A/N: Apologies for the two-month delay. Please don't hurt me...Thanks to those who began following this in my absence, and, as always, thanks so much for the reviews! Enjoy :)

She'd changed the lock to her apartment.

Woo Bin didn't know why he felt slighted by this, but it felt worse than everything else she had done up to that moment. The finality of it.

Thankfully, he knew a thing or two about breaking and entering and quickly got himself inside Madeleine's apartment without much trouble.

The place had been trashed. For someone who prided herself so much on her squeaky clean appearance, her apartment had taken an uncharacteristic hit in the cleanliness department. Forcing himself not to disturb the numerous empty alcohol bottles lying around, he found her laptop where she'd always kept it and copied the files over, noting a few encrypted folders he needed to check out once he got home. Then he scanned the apartment for any evidence of what her and/or her father might be plotting, or, even better, something he could use for an easy scandal. She was the enemy now.

He had to remember that.

She was the enemy. She always had been.

Yi Jeong couldn't remember the last time he'd been inside his grandfather's house, its earthy, antique decor a far cry from his own thoroughly modernized apartment. When he'd arrived, a light lunch had already been prepared, and the large, circular, wrought iron table on the veranda had been furnished with an array of cutlery, pink and white floral arrangements, delicately shaped napkins, and spotless wine glasses flawlessly arranged on a single white tablecloth. Ever the king in his castle, his grandfather sat overlooking the vast gardens in the backyard. Unsurprisingly, the walking cane his grandfather used to get around the house was nowhere to be seen. Signs of weakness were a sore point with him, and as he fought the inevitable toll of age on his body, he had only made concessions to them within the privacy of his own home. Yi Jeong imagined he would not like to make a spectacle of his physical frailty in front of their guests.

Not bothering to disturb the old man, Yi Jeong waited in the foyer until the expected guests arrived. His father strode in first, snidely remarking to Yi Jeong what a pleasant afternoon he expected them all to have before heading toward his grandfather's study for what Yi Jeong suspected was his pre-lunch drink. For once, his father's bleak sarcasm didn't bother him. At least around him Yi Jeong didn't have to pretend to be happy about the whole affair.

In the meantime, he had a role to play.

When Madeleine and her parents arrived a few minutes later, he put on his most agreeable smile as they greeted one another. He took Madeleine's hand and kissed it. Her perfume was sharp, womanly, expensive, and very unlike the light floral scents Ga Eul preferred.

Leading Madeleine out to the veranda, he complimented her on her artwork and told her how befitting it was that the woman who created it was just as lovely, and Madeleine didn't blush or stammer. She didn't look starstruck or angry or put out.

Instead, she complimented him in turn, in that casually flirtatious way women who knew the score did. She, like he, had been raised to be charming, and, at first glance, she seemed quite at ease with herself and with the current developments. He looked forward to figuring her out.

Fortunately, Madeleine carried much of their initial conversation along by asking him about the exhibition plans. It had been a long time since he'd consciously tried to be charming. Over his years in Sweden, he and Ga Eul had developed an easy banter with one another, and she had so much genuine affection for him that his practiced seduction was unnecessary, inadequate even. Even if it was just an act for today—well, what had it always been if not an act?—it still felt strange to him, like putting on an old suit that didn't fit anymore. He knew Ga Eul would say, in that wise, all-knowing voice of hers, that he had simply grown out it.

"So, Yi Jeong, how did you like Sweden?" Seong Jae interrupted Yi Jeong's recounting of the exhibition's itinerary.

Turning his attention to the gentleman seated across the table, Yi Jeong replied, "Sweden was quite charming. I think I grew in many ways there. It was a great place to study the arts and the art of business. Of course, nothing compares to Paris."

"You've been to France a few times, haven't you?"

"Mm, about five or six, but the first time I was two years old, so I hardly think that counts." Seong Jae laughed at that—an unaffected laugh—and Yi Jeong decided to try his luck at fishing out the man's motives.

"Forgive me for not asking before, but what brings you back to Korea after all these years? I know you've done quite well for yourself abroad."

"Ah, does one need a reason to return one's homeland?" Seong Jae gestured dramatically to the gardens beyond them, the sleeve of his fitted grey suit crinkling, then falling smoothly back into place. I had always planned to return, but reestablishing myself here has taken a bit longer than I'd imagined. I'm just grateful to your grandfather for his partnership, and, dare I say, friendship."

"Partnership?" Yi Jeong asked.

"It's another matter," Yi Jeong's grandfather interrupted. "I wanted us to discuss it after the exhibition is over."

"Of course," Seong Jae conceded. "Why all this talk about business when we should be celebrating?"

Yi Jeong raised his glass.

"To the success of the exhibition."

"To great success." Seong Jae clinked his glass against Yi Jeong's, and the others followed suit.

So Yeong-cheol eyed his grandson with interest from the head of the table. Though he wasn't totally buying the contented expression on Yi Jeong's face, he did have it on good authority that his grandson had broken up with his commoner girlfriend the day before, the latter being reduced to a blubbering mess in front of her apartment building. It had been quite a scene, his sources told him—his grandson storming out of the complex, her chasing after him all sobs and hysteria, getting off at least one good slap on his cheek. Well, it was all the better for her to get it out of her system. If she made a public scene later, it was a mere trifle to deal with her, but it was something he'd rather not be bothered with at the moment. There were much larger issues to be dealt with. Yi Seong Jae might think he had him backed into a corner, but at least when they were family, a fall for the So family would mean a fall for the Yi family too. Seong Jae was smart but relatively new money. Added to that, he had been out of the country for over half his life, and that could definitely work to Yeong-cheol's advantage in the future. He'd worked too hard building up the museum's legacy, and his family's esteem, to watch it crumble around him like a quivering mass of pottery shards in an earthquake.

What was her ambitious fool of a husband getting himself into now? So Ri's ears had perked up at the word 'partnership' even though her eyes had remained on her salad.

So Ri had sworn on her life she'd never come back to the So mansion. The fact was she'd rather go to her grave than sit across from the man who had single-handedly destroyed her life, exchanging demure pleasantries with him like they were old friends.

Madeleine—of course, Madeleine—had brought up that she and Hyun Sub had attended college together, and So Ri had picked at her appetizer as So Yeong-cheol waxed eloquently about the artistic merits of an acclaimed artist they had both had as a professor. Though Yeong-cheol's speech painted the man as a saint, So Ri remembered the professor's temper, mostly—how he'd fly off the handle at the tiniest mistake, how one time Hyun Sub had gotten clubbed behind the ear for talking back to him after he'd severely insulted So Ri's latest work. It was, perhaps, the bravest display she'd ever seen Hyun Sub put on. Where his father was concerned, she'd had no such luck.

And now her husband wanted her to move back to the same damned city as the old man, where she'd get to attend frivolous dinner parties with the same women who'd looked down their noses at her all through high school and college. When she'd questioned Seong Jae on his intentions, he'd mentioned something vague about wanting to reconnect with his country and his culture after so many years abroad. He'd had a few challenges re-establishing himself in Korea, but artistic patrons, especially for places of national importance, were not to be ignored. No doubt, connections with the So family were not to be ignored either. The So's were old money, minted out of the richest earth centuries ago. So Ri's own father—may he rest in peace—was a self-made man, and her grandfather had been a school teacher in a rural town whose population could probably fit comfortably inside the So's precious museum.

At least she'd married up, So Ri thought bitterly. So Yeong-cheol had to respect her for that, and she bet it was killing him to welcome her into his home after all these years.

Or, perhaps not, she thought, as he smiled indifferently at her and recommended an hor d'oeuvre to her and her husband. Pausing, he suddenly commented on how good it was to see her at his table again.

"Perhaps I will have the pleasure of seeing you more often now that you have returned from Europe?"

Perhaps he would have the pleasure of feeling her nails on his throat as she choked him to death, So Ri thought. She smiled, not trusting herself to say anything, and nodded. The last time she had been at his table, she had been humiliated and told to never show her face in front of him again...and some things even worse, that horrible secret that she'd carried inside of her all this time.

She didn't know if she was being punished for the sin she'd wanted to commit or for the sin she had not.

The dark clouds that had been threatening rain all morning finally burst as the luncheon party finished their main course in the glass-enclosed veranda. Hyun Sub wished the rain's low thrum could drown out the chaos in his mind. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, he'd been rattled by So Ri's sudden reappearance. She was the reason he hated himself, and he hated her for it. Or maybe he still loved her, damn fool that he was. Now he found himself seated across from her at this faux happy family gathering with his future in-laws while the old man reigned over the proceedings like a king showing off to his court. The finest white and gold china had been set out for the occasion, the dishes of which he had always found too shallow to hold any meaningful portion of food, especially as a young man growing up in this house. It was here under a cherry tree he had stolen his first kiss with So Ri after school. They had been assigned to work on a project together, and over the course of several weeks his attraction to her grew until he couldn't help himself. He had to ask her out. In retrospect, he could see the traits that had attracted him to her as those which he himself had always lacked—a strong will and a determined spirit, coupled with a quiet beauty only enhanced by her innocent way of looking at the world. It would seem to be those qualities that had attracted his own son to his commoner girlfriend, the one whose name he could never forget after she put Yi Jeong in his place in a restaurant some years before.

'Was he really giving up so easily?' Hyun Sub wondered as he glanced at Yi Jeong, who was conversing quite candidly with Madeleine's father on the subject of foreign art acquisitions. His greeting to Madeleine and her parents had been surprisingly warm and cordial, while Hyun Sub had been as stiff as possible without being rude.

Hyun Sub would yield to power. He always did, but damned if he would act happy about it. His initial affairs had been mostly to get back at his father and only secondarily to fill the void that had been So Ri. Yi Jeong's mother—he couldn't bear to think of her by name nowadays—had been collateral damage. Who could have known she would actually fall for him despite how horribly he treated her? Little did she know that they were now living in the same hell as sitting here across from him was the man who for over two decades had shared a bed with his first love, his only love, who, unlike him, hadn't managed to entirely hide her distaste for the gathering.

"I see not a lot has changed at the old house," So Ri announced, sipping on her glass of red wine. Her comment was directed at Hyun Sub's father, and a hush fell over the table.

"The cherry trees are gone," Hyun Sub replied, opening his mouth before he could stop himself. So Ri glanced at him, and he thought he saw the tiniest blush tint her cheeks.

So Yeong-cheol appeared unfazed.

"Well, sometimes one thing must be cut down to make way for new growth," he commented lightly. "And speaking of new growth, Seong Jae, may I congratulate you on the success of your new resort. We shall have to organize a small trip there to celebrate and get to know each other more intimately."

"You would be my esteemed guests." Seong Jae smiled good-naturedly, too jovially for Hyung Sub's taste.

"To the prosperity of both our houses." Seong Jae raised his glass.

"Yes...and to the blossoming of young love," So Ri added, raising her glass, her eyes boring into the old man's.

So Yeong-cheol reached over and clinked his glass against hers as the others began toasting each other politely.

"To young love," he repeated.

Hyung Sub lifted his own glass carelessly and let the others batter it at will.