She looked up at him, uncertain why he was being so cold, so angry. She’d never seen this side of Tae.
He closed his eyes, seemingly to try and gather himself. “I appreciate you coming all the way down here, but you didn’t need to—”
“I wanted to,” she interrupted.
“But I don’t want you to,” he snapped back. He let out a frustrated growl, and it pained her to see whatever it was he was going through, what her mere presence here was putting him through. She should just leave.
Leave, Julia, she screamed to herself.
“Look, I’m not trying to hurt you. I just can’t handle all of this right now. It’s just too much. You’re... too much,” Tae said.
He knew what he was doing. He knew those exact words would hurt her. She played them over in her mind. “I’m too much,” she said, mirroring him. Wasn’t this why men couldn’t handle being close to Julia? But Tae had never made it seem like he couldn’t handle being with her.
His eyes flared. “Julia, can’t you see? I don’t have anything to offer you. I don’t even know how I’m going to pay you back. I don’t have the money. I don’t have the time. I don’t have the space to give to you.”
Julia hadn’t asked him for anything. She hadn’t given him anything either. So why would he need to pay her back? “I don’t need anything. I don’t care about money—”
“Well, I do! God, don’t you get it? That’s the exact issue. I don’t ever have the liberty to not care about money. But that doesn’t mean I wanted yours.”
Julia shook her head. She was missing something. There had clearly been a misunderstanding. If Tae needed money and asked her for it, she would discuss it with him. But she’d never just throw her money around and flippantly give it away. Especially if she knew it wasn’t something someone wanted from her. She was not about some kind of power trip, and God, not ever with Tae.
She opened her mouth to talk it out, to get clarification, to clear up the misunderstanding. But Tae beat her to the punch.
“God, Julia, I’m even considering taking your grandmother’s money. But at least I had to work for that. I hate myself for ever getting caught up in this mess.”
“My grandmother’s money?” Julia’s heart pounded. What was he talking about? Julia felt like the two of them were in two different conversations. She remembered something Taehad told her the night of their date about her grandmother’s best intentions but questionable methods. What was she missing?
Tae dropped his head to his chest and shook it.
Please don’t go on. Please don’t go on.Julia was too afraid to hear the truth. Because if Tae was this agonized over it, it was definitely going to be bad.
“Julia, your grandmother offered me a job. She hired me to date you.”
No.
Please, no.
“Date me? Like, an escort?” she asked. Her heart pounded in her chest so hard she felt it in her teeth.
“No, not like that. Just to, you know, prepare you for the dates. Like the deal between you and me, but she had asked me before you did,” he answered.
“No. I asked you, remember? At the herbalist. I told you I needed a dating coach, and you offered.” She replayed the memories in her head. No way had he mentioned his grandmother hiring him to help her. Why would the two of them collude behind her back? Her heart raced with her mind, one trying to outpace the other.
“She pulled me aside at her birthday party...”
The night before they went to the herbalist.
Tears welled in Julia’s eyes. She couldn’t see Tae’s face anymore. It was all a wet blur.
“So, what? You agreed to be my dating coach, get close to me, make me fall for you... because my grandmother hired you to? Was it all just a job for you?” She knew the answer. He already said the answer.
“No, Julia, no.” He was backpedaling, and it made Julia’s stomach turn. “I wasn’t ever going to take her money. I told her so in the beginning, and I was gonna tell her at the end too.”
God, she was such an idiot. Tae never promised her anything. He never even shared any of how he was feeling withher. He was just kind to her like he was to everyone else. Kindness out of service. Kindness with a price tag. No, it was her pouring herself out to him. Looking like a fool because she couldn’t get it right—she couldn’t get any relationships right. And here he was confirming it.
He reached out for her arm, but she swatted his hand away. She tried to remember everything that had happened since that first day. Any and every place she’d got it wrong, where she’d misread the signs.Damn it, Julia, you are smarter than this.How had she missed it?
She swallowed down the pain and the embarrassment, straightened her back, and put on her CEO mask. She waited one second to calm herself. “Whatever money you think I gave you, you’re wrong. I have not entered into any financial transaction with you or anyone in your family. So you’ll need to find the correct target for your vitriol and victim-blaming. And whatever money my grandmother is paying you for your services, that’s between the two of you. Hopefully she’ll still pay you, even though it turned out to be a lost cause after all.”
