Part 2The Secret in the Shadow

I stumbled home in a daze, their words echoing in my mind.

“That girl is a real fool. She kind of deserves to be played.”

“Remember three years ago? Alan lost a dare and had to pretend to be a host at that karaoke bar on K-Town.”

“A few women went in before her, they all got the joke. But her? She actually believed it.”

I was a fool.

A complete and utter fool. I didn't recognize that the strategically distressed sweater he wore was fresh off a Paris runway. I didn't know the simple silver watch on his wrist was a Richard Mille that cost more than a brownstone.

I heard his sob story—a gambling father, a sick mother—and in him, I saw a reflection of my own painful past. I looked at that beautiful face, like something out of a Japanese drama, and my heart melted.

I never imagined he was sizing me up, thinking, God, what an idiot. How could anyone fall for such a ridiculous lie?

I moved heaven and earth to get him out of that life. I helped him find a “real” job.

I had just started as a research assistant myself, barely making a few thousand a month. But I didn't hesitate to spend two thousand on a decent suit for him, so he could look the part.

Meanwhile, I wore the same trench coat for three years.

And him? He would always narrow those captivating eyes into a lazy, charming smile. "My beautiful girl, you're too good to me. I'll have to find a way to repay you properly."

Then he would pull me into his arms, and we’d become a tangle of limbs. He was twenty, a young man with an endless, raw energy that he poured into me, over and over again. The walls of our old apartment were paper-thin. The more I bit my lip to stay quiet, the more determined he was to draw a sound from me. Every time, he’d push me to the edge until I was whispering pleas for him to stop, again and again, before he would finally relent.

He was beautiful. He loved to be coddled. He loved to cook for me.

I truly believed we would be tangled up like that forever.

I was even planning to propose, taking on two extra freelance gigs to save up for the perfect ring.