Jared was sleeping when Jin and Julianne left the Adams Mansion. Julianne sent a text message to Adrienne, apologizing for everything and then asked her to take care of Jared for another day.
They drove the first ten minutes in complete silence. She had a lot of questions she wanted to ask him. But she didn’t know how or where to begin.
She felt him reach out for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“Are you sure you’re alright, love?” he asked.
“No. I’m not sure,” she replied. Then she sighed and asked, “You knew?”
He glanced at her and gave her a gentle smile.
“About Jared? Of course, I knew,” he replied. “I had been waiting a long time for you to tell me yourself. But today, I couldn’t hold it back anymore.”
“How long have you known?”
“That same night I met you again in Paris, at my mother’s party,” he replied. “The minute Adrienne introduced us and I saw your face again, my first thought was, ‘Thank God, I finally found her!’ and my second thought was… ‘Oh God, I have a son!’”
“But… how?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Have you taken a good look at our son, ma belle? Even my mother had goosebumps the first moment she saw him. He looks exactly like me. Mom said I looked like that when I was his age. Even the position of our dimples are identical. He has my eyes and I always thought my eye color was quite rare.”
“You never asked about him. I thought… you didn’t know, didn’t care.”
“Why do I need to ask you a question I already know the answer to?” he asked her back. “You were a virgin that night we went to bed together. I didn’t use protection. I never asked if you were on the pill. I didn’t care. I was so in love with you, I didn’t care if you got pregnant. I was gonna ask you to marry me anyway.”
“And what if I slept with somebody else after you? You knew of my engagement to Patrick McAllister.”
“Jared is too beautiful to be sired by that scumbag McAllister,” he smirked. “I knew Jared’s birthday. Adrienne once mentioned he was premature. I did the math. And I’m very good with math and probabilities.” He squeezed her hand. “Jared is mine, Arabella. I know it. Not just because he looks exactly like me, acts like me. Not because he paints like a prodigy—a talent he inherited from me. I know it in my heart. I feel it. I feel that bond that only a father and a son could share.”
Julianne wiped the tears that rolled down her cheeks with her fingers.
“I was waiting for you to tell me,” he said.
“I was scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“I was scared that you might reject him. Or if you accept him, I was scared that you will take him away from me.”
“God, Arabella! Whatever gave you that impression?”
“You’re Jin Starck. Before I even met you as you, I was almost scared of the stories I heard about you. I thought you wouldn’t have a heart.”
“I have a heart,” he grunted. “You took it away with you when you left. And even if I didn’t, I would never take my son away from his mother. Haven’t you heard? I was a Mama’s boy when I was growing up. And I was raised by a queen. Why would I deprive my son the same privilege?”
A load seemed to have lifted inside her. She felt relieved to know that he wasn’t planning on separating her son from her. She’s not going to lose Jared.
“Jin…”
“Yes, ma belle?”
“You don’t have to buy my father’s factory,” she said. “It’s losing out. The market is shifting and it’s difficult to get new clients from the wine and alcohol industry. Sustainable packaging alternatives are being developed and are replacing the glass bottles because they are lighter, cheaper and more resistant to breakages. As somebody who works on Corporate Strategy, I strongly advise you not to go through with this. It’s a bad decision to acquire Sanders Glass Factory. Even worse to pay twenty-five million for it.”
He looked at her for a moment like she lost her mind and then to her surprise, he laughed.
“Did I say something funny?” she asked raising a brow at him.
He reached out for her hand and intertwined their fingers as he pulled it towards his lips and gave it a kiss.
“You are a fascinating creature, Arabella. My days will be filled with arguments, adventure and a lot of laughter. I’m going to stay younger every day with you and Jared in my life.”
“I don’t see that connection with you making a very unwise acquisition of Sanders Glass Factory.”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “I’m not going to pay your father for the Sanders Glass Factory. I’m paying him to leave you and Jared alone.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“For me, it is,” he said soberly. “He cannot keep coming back to your life to remind you of breaking your engagement with McAllister. He cannot think about you and keep blaming you for the bad decisions he made in his life. I’m sorry, but you have to know. Your family business is going down, ma belle. If Gian doesn’t pull the right strings, Sanders Limited will soon find itself at the throes of bankruptcy. And I do not want your father to keep blaming that on you!”
“How sure are you that he’s going bankrupt?”
“I told you. I’m good with numbers. I have been studying your family’s profile for a couple of weeks now.”
“Why?”
“Because you wouldn’t tell me anything, ma belle,” he replied. “Every time I opened up about your family, you steered away from the subject. And something about you being tight on cash, living in Adams Mansion and working for Justin instead of your family didn’t add up to me. Apart from that, I’ve been visiting that house frequently for the last couple of months. I never once saw your father with Jared. And during one of my phone conversations with our son, I found out that he hasn’t even met them. Something wasn’t right.”
“So, you had my father checked out?”
He nodded. “And today, I confirmed my suspicions.”
“Still… you didn’t have to pay all that money to him.”
“I want to,” he insisted. “I was the reason why all this happened to you.”
Julianne closed her eyes and looked out the window. In a way, it was true. He was a big part of why she lost her family, her social status and her inheritance. She fell in love with him… she chose him in spite of knowing she was no longer free to choose. And now that she has Jared, she would gladly make that same choice over and over again.
The only thing she would be sorry for, was that because she left Jin years ago, she wouldn’t be able to give Jared a complete family. She was reminded of her conversation with Vanessa. The latter told her that her engagement with Jin would be enforced. If Jin doesn’t go through with it, the consequences would be dire, and the price he would pay would be very high.
Jin parked in front of her house and the house next door.
“Jin, this is not my parking space,” she said.
He ignored her, getting out of the car and opening the car door for her. He took her hand in his and led her up the stairs to her house. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
“Where did you get a key?”
“You handed me all the keys to the house the last time I was here, remember. I took a spare to open the door for you. I forgot to return it.”
She remembered that day she gave him a bunch of keys that Janis gave her.
Before he opened the door for her, he looked at her wearily.
“What?”
“Just remember… I will always have the best intentions for you… and our son. Surely, you cannot blame me for wanting to ensure you live comfortably. You both deserve the best, nothing less.”
She looked at him in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
He took a deep breath and opened the door for her. She stepped inside and took her coat off. She was wondering what Jin meant by what he said.
When she turned around, she noticed that something was very different with her house. She had an open kitchen, which was one of the very first things she sees when she enters the door. Now, her kitchen is gone. And her living room looked hyperextended. It was huge. There was a new cream colored U-shaped sofa in the middle of the room, in front of the fireplace, which also looked bigger than the last time she saw it. There was a piano and a huge shelf on the place where her staircase to the bedroom used to be.
She walked further into the house and she gasped when she turned to the right and found that the house had been three times bigger than it was before. She realized that this was the house next door. Janis was working on merging the two houses together.
There was a big dining table made of white wood, with matching white chairs with gold trimmings. There was a glass door framed by white wood on the left side. She opened it and saw a huge kitchen with a marble countertop, built-in cooker, range and side by side fridge.
She turned to Jin. “What did you do?”
He walked over to her slowly, measuring her reaction.
“I know how much you love this place. So, I bought the house and the house next door. Then… I commissioned people to work twenty-four seven to merge the two units into one.”
“How many bedrooms is this now?”
“Six.”
“What would I do with a six-bedroom house?”
He shrugged. “Anything you want.”
“Jin, I cannot afford this.”
“I’m not asking you for anything. The whole estate is yours. Gatwick had all the papers drawn up, waiting for your signature.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. She was confronted with all sorts of her emotions inside. She shook her head. “I can’t… I can’t accept this!” She turned away from him. “Give me a week. I’m moving out…”
Immediately, he was behind her, pulling her into a hug.
“God, Arabella! Why? Why won’t you accept anything from me?” his voice was low, guttural. He sounded like he was crying.
She shook her head. “You don’t owe me anything. I don’t deserve it!”
“Yes, you do!” he spun her around. She saw frustration written all over his face. “You deserve the world and I want to give it to you! But you keep pushing me away. Every single time, Arabella. Why?”
She bit her lip. She wanted to answer but she couldn’t find her voice.
“Why did you let me think that you cheated on McAllister with me? Why did you let me think I was just a game to you? That you were even capable of cheating?” he asked. The tone of his voice was desperate. “You were engaged to McAllister by an arranged marriage! You were never even in a relationship with him. There were plenty of chances for you to tell me that, but you didn’t. You allowed me to think that this was all just a game to you. Why didn’t you tell me that your father disinherited you? That you’re no longer the sheltered, privileged heiress you once were?”
“Would you have pursued me if you found out I was poor and had nothing on my name?”
“It wouldn’t even matter to me, Arabella! I didn’t know you were an heiress when I met you. But while I was planning on proposing to you, you were planning on escaping me! You ran. And you didn’t give me a chance to help you… to save you. And I would have saved you, Arabella. Years ago. I would have saved you from your father and from McAllister.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know that. I was scared that if I stayed with you, they would make sure you suffer for it. And I couldn’t do that to you!”
She saw the tears in his eyes. He took a deep, labored breath. “And yet, you allowed me to think over and over that you chose another man over me.”
“I chose you,” she breathed.
He pulled her into his arms. “I know that now. You chose to protect me. And you suffered a lot in return. Now, I regret the days I spent being mad at you for leaving me. I realized that I should have looked harder for you! Those times I was nursing my broken heart, were the times you needed me the most! I wish I could have been there when you were pregnant with Jared. I wish I could have helped you when your father kicked you out.
“You were alone, scared and pregnant. God, Arabella! I should have known. You should have looked for me. If you mentioned the name I gave you to Justin, Adrienne, maybe even Mason or Gian, they would have known it was me. Jas Mathieu wasn’t a made-up name I gave you to protect my real identity. It’s my alias, my pseudonym. And almost everyone in our families knew that. If you told any of them, they would tell me. And I would have come for you!”
“I didn’t want them to know your name,” she sobbed. “Because they would hunt you down and beat the hell out of you. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“And yet you made me believe you didn’t choose me—over and over. Please, Arabella. Stop rejecting me. Let me right all the wrongs that happened to us in the past. Allow me to make up for the times you needed me and I wasn’t there for you.”
She shook her head. “And then what? We still don’t have a future together, Jin. And I deserve better than that.”
He pulled away from her. She could see anger flaring in his eyes. “We have a future together. You just don’t want it!”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to be your mistress!”
He blinked back at her. When before he looked angry, now he looked confused. “Wait… what?”
“I can’t be your mistress,” she repeated.
“And who told you you were going to be?”
“Vanessa,” she replied. “She came here last week. She talked to me. She told me that you’ve enforced your engagement. She said you were going to announce it soon.”
His eyes widened. He looked like he had no idea what she was talking about.
“She even spoke about the heirloom engagement ring, which you got from your grandmother,” Julianne said. “And you said to me last week that you wanted to talk to me about us, our arrangement. The next day, Vanessa came to tell me that she accepts our future arrangement. She would be your wife, and I would be the mistress. She said she didn’t mind as long as she’s the legitimate wife. But I should think about my future with you.” Julianne shook her head. “I did think about it. And I decided I can’t be your mistress, Jin. I’d rather be the wife of a poor man, than a mistress of the king of the world.”
“Is that why you haven’t been answering my calls for days?”
She bit her lip but didn’t answer.
“Damn it!” he cursed and snatched her into his arms. His lips descended towards her and he took her lips in a ravishing—punishing kiss. Julianne put her hands on his chest and pushed him away.
“Jin, I can’t…”
He gave her a rueful smile and pulled her back into his arms. She pushed him again.
“Jin, I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he said. “Have I ever given you any indication that I was going to make you my mistress?”
“Jin, if you do not honor your engagement, you will be taken out of Round Ten.”
“So?” he asked. He really looked like it doesn’t bother him. “Then I start my own Round. I’ll call it Round Eleven or Twelve. Pick a number.”
“Jin!”
He laughed. “I was never engaged to Vanessa. Her father proposed an alliance through marriage. I agreed and I gave my word that that agreement would be finalized through an engagement. During that supposed proposal party, you came back into my life.” He shook his head. “The minute I saw you again, I changed my mind. I couldn’t propose to her.”
“Why?”
“Because seven years ago, I already made up my mind about what kind of life I was going to have. I decided on having the kind of marriage that my father has with my mother. The same kind that Justin has with Adrienne. I wasn’t settling for anything less. When you left me, I lost hope that I would still have that blissful married life. So, I made bad decisions without taking my heart into consideration.
“Then… all that changed that night. When you appeared in that party, I was reminded of the kind of marriage I wanted to have. And I saw a chance for me to have that again. From that moment on, I had no intention of marrying Vanessa Bernard anymore. I can’t. I won’t. I’m not gonna settle for anyone less than the woman I’ve chained my heart to seven years ago.”
Tears rolled down Julianne’s cheeks as she listened to him. If he wasn’t holding her, she was positive she would have fallen to the floor already.
“Jin… I can’t give you the business advantage that she could. I have nothing to offer you at all.”
He smiled. “I’m smart, and I already have more money than I could care to count. I don’t need any more business advantages than what I already have.”
“But her family will retaliate. You will lose a lot of money.”
He leaned forward and kissed her lips gently. “And in return I get you and Jared—I get the world.”
“Are you sure I’m worth it?”
He wiped the tears rolling down her cheeks. “You’re worth the whole universe, and I don’t think I deserve even a single star on it.”
He leaned forward and kissed her lips thoroughly. After the kiss, he leaned his head against hers and sucked in a deep breath.
“Are you… sure?” she asked between tears.
He chuckled and kissed her forehead. “I’m pretty damn sure, ma belle.”
Suddenly, his phone beeped. He pulled away from her to check it. He smiled as he read the message on the screen. Then he put his phone back in his pocket and turned back to her. “I told you last time that I have something to tell you but I didn’t want to tell you on the phone.”
“Yeah, I thought you were going to tell me that you were going to marry Vanessa but you still wanted to keep me as your mistress.”
He shook his head. “Quite far from your theory, love.”
“What is it then?”
“I’m not sure what your reaction was going to be, but I’ll try anyway,” he said.
He took her hand and pulled her towards the backdoor to her garden. She realized that it was already sunset and the skies were slowly getting dark. But what took her breath away was the whole backyard itself.
It still had the vertical garden that they made together. But the rest of it was totally different. Her backyard was at least five times bigger than it used to be. It was combined with the backyard of the house next door, plus, Jin also purchased the vacant lot behind them.
It was covered in grass and landscaped beautifully. There was a pool covered in floating candles and a beautiful gazebo with a dining table and chairs. The table was set for two and there were lighted candles and roses in the middle. Near the pool, was a trampoline. Julianne had no doubt, Jared mentioned this to Jin.
There was a landscaped walkway after the gazebo.
“Where does this lead to?” she asked.
“Why don’t you see for yourself?” he asked back.
Julianne slowly walked the pathway and what she saw almost made her fall to her feet. She gasped and suddenly, tears started rolling down her cheeks once again.
“Oh my God, Jin…” was all she could say.