The Billionaire and the Runaway Bride by Nadia Lee
Chapter Fifty-Six
Yuna
Mom heads back to Korea after a week. I stay behind to spend more time with Ivy and the twins, but I quit staying cooped up in the suite after the confrontation with Declan. He stopped trying to contact me, and I need to get on with my life.
Still, resentment and disappointment swell inside me from time to time. Why am I mad at him? I really shouldn’t care at all. He didn’t want me enough to try harder. He only hung out in the lobby so he could say he was sorry, but once he realized it was going to be too much work to repair our relationship, he ghosted me. For three weeks now.
Come on, Yuna. You know guys can be like that.
Men like Tony and his brothers are so rare, they’re priceless. If I found one like that, I’d hang on to him. No, not just hang on. I’d drag him to the closest courthouse and marry the man. Put a ring on it, as the Americans say.
At least Eugene cancelled the venue Ms. Hong reserved. He doesn’t need me to marry in a hurry to cover up the bad publicity. That’s what Hae Min’s PR team is for, and if they can’t spin it to make it sound good, they’re too incompetent to continue to work for the family.
Which is a huge relief. I’m not going to show up at my own wedding without a groom. And most definitely not in some dress Ms. Hong picked out.
I want to get married somewhere warm and sunny with lots of breeze and water. And my wedding gown is going to be custom-made and so gorgeous that angels will weep.
Mom thinks my wants are not only reasonable but most logical, especially since they match her grand ambition for what the ceremony should be like.
I spread out reports from the Ivy Foundation on the coffee table in front of me in the suite and review them with care. Eugene delegated the foundation to one of his assistants, but many of the decisions have been left pending without my authorization. And I can’t make smart choices without all the facts and data.
I munch on a ham and cheese sandwich for a light lunch and sign off on most of them, asking for more information and analysis on four. The rest get a big fat no.
Ms. Kim takes all the papers from the table and sorts them to be sent to the foundation’s headquarters. I bend my neck and twist around a little bit to unkink. My phone buzzes.
–Ivy: Can you come over and help with the twins? Tony’s gone to see the manager over at Z, and they’re being fussy. Not even Nelly can seem to calm them down. Maybe want their favorite auntie if they can’t have their daddy.
I smile. Of course I’m her babies’ favorite auntie. Hell yeah.
Mr. Choi drives me to Ivy’s. Ms. Kim tags along. I’m going to need help with the mountain of toys I’ve ordered for my honorary nephew and niece. I’ve been trying to make up for all the nice things I couldn’t buy them while my accounts were frozen.
“Oh my God, you shouldn’t have!” Ivy says when I walk in with Mr. Choi and Ms. Kim. We’re all carrying bags and bags of gifts. Mom’s spies leave once they place the bags on the floor. They trust Ivy.
“They aren’t for you, so you don’t get a say,” I respond breezily. “I want to know what Sebastian and Katherine have to say.”
“They can’t say anything yet.”
“But they will soon. They’re pure geniuses! Did you know Sebastian can already play ‘Chopsticks’?”
“Oh my God, stop. You were holding his fingers.”
“So? He’s not going to get a teacher who’s better than me.” I wink. “By the way, where are they? I thought you said they were crying.”
“They actually just fell asleep a minute ago. And I’m letting them nap like a wise parent. Nelly’s with them upstairs.”
“Smart.” Ivy deserves a break, and I can always see the twins later.
We head toward the piano room. It’s one of the largest rooms in the mansion, and Ivy and Tony like to have the twins there. Soft rugs cover the hard marble floor, and the sharp edges of furniture are covered with rounded rubber.
There’s a wooden lattice partition around the piano. Translucent rice paper covers the lattice. I look at it questioningly. “What’s that for?”
“We got it so that when the kids are old enough to start crawling and moving around on their own, they don’t go to the Bösendorfer and hurt themselves. I can’t really encase the thing in rubber.”
“Yeah, that’d ruin the finish.” And if she left it on, it’d ruin the sound quality. A Bösendorfer Imperial deserves better. “But it looks so flimsy. Don’t you think they’ll just…push it over?”
“Tony set it up, so I doubt it.”
It looks like they can also go around it, but I keep that to myself. Tony will have thought of everything. He’s paranoid about Ivy’s safety, and that’s bled over into the twins’ safety as well.
A very adult-sized shadow moves behind the partition. I take a step back, spreading my arms out like a shield before Ivy. “Somebody’s there,” I whisper, jerking my chin.
Ivy smiles. “It’s just a friend of Tony’s who wants to check out my Bösendorfer. He’s thinking about buying one for himself someday.”
“Oh.” He’s going to have to save for a long, long time or win a lottery. The piano is more expensive than most cars.
“He says he wants to play a Chopin waltz on it,” Ivy adds.
Doesn’t sound like somebody with a ton of training, because most trained pianists have bigger ambitions than a waltz if they invest in an instrument as impressive as Bösendorfer Imperial. Like one of Liszt’s Transcendental Études. Or Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, which even the composer himself couldn’t play properly.
“Good luck to him,” I murmur.
“He’s going to play it right now, actually. Why don’t you sit and see what you think? He asked me to critique him, but you know me and Chopin. I’m too biased.”
True. Ivy only likes Kissin or Pollini for her Chopin. And it would be incredibly unfair to compare Tony’s friend to two of the best concert pianists in the world.
I nod. “Sure. Why not?”
She pulls me down onto a loveseat, and we sit. As though that’s his cue, the man behind the partition starts playing Chopin’s waltz in A minor. The familiar, delicate melody resonates through the room. He messes up the twenty-first measure, where he needs to play five notes to the second beat. The first three notes are too fast, and the last two a little slow. I glance at Ivy, but she’s staring resolutely ahead.
But he does really well on every other part of the piece. And he has a sensitive touch. I smile when the waltz ends.
“How long has he been working on this?” I ask.
“He’s only been playing for…I don’t know.” Ivy shrugs. “A few weeks?”
“Really? That’s all?”
“He had some lessons when he was a kid, I think, but yeah. What do you think?” She sets her features in an impassive expression.
She wants me to make my own judgment without any external influence. But of course I won’t let anybody’s opinion color my own when it comes to music. Not even Ivy.
“Well…” I gather my thoughts. Ivy’s watching me closely, and I almost laugh. If she wants my verdict that badly for the friend behind the screen, I’ll give it to her.