The Contract: Sunshine (16 page)

Of course she argued how unnecessary it was considering it wasn’t a real marriage.  He didn’t know why, but each time she reminded him that their marriage was a farce, it just pissed him off.

“Is there a reason why we’re doing it differently this time with the Tokyo offices?”  His assistant interrupted his private thoughts.

“I don’t want anyone trying to buy more time on this deal by pretending they didn’t get the final draft agreements.  This is too important,” Yoon replied.

“Oh yeah, your mother has left several messages.  She said something must be wrong with your phone because she is going straight to voice mail.”

“I will call her,” Yoon murmured. 
Later
.
  Much later
.

“Also, the phones have been flooded with calls from reporters all morning.  How do you wish for us to handle it?  Did you want me to have the Public Relations Department type up something to hand out?”

Jamal asked while standing aside instinctively putting his arms across the elevator door slot as Yoon stepped out of the elevator into the corridor with him following close on his heels.

“What’s the deal with the reporters?”  Yoon scowled.  “Did they do another article about us in the financial magazine?  They didn’t get wind of the crisis in the Tokyo office did they?”

He walked through the busy outer office on his way to his office and received several, “Mr. Young, congratulations, sir!”

He nodded to his grinning enthusiastic employees.  Hopefully Jamal could give him a rundown on what was going on around here. 

Hurrying into his office he instructed Jamal to shut the door and close the curtains that opened to view the outer office activities.

Jamal did as he was instructed and poured Yoon coffee, black with two sugars in his personal coffee mug and placed it on his desk in front of him.

“Sit,” Yoon barked.  “Tell me what’s going on around here this morning.  What am I being congratulated for exactly?”

“Why your marriage, of course,” Jamal beamed.  “Congratulations, sir!”

Yoon’s thick black eyebrows slashed together in a deep scowl.  How did they find out and why would the media be interested in who he married?

His lawyer was the only one that had been privy to his and Sunshine’s nuptials.  Yoon immediately dismissed him as being the one to leak the news because he’d had this particular lawyer taking care of his affairs for years and paid him too well for him to be so careless about his personal business.

Yoon’s thoughts drifted to the only other person that knew what had taken place last night.  Could Sunshine have gone behind his back after agreeing it would be best to wait until he told his family before she broke the news to her own?  Would her true colors start to show?  Had she agreed so readily to this marriage because she has her own agenda?

He dismissed that idea also.  If Sunshine wanted something out of all of this, it wasn’t his money.  She had readily agreed on having a prenuptial agreement and to his amazement declined the generous amount he had allotted for her troubles. 

However, Yoon insisted on a compensation for her helping him, regardless of her protest.  He had the lawyer include the stipulated amount and even though it wasn’t as generous as he was prepared to pay her, it was generous enough to give her a few years of the independence she craved until she could figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

Even now as he replayed last evening in his mind, he couldn’t understand how a woman that was practically homeless with only three suitcases of clothing and nothing else to her name be so damned prideful?  She should be taking full advantage of him and her situation.  It wasn’t like he hadn’t expected at least that much. 

He’d learned a long time ago the world was made up of “users,” including the ones you trusted to put your welfare before all others.  The first time Yoon had learned about betrayal started with his parents pushing aside his happiness for their own. 

Yoon had fallen in love with a girl he met in school.  However his parents had other plans for him.  He was duty bound as the only son to marry the woman they had chosen for him and all his illusions he had that his parents supported him and his decisions one hundred percent were shattered.

Sunshine not wanting anything from him was refreshing; except now he did wonder about the one thing she had insisted upon.  She had said the only way she would marry him would be they had to remain married for one year, no matter what.  Even if she or he were to fall in love with someone else during that first year of marriage, they had to follow it through until the end.

He didn’t have a problem with her request.  He just wondered why a year?  Why not six months or two years?  It was another thing he hoped within time as she came to trust him more, she would share more about herself with him.  

Yoon had agreed to the year with a stipulation of his own added to it.  He expected complete fidelity to their marriage.  He wouldn’t have a woman carrying his name bringing shame upon his family by sleeping with other men.  She agreed with some silly counter of, “What was good for the goose was good for the gander.” 

He took that to mean if she couldn’t cheat he couldn’t either.  Never being one to be promiscuous or sleep around on his mistresses in the past, he had no problem agreeing.  As a matter of fact, he got some warped sense of satisfaction knowing for one year she was all his.

“Jamal, how did everyone find out about my marriage?  It just took place last night and it was a private affair with only the bride, my lawyer, the justice of peace and me.”  He kept the anger out of his voice.  It wasn’t his assistant’s fault that the news had gotten out before he had the chance to speak with his parents.

“It’s all over the news,” Jamal answered.

“I don’t see how my marriage is big enough news to warrant media attention.  Who would care?  A brief notation in some financial magazine I understand, but...”

“You’re joking right?”  Jamal interrupted him with a chuckle.  “You marry this particular sister...I’m sorry, sir.”  He cleared his throat and began again.  “You marry one of the most eligible African American women in the world and think no one is going to notice or care to report it?”

Yoon’s mouth dropped wide.  “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Did you or did you not marry the
Dupree Food’s Heiress
last night in Las Vegas?”  Jamal questioned with his smile dying into a frown of confusion.

Oh my God
.  Yoon thought.  The minister and his wife must have noticed Sunshine’s name on the marriage license and assumed she was the heiress.  No reason she lied so easily about being the heiress.  All her life people probably made the assumption based on her name without any effort on her part.

What on earth was her crazy mother thinking naming her after a person still alive using their own name?  Maybe that was the point.  Maybe Sunshine’s mother uses her to swindle others into believing she was the heiress.  Was that why that preacher fellow left without paying?  Was he told by her mother she was an heiress, therefore she could well afford to pay for her own meal?  All of this was crazy and he had to find a way to clear the mess up.

“No, I did not marry the Dupree Heiress,” Yoon laughed and scratched his head.  “This is crazy.”

“I don’t know how crazy it is, but the publicity has been good for business,” Jamal blurted.  “Since the news hit, you’ve had investors calling left and right wanting to invest in any future projects that may come open.”

“You must be kidding me?”  Yoon knew his expression had to be one of incredulous disbelief.  “All of this because people think I married an heiress?”

“Not just any heiress, mind you,” Jamal stated.  “An heiress with a very wealthy influential grandmother that would happen to be your new grandmother-in law.”

“Oh no,” Yoon groaned.  “Mrs. Dupree hasn’t called yet, has she?  I’m lucky if I don’t lose her as a client after this. 
Shit.
”  He sighed.  “She will think I deliberately set out to use her good name by marrying a woman that happened to have the same name as her granddaughter.”

“Huh?”

“I was so busy thinking about my personal situation, I didn’t think about...”  Yoon shook his head.  His thumbs popped against his fingers.  “The only thing I can do is release pictures of me and my wife with a brief statement to correct the misunderstanding.  Once the public see her, they will know the truth.”

“Am I missing something here, sir, or have you gone crazy?”

Yoon was surprised to hear Jamal speak to him this way.  He was usually so formal, even when Yoon requested he call him by his first name since they’ve been working together for over five years.

“Excuse me?”  Was all Yoon could think to say.

“Now, I think I’m the one that’s confused,” Jamal muttered.  He stood and walked across the room and lifted the remote control from the coffee table in the sitting area of Yoon’s office. 

He cut on the wall size television screen that remained on CNN for the most part and there was a running caption across the bottom of the screen, his name tied to wedded bliss with the
Dupree Food’s Heiress
.

“Why would CNN report something without verifying it first with the parties involved?”  Yoon yelled.  “Has the entire world become so desperate for news they’d take anything at face value these days?”

“Give it a moment,” Jamal said.  “They will run the story in a minute and they have pictures of the heiress.  Looks like they had used the pictures you’d taken for that Forbes magazine article.  Anyway, you tell me if the pictures they have of the heiress is the woman you married or not.”

“Jamal, you think I wouldn’t know if I married...”  Yoon’s voice faded into silence as the story led in with what they called: 
A rare picture of a very beautiful and elegantly dressed Heiress Sunshine Dupree with the grand lady, her grandmother, Matriarch Sophia Dupree taken two years ago at a charity function in Africa.

Either the entire world had been duped or he had to be the world’s biggest idiot.  Would it be easier to tell everyone he didn’t know she was the heiress, or would it be easier to tell them he had been a man desperate enough to marry a woman he assumed was a liar?  Neither option painted him in a competent light.

Once the truth came out, he would be lucky to have one single client left.  No one would believe that he didn’t set out to swindle people into allowing his agency to manage their millions.

***

Sunshine’s newly charged cell phone was ringing nonstop.  Her mother had called numerous times leaving messages.  Sunshine could swear she heard the champagne cork popping in the background.

Her grandmother called once.  She left no message.  She wouldn’t.  For her grandmother, the call itself was the message.  Whenever Nana Sophia called, there was no question of if she would have to call a second time or not.  She would not and you don’t wait to find out what happens if you don’t return her call.

Sunshine planned on returning her call, just not at the moment.  She had other things to worry about for now; such as Yoon was ringing her again.  Now this was call number eight and this time he appeared to have left a message.

She worried her bottom lip as she stared at the phone on the sofa table at Yoon’s and now her resident.   Lifting the phone from the table, she pressed to dial her voice mail and listened.

“I’m on my way home and you better be at the house when I get there.”  CLICK!

Well
, she thought. 
That was short and to the point.  I guess the honeymoon is over before it started
.

Why was he so upset?   It wasn’t her fault he imagined her as some opportunist looking for a handout rather than believing she was who she said she was.  True, she could have made an effort to show him on his computer she was who she said she was.  She didn’t take pictures often, but she was sure there had to be at least the one they showed a hundred times with her on a rare outing with her grandmother on the different news channels.  Why did people even care about who was marrying whom these days?

She knew why.  People love a good fairytale story about the wealthy.  No one wanted the truth; that she was a homeless heiress with a grandmother determined to prove her point and a mother who was in between rich husbands.

Sunshine groaned.  Her face dropped into her hands as she fretted about what to do next.  From what she could tell about Yoon so far, he was a private man with a life far removed from the socialite affairs she was expected to attend but rarely ever did.

Now that she was married, no doubt her grandmother would assume she’d learned her lesson and therefore restore her credit cards and up her monthly siphon from her trust fund.

By now she was sure Nana Sophia knew everything there was to know about Yoon Young and his family.   The only thing Sunshine could do for Yoon is annul the marriage before her grandmother made it her personal mission to “discreetly” destroy all that he and his family owned.

The only way to make her grandmother not feel slighted enough to want to go on the warpath against Yoon and his family was to take all the blame on her own shoulders.  She would tell her the truth. Yoon married her not knowing who she was and that is what made her like him even more.  If her grandmother wanted to be angry at someone, she rather it be her.  It won’t be the first time Sunshine had disappointed her.