be good,” they heard Sunny whisper as they came to stand beside her and Taeng at the back of the room. Everyone else was trying to elbow their way to the front in hopes of getting their questions answered.

The four of them watched as Yul’s face clouded with fury. “I’m going to make this clear only once. So listen closely,” he instructed tersely. “Any questions regarding my son…are off limits and make no mistake, I will remember the face of anyone who dares inquire, and it will be the last question they ever ask of me. Put that on your front page tomorrow. As for my wife, she’d not big on publicity so we’ll leave her out of this, too.” He looked around and pointed to another reporter. “Yes?”

Tiffany’s eyes widened as she turned to look at her husband. She smiled as she saw the triumphant gleam in his eyes. She could almost read his mind. Score one for Kwon Yul.

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Yoona was in her bedroom, pacing back and forth at the foot of her bed. She was rehearsing what she was going to say to Yul when she called him, wanting to make sure she got it right. She was fairly certain she’d talking to his voicemail again, but she still wanted it to be perfect. Finally, before she could change her n=mind, Yoona quickly picked her phone and dialled his cell number. “Yul, it’s Yoona,” she said softly into the phone. “I knew you weren’t going to answer, and you probably won’t call me back because you didn’t before, but please…” she sighed. “I’m going to be on the late show tomorrow night and…I’d really like for you to watch.” She took a deep breath. “I want to come home, Yul,” she said, her voice breaking. “I want to come home to you.” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “Goodbye,” she said softly, closing her phone and tossing it back onto the bed. She sighed and nervously ran her hands through her hair as she realized that her future with her husband would be decided within the next forty eight hours.