BARTERED BRIDE
Chapter 3: Kim Namjoon
Kim Namjoon is a ruthless financier used to buying and selling stocks, shares and priceless artifacts. But now Namjoon has his eye on a very different acquisition - Park Han Byeol. Left destitute by her father’s recent death, Han Byeol walks into Namjoon’s bank looking to extend her overdraft. As Han Byeol needs money and Namjoon needs a wife, he proposes the perfect deal: he’ll rescue her financially if she agrees to marry him. But in this marriage of convenience can Han Byeol ever be anything more than just a bartered bride?
Since Yoongi's wedding, Han Byeol had a lot of sleepless nights, prowling around in the small hours, tortured by thoughts of Yoongi making babies with Choon Hee...babies which should've been hers. All she ever wanted was to be Yoongi's wife and the mother of his children. Not the kind of ambition applauded by the teachers at the expensive boarding school where as she and her sister had been sent to learn to be "ladies". That had been Gran's idea. Though Gran's own origins were humble, she was a tremendous snob and hadn't approved of her eighteen-year-old Niaowie marrying a rough diamond like Park Jimin, even if he had gone on to make pots of money.
Gran wanted to see her granddaughters marrying men who were not only well off but also what she called well-spoken. To that end she had chivied her son-in-law into sending the girls to one of the most expensive and exclusive schools in England. To Gran's disappointment, her eldest grand daughter, Hyeonji, had fallen in love with a young man who had once spent a summer working in her mother's garden. He now had his own plant nursery and was a contented man., but he didn't make a lot of money. Jungkook and Hyeonji couldn't afford to support her mother. With two small children and another on the way, they didn't have a spare bedroom to offer her.
Had Gran known of Han Byeol's secret passion for the chauffeur's son, she would have disapproved, at least until his achievements at university had signaled an impressive future. The irony was that Gran would probably regard Kim Namjoon as a wonderful catch. She didn't think much of love as a basis for wedlock. She wouldn't admit it under torture, but her granddaughters suspected there had been a metaphorical shotgun in the background of her wedding, and the marriage hadn't been happy.
In the morning Han Byeol woke with a headache, result of too little sleep and too much wine the night before. Staying up late, she had finished the bottle. She spent the morning sorting out things in her bedroom and waiting for Kim Namjoon's call. When her cellphone remained silent, she should have been relieved. Instead she felt oddly uneasy.
What if he changed his mind? What if her animosity had made him have second thoughts? During his solitary dinner he might have decided he couldn't be bothered to wear down her opposition when there were plenty of women he could have for the asking. The longer she considered this scenario, the more it seemed to Han Byeol that she might have rejected in haste an opportunity she would live to regret turning down. As things stood, all the future offered was relative penury for her mother and a dull job for herself. It wasn't an attractive prospect.
The trade off Namjoon had suggested, suddenly she found herself thinking of him by the first name instead of his surname. Would mean they were miserable in comfort. But what about her side of the trade off; being the wife of a man she didn't love and who didn't love her?
Well, love, for long the first item on her private and personal wish list, had been crossed off the day Yoongi married Choon Hee. So that brought it down to the question of whether she could have sex with someone other than Yoongi in order to have some babies. They wouldn't have the father she dreamed of, but any father had to be better than none.
Thinking of sex with Namjoon, Han Byeol felt a strange sensation in the pit of her stomach. He had all the physical makings of a good lover; his aura of animal magnetism deriving from a great body, a sensual mouth, hands that looked strong enough to crush, but also capable of performing the most delicate and subtle caresses. Just thinking about the components of his disturbing personality sent strange little quivers through her.
Even though still a virgin, her innocence saved as a gift for her first and only love, Han Byeol knew all the theory, knew what those frissons meant. She had recognized the passionate depths of her nature a long time ago. From the beginning of adolescence she had been excited and moved by amorous scenes in books and movies, recognizing her capacity to feel the same fiery emotions as the women in the stories and on the screen. But she also had a streak of idealism. After falling in love with Yoongi, keeping herself inviolate for him had seemed more important than indulging her natural curiosity about what it felt like to do things many of the other girls in her class had experienced as soon as they were sixteen.
A lot of them were the over-indulged, under disciplined children broken marriages. During the holidays they had too much pin money and not too much supervision. Several girls knew by sight hadn't completed their time at school. They had been expelled for serious misdemeanors raging from night time truancy to drugs. Fortunately although described as "lazy", "inattentive" and "irresponsible" in her school reports, Han Byeol had never been taken up by the group known to the serious minded girls at The Decadents. The fact that she was reserving herself for Yoongi would have debarred her from that clique. Although far from being a teacher's pet, from The Decadents' point of view Han Byeol was one of the girls they called The Nuns.
She was thinking about her lack of sexual experience and wondering what conclusions the detective had drawn about her in that respect, when the phone started to ring. She forced herself not to grab it, letting it ring six times before she said coolly, "Hello?"
"Good morning..."
If the distinctive voice at the other end of the line had mocked her about not leaving the phone off the hook, she would have cut the connection and dashed round the flat disconnecting all the extensions and turning her mobile off. But Namjoon didn't refer to her parting shot. He said, "I'd like to show you my library. Will you have lunch with me?"
She drew in her breath, knowing she was on the brink of one of the defining moments of her life. "If you're worried about being alone with me, you don't need to be," Namjoon went on. "My household is run by a staff who are far too respectable to stay with any employer who doesn't live up to their standards. But even if that were not so, I've already made it clear my intentions are honorable."
She could guess from the tone of his voice that there would be a sardonic quirk at the corner of his chiseled mouth. "All right," she said. "What time and where?"
When he had rung off, she looked at the exclusive address she had jotted down on the notepad and wondered why she had relented. Less than twenty four hours ago she had stormed out of his office, convinced she was out of his mind. Now she was going to have lunch with him. Had she gone out of hers? Before setting out of their lunch date, Han Byeol reread the file Namjoon sent her.
He was thirty four, six years older than herself. A bit age gap. It seemed likely that wasn't the only gulf between them. Kim, a merchant bank dealing long term loans for governments and institutions and advising one takeover bids, had been founded by his great grandfather. The controlling influence had been retained Kim Seokjin's descendants.
Unlike her father, Namjoon hadn't had to claw his way up from nothing. The facts in the file indicated that from birth he had been groomed for the position he occupied. But family influence couldn't have made him head boy at his public school if he hadn't lack the qualities needed for that position, nor it have gained him impressive degree at one of Korea's most prestigious universities. He had to have a brilliant brain.
So why pick someone as un brainy as me? Han Byeol wondered uneasily. She knew she had other equally important qualities and had never wanted to exchange them for a superior intellect. But for a man like Namjoon deliberately to select a female who operated by instinct rather than logic seemed strange, not to say suspect.
He lived in a large house in one of the most select squares in the ultra fashionable Gangnam. The butler opened the door to her and took her coat. A man in his fifties, dressed in ordinary dark suit with a discreet tie., he led her up sweeping staircase past the line of family portraits, ti a large first floor landing. As they reached it Namjoon was descending the stairs from the floor above. She noticed his dark hair was damped and wondered why. It seemed an odd time to take a shower.
"You're admirably punctual," he said, holding out his hand to her. As they hadn't shaken hands the day before, it was her first experience of the firm clasp of his fingers. Then he took her gently by the elbow to steer her across a rose and gold Aubusson carpet and through open double doors in an elegant drawing room with three tall windows over looking the city. Normally Han Byeol would have swept an appreciative glance around the beautiful room, taking in some of the details. Instead she was overwhelmed by the strength of her reaction on their first physical contact.
