The Contract: Sunshine (7 page)

If Yoon hadn’t been so immersed in his own thoughts he would have noticed the woman he was kissing heatedly mere moments ago wasn’t feeling as amicable as she was when he held her in his arms.

“
Unfitting
?”  He heard Sunshine say and turned his head to look over at her standing by his side. 

She’s not looking happy for a woman that just earned a free meal, a thousand dollars and that one night stand if she seriously wanted it
.  That kiss was one for the records.  But he was no idiot.  He simply said, “Eh?”  

“I thought I had a mom with issues, but yours definitely got some serious snobbery issues,” she elaborated.

“Now wait a minute!”  Yoon felt rightfully offended.

“You tell your mother Yoon Young that believe it or not, as perfect as she may think you are...you can’t kiss worth a damn.”  She huffed.  “Un-fitting, if you’re not a Korean woman?  What kind of nonsense is that!  I can’t believe you would repeat such a thing and in such colorful company.”  She turned on her heels and started walking away from him”

“Hey!”

She didn’t slow down.  She just yelled over her shoulder at him, “My Nana Sophia probably would think
you
aren’t good enough for me.” 

Momentarily stumped that Sunshine would get upset at
him
for only repeating something his mother said, he stood there looking at her stiff back as she marched ahead.

Yoon shoved his hands in the pockets of his black trousers and rocked back on his heels.  His thumbs popped.  His dark eyes fell to her tight little bottom; the short, fitted suit jacket not distracting his view from its peach shape.  She walked past the door of the restaurant.

Where was she going
?  He wondered.   She still had no money or means of getting home this late at night.  He needed to go back inside to take care of her bill, retrieve his credit card and have the maître make sure Leslie got her phone back this evening.

Okay, I don’t have time for any more games this evening.  If Sunshine Dupree doesn’t turn around right this second and march her sweet shapely bottom back here, I’m going to finish up here and leave her. 

Yoon looked at his watch.  It was nearing midnight and he had a conference video call to Japan at one a.m. his time zone.

Damn
.  Sunshine had helped him.  True she started to tell Leslie the truth at the end, but she did go along in the beginning and he was a man of his word.  With another curse he went after her.

No ride like a piggyback ride...

Sunshine had not seen that kiss coming.  True she was about to tell the other woman the truth about not being Yoon Young’s fiancée, but he didn’t have to kiss her like that. 
What was he thinking?
  Hell, what was she thinking by kissing him back!?

She stopped and looked around. 
Where the hell am I
?  Damn her temper.  How was she going to get home?  She still had no money and her cell phone battery was dead.  At this point, the way her evening was going she might as well go back to the restaurant and turn herself in.  Going to jail would mean she would at least get one phone call, but it could also mean the end to her current freedom.  No matter how cumbersome it was lately, it was better than a tiny jail cell. 

This pitiful night was no one’s fault but her mother’s.  She was determined to make her life miserable until she married and settled down.

“Where are you going?”

Sunshine turned at the sound of a deep masculine voice that had become all too familiar too soon. 

“What are you doing, stalking me now?”  She snapped, immediately irritated by his unexpected appearance.

“You did your part and now it’s time for me to hold up my end of the deal,” he announced.  “Come.  I will pay your bill, pickup my credit card and then take you home.”

“I don’t need you to take me home,” Sunshine huffed.  She shifted her weight from one throbbing heel to the other.

Yoon cocked one dark brow in a vaguely inquisitive fashion looking pointedly at her feet. 
“You aren’t going to make it to the end of this block in those heels.”

“I will take them off when I can’t take the pain anymore,” she countered.  “But for now, I’ve only got about two hundred dollars worth of wear out of them.”

“Don’t be childish, Sunshine.”

“I’m okay.  Go away.”

“Liar.”  He waited.

“Okay.  I admit I’m tired and frustrated and mostly pissed that I let you kiss me like that,” she found herself admitting.

“I like that much better,” he nodded.  “I think from now on honesty should always be your first choice when you speak to me because I always find out the truth.”

“As if I care what you think,” she muttered. 

His black brows slammed together and those elongated eyes nearly closed as he regarded her without a speck of amusement. 

A warning voice whispered in her head...
Dummy, just be nice to the guy; you really do need a ride home
.

“You may not care what I think, but I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do and the rest is up to you,” he spoke in clipped tones.

“I--”

“Nope, don’t speak.” he interrupted.  “Just listen to me.  If you insist on acting like a pouty brat, I’m going to treat you like one.

Sunshine silently smirked.  She was wrong.  Her Nana Sophia would like Yoon very much.  She would say he was the type of man that knew how to handle his business and most of all she would agree with him about her acting like a brat.  That was something her grandmother always said to her just before she gave her a vocal dressing down.

She got the feeling Yoon Young was about to give her a vocal dressing down.

“Do you have any idea what my time is worth?  Can you imagine how much you would owe me if I were to charge you for the time it has taken me to chase you down?”

“I—”

“I said don’t speak,” he chastised.

“Well stop asking me questions!”  She yelled.

The corners of his mouth twitched.  He cleared his throat and shoved his hands in his pockets.  
Pop
.   He wasn’t as cool as he wanted her to think he was.

She suppressed the nervous giggle that arose in the back of her throat knowing he wouldn’t be too appreciative of her humor at the moment.

“I’m not going to chase you down in the dark alleys of Washington waiting to be robbed or killed.”  He removed his hands from his pockets, caught her by the elbow and steered her in the direction from which he came.

It was the third time he’d manhandled her and she was about tired of it!  She slapped his hand away and clambered for something smart ass to say, but just like before he wasn’t hearing it.

“Sunshine, if you want what you’ve already earned then you better keep up with me or I’m leaving you behind and you can consider my debt paid in full.
”

She didn't like his tone one bit, but she'd developed patience for dealing with attitudes since working at
Dupree Foods
as a cashier.  So she decided to overlook it.

“Call me cab,” Sunshine said nicely.  “My cell phone battery is dead and I can pay him out of the thousand dollars you offered me.”

“Afraid not.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”  He paused to look at her.  “Besides, I don’t carry that much cash with me.  I will take you home.”

Silently she fretted as she doubled her steps to keep up with his stride. 

A couple of times she stumbled but each time he was there to catch her and steady her again.  At least after the second stumble, he slowed his agitated stride.

As they continued to make their way back to the
Piccolo
Belli
s
sima,
she checked out the broadness of his back.  A
lthough he wasn't overly muscle-bound, he appeared to have the hard, sinewy physique of someone that took great care of his body.  Either that, or like her, he had good genes that allowed him to be frivolous and hearty in appetite wit
h
out a care.  Several of her friends hated her for her metabolism.

Reflectively she thought...Yoon definitely had a tailor to fashion his clothes perfectly.  His fitted dinner suit was the latest Japanese f
a
shion.  She saw it on the runway during the spring in Milan. 

Wow, had it only been a few months since she was living richly and spending mummy darling’s current hubby’s generosity because they thought she was going to eventually earn her own fortune?  Little did they know her mother was not the Dupree heiress they had thought they managed to snag and the fact that Sunshine was, is a family secret that allows her mother to still receive a yearly allotment from her father’s e
s
tate.  Any normal woman could live from check to check off that large allotment, but not the several times removed
Myrna Shaw Dupree.

The thoughts of her mother depressed her even more.  She dreaded the conversation she knew was coming in regards to the preac
h
er.  No telling how many times she’d already called her.  Sunshine su
p
posed there was something wonderful about a cellular phone with a dead battery. 

She secretly admired Yoon’s body while he wasn’t loo
k
ing.   Looking at him, she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why she ne
v
er wanted to visit Asia during her travels.  Oh yeah, she remembered now.  Each time she suggested it to her friends they didn’t want to go because it would be too boring when there were no
hot
men to choose from like in Italy and Paris.

Her girlfriends, the same ones that were nowhere to be found now that she was on “income restriction,” had whined and giggled that Asian men were too short; too skinny; too timid; oh and the dreaded...penis too small theory.  They had to be bad lovers, they would say.

What Sunshine never understood about that theory was...if Asian men were such bad lovers why were the Asian countries the ones with the most people?  There were over one point three billion in China alone last year.  In fact, they had a shortage of women.

Wouldn’t that mean some women were enjoying sex with Asian men?  The stereotyping about Asian men was probably made up by those women that were having sex with them so they wouldn’t have to share them with the rest of the world. 

Sunshine snickered at her own reasoning.  Yoon glanced back at her in question and she shook her head looking away from his face.  He was too damn attractive for his own good.  It was because of him she was thinking these thoughts and feeling all scrumptious inside.

Now that she was given the opportunity to appreciate an Asian man that lived within her own realm of possibilities, she would never listen to her friends again when they were making plans to go abroad.  That is if she ever could afford to do so again while she was still young enough to appreciate it.  If her family has their way, she would be ma
r
ried and having babies by spring of next year.

“I can’t believe you’ve managed to remain quiet this long,” Yoon’s deep voice interrupted her ponderings.

“Miss my voice, do you?”  She released an inward groan.  Why did everything she say to him have to be so confrontational?  She had no desire to leave him with a bad impression of her.  She actually would like to spend this time knowing more about him before he kicked her out of his car and never wanted to set eyes on her again.

“Ah, now I remember why I told you to be quiet,” he muttered.  “Go back to what you were doing.”

I can’t!
  Sunshine wanted to scream at him. 
When I’m alone with my thoughts all I can do is think about you and that kiss.  The feel of your hard body molded against mine.  Geeze!

When she looked at him, her pattering heart set off tiny alarm bells of desire in her head.  Her nipples tightened and her feminine parts fluttered and rippled with interest.  Sunshine fingered her lips and a
c
knowledged that regardless of the fact she thought him completely full of himself for blackmailing her into being a partner in his fraud, she was physically attracted to him. 

She groaned.

This time when Yoon looked at her, he stopped walking and turned to close the space between them.  Searching her face he asked,   “Are you okay?”  He put a hand to her brow.  “You look as flushed as you were earlier after...”  His words drifted but his eyes went straight to her mouth and he quickly dropped his hand from her forehead.