A/N: Once again, I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday, whatever you may be celebrating. Another chapter for you :) The italics at the beginning are a memory.

"Omma, who is that?"

"Madeleine, quit barging into my room like this! What did I tell you about knocking first?"

"Yes, Omma…But Omma, look what I made! You can have it if you want."

"Go do your homework, Madeleine."

"But Omma, I can almost draw as good as you now."

"Madeleine, I told you to go do your homework."

"But I'm already done."

"There's always more studying to do. Now get off of my bed. Go on now. Shoo!"

"But Omma—"

"Fine, Madeleine, give me the damn paper. Now get the hell out of my room. Come on."

"Omma, you're hurting my arm."

"Well, you should learn to listen to your Omma. Life will be a lot less painful for you."

"Omma! Omma, let me in! Omma! Omma!...Omma…"

The hotel they had come to for Woo Bin's birthday far from suited Madeleine's expensive tastes, but at least it served the pair's more immediate need for anonymity and seclusion well enough. She had bought a new fitted strapless black dress for the evening, although they didn't eat out, choosing instead to order room service. Madeleine had picked at the cheap offerings, but Woo Bin had devoured his in short order-a taste he must have developed from hanging out with those two commoner friends he was always talking about, one of whom-she could hardly believe this-was engaged to the Shinwa heir Gu Jun Pyo.

At the moment, they had finished dinner, and he had just sat down on the bed and opened his birthday present from her. Madeleine stood by the window, its beige curtains drawn back to give them a quaint view of the city at night.

Woo Bin had been staring at his birthday present for so long Madeleine thought he must really not like it. He must be coming up with appropriate—

"It's the most beautiful thing anyone's ever given me." He looked up and smiled at her. "Thank you."

"Well, I didn't have time to buy anything, but I painted that recently and thought you might like it." The painting she had given him depicted the Han river at night with the reflection of the city's tall buildings and bright lights reflected in the dark water. There were shadow figures, too, of people walking along the riverbank, bright patches of color dotting their silhouettes at intervals.

Woo Bin set the painting down on the bed with a final admiring look, then turned toward her with that same gentle expression.

Crossing her arms, she shifted her weight to her other leg and looked out the window.

She hated it when he looked at her like that-all longing and trust. Too much trust.

After they had met at the construction site, she had hardly been able to walk from one building to another at school without seeing him or—once—literally running into him. At first, he never said anything to her, but sometimes their eyes would meet, and she would see amusement in his eyes as he gazed at her with such an intensity that she would always have to look away first.

Finally, one day she forgot her umbrella and made the mistake of taking him up on his offer to drive her over to her car at the end of the university parking lot. He had asked her out that day and had been firmly rejected.

So he asked her out again the next day. And the next and the next.

When it had become abundantly clear that he would not give up, she'd finally given in and gone out with him. Once. Then twice. Then again and again. She refused to think of their outings as dates—diversions maybe, distractions from some not-so-distant reality that awaited them, but certainly not dates.

Never mind that she now had his number on speed dial.

Never mind that they celebrated each other's birthdays and occasionally took weekend trips together.

Never mind that she spent the night at his apartment two or three times a week. It wasn't like she slept over just to be sleeping there, she rationalized. She wasn't a virgin when she'd met him, and she certainly wasn't one now. He probably had other girls over when she wasn't there, she reasoned, knowing that wasn't true. It was all anyone could talk about, the notorious Don Juan's absence from Seoul nightlife. The two of them went to clubs occasionally, of course, but usually lower end places where they would be less likely to be recognized or run into someone they knew.

She wouldn't want anyone to misunderstand, although from the look on Woo Bin's face reflected in the window glass she could tell she was already failing at that in the worst way possible.

"Madeleine, don't you think we should talk about us now?"

Her shoulders tensed. She didn't move.

"I'm serious. We—"

"I didn't wear this dress so we could sit here talking, Woo Bin Song."

She turned so that the front of the dress faced him for a much fuller effect.

"Madeleine." Woo Bin stood up and made as if to approach her, that dead serious expression still on his face.

"Woo Bin Song." Madeleine leaned her shoulders and head against the window so that her body arched out at an angle.

"Madeleine, I don't just want to bed you every couple of nights. I actually care about you. You know that, right?"

She smiled sweetly and raised her eyebrows.

"I know you take very good care of me."

He seemed to take that as encouragement to continue, and he moved in closer and put his hands on her shoulders.

"Madeleine, we could go out for real. Quit all this sneaking around. I've been wanting to introduce you to my friends for a while now. You'll like them, and I know they'll be excited to meet you."

Madeleine just smiled again, hoping he'd drop the subject like he always did when he realized she wasn't interested.

"Madeleine." Woo Bin brushed back a few of the long, soft curls that fell over her shoulders. "I really like you."

His gaze had such an intensity to it, but it wasn't desire. Desire she could deal with. Desire she could control and manipulate to her advantage.

No, the light in his eyes held something deeper and larger and much more terrifying.

"I want you to be my girlfriend. My only girlfriend. Just us."

"It is just the two of us here."

He dropped his hand.

"That's not what I mean. I want to do the right thing by you."

Oh god, couldn't he just leave it alone? She'd already had a crappy week after learning that her mother wanted her to come back to France for a month. She didn't need a morality lecture right now. She needed sex. A lot of it.

"Woo Bin-ah." Her voice had an annoyed edge to it she hoped he didn't miss. "I like us the way we are. I'm not asking you to do anything." She lowered her voice and spoke sweetly again as she placed her hands on his chest. "Although there are some things I'd like to do to you." Tugging at his shirt, she succeeded in drawing him closer.

When she spoke again, it was in English: "Come on, Woo Bin-ah. I only bought this dress so I could take it off for you." Reaching behind her, she unzipped her dress down to her pantyline, and it fell off of her, liberating the lacy lingerie underneath—a one-piece strapless black lace basque with solid black material over the breasts and sheer black lace the rest of the way down her torso and between her thighs. A little opening on her lower abdomen showed just the tiniest sliver of bare skin, tantalizing in its singularity.

"The question is, can you take the rest of this off?" She ran her fingertips down his chest and stomach, stopping once she reached the waistband of his pants. "Woo Bin Song." His name rolled off the tip of her tongue like beats on a xylophone.

He didn't say anything though she could feel him heating up. Honestly, she liked him better when he teased her, when their verbal back and forth spilled over into an equally passionate night of pleasure. But she had dealt with Woo Bin's moods before whenever he started getting too many ideas about their relationship, and she could certainly deal with him now.

Inching the top of her basque down rather perceptibly, she looked straight up into his eyes and reached for his belt.

Her fingers had just touched the cold metal of the buckle when he grabbed at her hands and flung them away from him. He backed away from the window, away from her, into the center of the room and sat down on the bed. An irritated expression had come over his face, and in a cold voice he told her to get dressed, that he would drop her off at her apartment.

Madeleine straightened up.

"But…but we just—"

"Damn it, Madeleine, why don't you just tell me the truth?!" He stood up so abruptly that Madeleine jumped a little and pressed one hand against the window glass for support.

"The—the truth about what?" Oh, great. Now she had made him angry. She knew Woo Bin would never hurt her, but she still didn't like it when he got mad because it took forever for him to calm back down. Plus, he looked absolutely terrifying, and she had a feeling she wouldn't like to be a gang member on the other end of his fist.

"Just tell me you don't want to go out with me. Just tell me you wouldn't be my girlfriend even if hell froze over."

Madeleine frowned. Now she wasn't sure what he was getting at.

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't want to be seen with me. You don't want to be associated with me. You don't want your family's good name tainted with mine."

"Oh, what the hell, Woo Bin-ah?"

"It makes perfect sense now. You just want to get off on screwing with danger. Tell me, Ms. Yi, do I excite you? I suppose after we're both married off, you'll still want to have these secret…how do you say it…rendezvous?"

"You're out of your mind."

"You're right. I am out of my mind. I'm out of my mind for thinking any member of the high and mighty Yi family would accept someone with my connections."

"Is that what this is about? Your mafia connections? It's funny. I don't remember ever bringing that up."

"Then why won't you answer my question? Why won't you consider us?"

"You approached me, remember? I didn't ask for this!"

"Yeah, like you're not asking for it now."

"Stop it."

"What do you want from me, Madeleine Yi? You want me to sit at home like an obedient little dog waiting for its Master? Waiting for you to call and tell me when you want to see me this week? When and how and where. Just the two of us. It's always just the two of us. You're damn right about that."

"I don't know, okay?!" Madeleine snapped. "I don't know what to tell you!" Brushing past him, she moved away from the window. Grabbing his dark brown leather jacket off one of the lounge chairs opposite the bed, she slipped it over her shoulders and slumped down into the chair. She meant to get angry with him in return or at the very least succeed in ignoring him, but just the scent of his cologne on his jacket collar had a calming effect on her, and after a few moments she was able to speak again in a much more rational tone.

"Look, it's not because of your family, okay? You know as well as I do that people in our world can't just decide they're going to be with someone and have everyone be okay with it, regardless of who that someone is."

"Madeleine, I think even commoners have that problem."

"You know what I mean."

"I'm not saying that we have to go public with it or something like that. I just meant I'd like us to at least have an understanding between us. So I could introduce you to my friends. Whatever happens after that, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Just one thing at a time."

He walked over and held out his hand to her like they were at a business meeting, like she wasn't barely clothed and draped across the chair in a rather risqué fashion. For a moment, she just stared at his hand. She knew she'd be signing her own death warrant if she took it.

So like the fool she knew she was, she grasped it and let him pull her up and wrap his arms around her, his jacket collapsing onto the carpet. Then she let him take her like she knew he'd been aching to do all evening, his name becoming a hollow echo in her mouth until she mercifully forgot her own.