Chapter 4

The Jung residence was located in a quiet & elegant neighborhood. It was hard to believe that she was really in Seoul, Korea. All she could see & hear was the soft lighting of the house, a vast manicured lawn & the trickles of water from the nearby park. Stepping out from the car, she looked at the grand spanish colonial style house & nodded in approval. If she had to live in Seoul, this was exactly the place she would choose to live in.

Yunho looked at Tim strangely. For a hillbilly guy, he should look mighty-awed at his house. Well, he looked impressed but not stunned enough. He was expecting a mouth agape, saliva gulping & envy look, not this subtle approval.

“What do you think?” He asked Tim, who was still inspecting the house & its surrounding. The two little doggies followed their master with their tails waving furiously & squatted here & there to mark the new territory.

Tim touched the wall & made a humming sound in his throat, “The texture of the wall is excellent but you would get a better result with warm color like a brick color, instead of cream.” He said absently. Then he turned back to him & grinned as if he could feel Yunho’s raised eyebrow, “I read a couple of architecture magazines in the job placement office.”

“Yunho? Is that you?” A feminine voice drifted from inside the house. A moment later, a beautiful middle-aged woman walked out so gracefully that she might have floated on air. She gathered Yunho in a bear hug & kissed his cheek, “Welcome home, sweetie. How’s your trip?”

“Very good, mom. I could finally lure the chef for the hotel. He’s a very famous chef who used to work for the Ritz & now for us. I think our restaurant business would pick up soon with him at the head.”

But his mom was only listening half ear to his words. Her attention was focused on the starring Tim. Yunho put his arm around her affectionately, “Let me introduce you, mom. This is Tim Hwang, my just-hired servant. Well, free labor actually since he’s working for us to pay for the damage he caused to my baby.” He looked at Tim ominously as he remembered his baby’s condition before it was admitted into the car-hospital & said curtly, “I’m going to take a hot bath. Mom, just tell him whatever you want him to do around the house & you don’t have to go easy on him either. He’s here to work for us in any case.”

After Yunho had gone inside, Tiffany gulped & looked warily at Mrs. Jung. If she’s anything like her son & she had reason to believe she was, judging by the closeness she had witnessed the two, she had better get prepared for the trashing of her life but instead, she was given a gentle smile & graciously, she was invited to go inside & then all she could feel was warmth. So much warmth that she felt her eyes moistened when the lady of the house greeted her with open arms & hugged her like a long lost daughter. Or son in her opinion, “Tim, I’m so glad you are here to keep me company. Welcome to our house.” She courteously said, & tugged Tiffany’s hand to sit next to her, “Here, have a seat & chat with me.” Looking closely at Tiffany, she smiled, “Please forgive my son if he’s rude to you or something. His manner is one of my failures.” Sighing, she patted Tiffany’s hand & gave her a longing look, “How I had wanted to have a daughter; if only my health permitted me to have more than one child.”

Tiffany quickly pulled her hand back, afraid that her secret would be found out. With her heart beating erratically & making her voice as deep & masculine as she could, she replied, “No. It’s my fault. I was the one who crashed my car into his. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Jung.” Looking down at her toes, Tiffany mumbled, “& I’m a guy, although you are not the first person to think otherwise.”

Mrs. Jung looked at her inquiringly & finally smiled in acceptance, “Ah, I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable & I’m sorry for implying that you are a girl. If you have any question or need anything, just come to me & I will help you as much as I can. About what you will do here, we will decide as we go okay?” Smiling, she patted Tim’s hand affectionately, “Don’t worry, we won’t work you to the bone.”

Tiffany smiled in gratitude, “Thank you, Mrs. Jung.”

“Tim! You lazy bum, come up here & start paying your debt!”

Smiling ruefully at Mrs. Jung, Tiffany stood up & excused herself. Marching towards the staircase, she muttered determinedly, “Day one, here I come.”

Tiffany’s first week in the Jung’s household could be summed up in one word, hellish! It’s not that the job was gruelingly hard. Well, it’s definitely not a walk in the cloud either but let’s just say that it would be a lot easier if she were to work for Mrs. Jung instead of Yunho. The guy was so demanding. One minute he ordered her to mow the lawn. The next minute, she was supposed to clean the pool & then, he would yell at her for letting his food go cold. If only Mrs. Jung hadn’t interfered just at the right moment, Yunho would be wearing his food on his head but she discovered one thing about herself in this one week that she hadn’t realized in twenty-four years. She was one heck of a patient woman. Although she had come very close to whacking the guy’s head with whatever she had in her hand those moments he had acted so awful, she had been able to restrain herself & settled on glaring at him & imagining him died a thousand deaths.

Moreover, the vision of her life in five months had pushed her to endure a lot. Who would expect that Tiffany Hwang Miyoung would ever hold a toilet brush in her hand? Not that she knew how to use it but fortunately, most of the hired helps around the house were willing to help her with whatever she was supposed to do, covering for her incompetence with her new job. Unfortunately, Yoona, one of the maids was the one who helped her the most. Tiffany shivered involuntarily as she remembered how the girl had batted her eyelashes & cooed at her when she had helped her washed Yunho’s car & how she had trailed her long, slender fingers on her arm & asked her boldly for a date. Although she had always had a clever hand with make-ups & seemed to inherit her dad’s flair in acting, pretending to be a guy all the time was harder than she had ever imagined. She had to be on her toes all the time, making sure her voice was deep enough & her mannerism was rough enough & the bindings on her chest & slender waist were so uncomfortable to put it mildly. Only when she was ready to go to sleep & had locked her door that she could take the bindings away & sigh in relief but all her efforts seemed to be worth it as the stupid guy & his comrades of chef, gardener & all the others didn’t seem to suspect the truth! Men could be so dense sometimes. Well, & of course, Yoona too. She was so tempted to tell her the truth & put an end to her incessant flirting but with her big mouth, she would probably scream her secret out for all to hear & she had rather put up with her flirting than to have the boss’ anger & hurt male pride on her head. The only one who could remotely suspect her identity so far was Mrs. Jung. She had the feeling that the lady had already guessed the truth but didn’t want to confront her about it until she admitted it herself. Well, maybe in five months when her slavery is over, she would tell her the truth about herself. She seemed to be like the perfect person she could confide in.

“Tim!” Yunho yelled, startling her into dropping the box of frozen food she had in her hand. Gritting her teeth in annoyance as her stomach did some marching band asking for food, she stalked from the kitchen to his room! “Now what?!” She snarled ferociously, as she stormed through the door, “Can’t I even have lunch, you...you...you beast?!”

Yunho only grinned & looked at her smugly, making a feeling of dread to thud heavily on her stomach. One more thing she had learned this week was that a happy & smug light in his eyes always spelled trouble for her, “Of course you can, sissy boy. Right after you clean my feet. The golf practice today is so tiring & I’m too tired to clean them myself. So naturally, I thought about you, my biddable servant.”

Swallowing the curse wanting to come out, she looked at her task warily & had to swallow a groan. The wiggling feet were covered with filthy sweaty socks, so filthy & sweaty that they seemed as if they were soaked in mud & the smell, oh my god. Immediately, her stomach churned & turned. Luckily, she hadn’t had lunch yet; otherwise, it would probably rise up to get out again. Shuddering in disgusts, she looked up at Yunho & yelled, “I’m not touching those disgusting feet of yours! Clean it yourself, you lazy pig!”

Before Tiffany could storm out of the room, the voice she had come to hate floated into her ear, in a tone guaranteed to set her teeth on edge, “Well, well, somebody has a shocking temper here. I wonder what the police would say when I tell them that somebody crashed his car into mine & didn’t have money to pay for the damage nor did he have any insurance to cover it & I had it written black on white, too.” With a martyred look on his face, he sighed, “Out of the goodness of my heart, I took this penniless guy into my home, giving him food & shelter & when I only asked for a tiny little favor, he called me names instead.”

Tiffany could feel all her blood draining from her head. Gritting her teeth, she dragged her feet to where Yunho was at. What could she do anyway? Leave the house? She had no other place to go to nor did she have any money or means to leave & the debt she owed him would weigh heavily in her mind & there are her babies’ so she knew that she had no choice but to submit to the humiliation but anger was one thing; pride was entirely another thing so she had rather walked back home by her own will than to give him the satisfaction & show him how despicable she found this job was. Keeping her face as blank as she could manage it, she went to the bathroom to take the bucket & thickest rubber gloves out.

As an only child & their apparent to the wealthy Jung’s, Yunho had always gotten what he wanted, even when he had been in a crib. His nannies would come running every time a little sound had escaped from his mouth & baby Yunho had learned fast that he had only had to open his mouth & shrieked to get his wish fulfilled & during his formative years, everybody would give into his wish as nobody had wanted to upset the young master & get rebuked by his father. Little Yunho had grown up with people kissing the ground he had walked on. Only the influence of his mortal enemy turned best friend had prevented him to be a total jerk but sometimes, his childhood personality would rear its ugly head & bite whoever had offended him!

Yunho looked at the guy kneeling in front of his feet & waited in anticipation of what he’s going to do. Tim looked as if he wanted to cry when he saw what he had to work with. Feeling a stir of pity in his heart, Yunho squashed them down resolutely. Nobody messed with his baby & get away unscathed, he reminded himself but he couldn’t help but grimaced as the smooth hands picked up his feet. As they peeled the disgusting socks from his feet. As the wretched smell wafted up to his nostrils & it must be a whole lot worse for him, his conscience tickled him. Maybe soaking his socks in vinegar & rolling them in dirt were a little over the top, he thought begrudgingly, as guilt started to sneak in but all his soft feelings dried up when Tim started to attack his poor feet by scrubbing them with the harshest brush he could find & immersed his poor feet into the too hot water, “Hey! What do you think you are doing?! Scrubbing my skin away & boiled my feet for lunch?!” Yunho complained loudly, & rubbed his sore feet, expecting to hear an apology a second later but the guy in front of him glowered at him instead of doing what a sane person would do & dumped the smelly gloves & brush on his lap, “Clean them yourself if you don’t like the way I did it.” He had only opened his mouth when Tim had already beaten him to it, “& don’t you dare threatened me. I had done what you wanted.” With a shrug, he looked at him with a clear challenge in his flashing eyes, “It’s too bad that you don’t like the way I did it. Call somebody else who cares. I’m out of here.”

Slowly, a feeling of admiration seeped into his heart as Tim stormed from his room with his shoulders held up straightly. He grinned wolfishly & said to himself as challenge rose in him, “The real game has just begun, sissy boy. I will see your defeated face one of these days. Soon.”