“No cussing!” I rush over and put my hands protectively over the baby bump. “The twins can hear you!”
“They can’t even say ‘mama’ yet. They don’t know what a bastard is.”
“That’s not the point! Babies feel everything the mother feels. Don’t you know you have to focus on…” I struggle for a word. “Okay, I can’t think of the word in English, but in Korea, we call it taegyo. When you’re pregnant, you’re only supposed to hear lovely things and think lovely thoughts, so that your babies can grow with love and goodness in your belly. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.” Ivy reaches over and squeezes my hand. “And I think it’s lovely that I’m angry on your behalf and want to kick the terrible human being’s as—um, butt. I wouldn’t want Katherine to meet some guy like that when she grows up, either.”
I sigh. I don’t think Ivy gets it, but then, most Westerners don’t seem to understand the importance of taegyo. My mom made sure Eugene’s wife heard nothing but soothing classical music and read wise words from old philosophers. Absolutely no news was allowed.
And Ivy doesn’t seem to sense my mood. “Back to the rat who took the money and left you. How come I never heard about that?”
I hesitate for a moment. I don’t want to bring back any bad memories for her, but I don’t want to lie about it, either. “It happened while we thought you were, you know…” The word I don’t say is dead.
“Oh,” Ivy says. That was nearly a decade of her life gone. And I’m sure it’s still disconcerting and infuriating to think about.
It’s absolutely fate that Tony found her again and they’re together when everything in their lives conspired to pull them apart.
I add, “And when you were back, you didn’t remember a lot of things, and it just…wasn’t something that came up. Or something I thought was important enough to share out of the blue.”
“I understand.” She sighs softly. “But why do you think Declan would take your mom’s money? It’s not like he needs it. Or does he?”
“Probably not,” I mumble. As far as I know, he doesn’t have a gambling problem or any outrageous spending habits.
“And the men you dated after that jerk didn’t all leave you for money, did they?”
I slump a little. “I didn’t really date seriously after that. It was pretty traumatic. And by the time I was old enough to be married off, I wasn’t going to meet up with some dossier bachelor.”
Maybe the incident meant more than I thought. I chalked it up to stuff that often happens in the chaebol circle. Okay, granted, it is more often done to women who aspire to wealth by marrying a rich guy, but still…
Since then, I’ve been looking for a guy who’ll never leave me. Who’ll always put me above everything and everyone else. Who my family can’t buy with their money and influence.
And I still haven’t found that guy.
“You’re probably right that I’m not open-minded enough about possibilities, but I just… I can’t let myself be that exposed. I don’t want to give a guy—any guy—the chance to hurt me like that again.” I can feel my shoulders droop.
“That’s a very human reaction. Like…” Ivy lowers her voice, like she’s about to confess to a crime when the statute of limitations hasn’t expired. “Tony taught me how to swim, and I know I’m not going to drown now. But when I see a large body of water, I still get that tightness in my chest.”
“Oh, sweetie.” As soon as I can access my funds again, I’m hiring ninjas to throw shuriken into Tony’s mom’s ass. She’s responsible for so many things that went wrong in Ivy and Tony’
s lives, including Ivy’s fear of water. Sharp, pointy things in her ass is the least she deserves.
Ivy gives me a small smile. It’s a signal that she appreciates my reaction and that she’s okay…which still doesn’t do much to soothe my resentment toward Tony’s mom.
“I can’t prevent it from happening,” Ivy begins, “but as soon as I take a deep breath, it eases. So maybe you shouldn’t let your gut reaction stop you from exploring what could be something amazing. I’ve never seen you react this way with any guy before, not even Evgeny. And everybody adored him at Curtis.”
That’s true. He was the hottest violinist at the conservatory, and girls followed him around like flies. I liked him, but never felt any urge to be with him romantically, even though we went out a couple of times. “You think?”
“Yeah. It isn’t like you’re planning on making this job your career. You have your work at the Ivy Foundation. Plus you said it was only until your brother accepted that you’re serious about marrying who you want, not who your family wants.”
She’s right. I don’t have to take what happened today so seriously. And I can be maybe ten percent more open to things with Declan than I’ve been.
It’s like learning to play Chopin’s “Arpeggio” étude. Start slow, then increase the speed by ten percent each time until you can play it correctly at tempo. Why should a relationship be any different? “What would I do without you?”
“Same thing I’d do if you weren’t in my life.” She smiles. “You’re the best friend and sister anybody could hope for, and you’ve been my rock the moment we met. I’m on Team Yuna, and I suspect I’m not the only one.” She reaches over and squeezes my hand.
I squeeze back. “You’re the best.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine