While doing all the housework and tending to Yong Hwa, she managed to roam around the big house and saw a grand piano in the seemed to be a music room. She hit some keys and started playing a very sad melody.

Once, long ago, she'd dreamed of sharing small, sweet moments like that with someone. With Ji Hoon, she thought with an old, dull pang. Then she'd believed she'd be married, have children to love, a happy home. What plans she'd made, she thought now, all rosy and warm with happy ever after at the end of them.

But then, she'd only been a girl, and in love. A girl in love believed anything. Believed everything.

She wasn't a girl now.

She'd stopped believing when Ji Hoon had broken her heart, snapped it into two aching halves. She knew he was still living in France now, with a wife and a family of his own. And, she was sure, with no thought whatever of the young sweet springtime when he'd courted her, and promised her.

And pledged to her.

That was long ago, she reminded herself. Now she knew that love didn't always endure, and promises weren't always kept. If she still carried a seed of hope inside that longed to bloom, it hurt no one but herself.

“Here you are!” " Eyes dancing, Yong Hwa burst behind her.

"I heard the music. What in the world are you up to in here?"

“I’m playing the piano can’t you see?”

“What a very sad melody. Did you make it? I’ve never heard that kind of music yet. Is that what you are working on all this time?”

“Aren’t you a chatterbox Jung Yong Hwa?”

He put a hand under her chin, lifted it. "Why do you have such a hard time answering questions?”

“Is that your composition or not?”

“Yes”

“Okay, let me hear it.”

Her lips started to curve, until he leaned toward them. "Don't kiss me," she said, weakening.

"Now, that's a lot of trouble for me." But he reined himself in, leaned back. "Who hurt you,

Shin Hye?"

Her lashes fluttered down, shielding her eyes. "It may be I don't answer questions because you ask too many of them."

“Did you love him?"

She turned her head, concentrated on the piano keys, “Very much."

It was an answer, but he found it didn't please him. "Are you still in love with him?"

"That would be foolish."

"That's not an answer."

"Yes, it is. Do I breathe down your neck when you're working?"

"No." But he didn't step back.

"But you have such an appealing neck."

To prove it, he bent down to brush his lips over the nape. It didn't hurt his ego to feel her tremble.

 "I dreamed of you last night, Shin Hye. And wrote of it today."

"Wrote of it?"

"I made some changes. In the song you're a modern day gorgeous rapunzel who's struggling to build on a broken past."

Despite herself, she was drawn and turned to look at him. "You're putting me in your song?"

"Pieces of you. Your eyes, those wonderful, sad eyes. Your hair." He lifted a hand to it. "Thick, slippery hair. Your voice, that soft lilt. Your body, slim, willowy, with a dancer's unconscious grace. Your skin, your hands. I see you when I write, so I write of you.

 ‘And beyond the physical, there's your integrity, your loyalty."

Yong Hwa set his hands on the bench on either side of her, caging her in. "And he keeps running into that same shield you both have. I wonder how long it'll take him to break it down."

No one had ever said such words about her before, such words to her. A part of her yearned to wallow in them, as if they were silk. Another part stood cautiously back.

"You're trying to seduce me."

He lifted a brow. "How'm I doing?"

"I can't breathe."

"That's a good start." He leaned closer until his mouth was a whisper from hers. "Let me kiss you, Shin Hye."