All Chapters of The Girl He Left Behind : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

**JASMINE POV**I started my new job on a Tuesday, which felt like an oddly unceremonious day for something I'd wanted for as long as I could remember.My new desk was two floors down from Japheth's office, in the finance department proper, tucked between two windows with a view of absolutely nothing interesting an air conditioning unit and half a fire escape but it was mine. My name was on a placard beside the door. Jasmine Ray, Financial Analyst. Not Ms. Jay. Not the temp. Not the assistant everyone assumed was there because of who she used to know.Mine.I spent the morning meeting people, memorizing names, getting handed files that actually required judgment instead of just organization, and by lunch I'd almost managed to forget the text from Richard sitting unanswered in my phone.Almost.Japheth found me in the break room around two, holding two coffees, looking uncharacteristically nervous for a man who ran board meetings before nine a.m. without blinking."I come bearing brib

**JASMINE POV**"Do we really need three suitcases for one week?" I asked Saph, who was currently sitting cross-legged on my bed, surrounded by roughly half my closet."You're representing Montgomery Industries on an international business trip and also potentially seducing your childhood sweetheart in a foreign country. This requires options, Jasmine.""I am not seducing anyone. I'm closing a deal.""Sure. That's why you packed the green dress that makes your eyes look like actual emeralds." She held it up, smirking."That's for the closing dinner. It's professional.""It's professional the way a loaded gun is a paperweight." She folded it anyway and tucked it carefully into the second suitcase.I'd called her over an hour ago under the pretense of needing packing help, which was true, but also mostly an excuse to have someone in the apartment with me while my nerves did their best impression of a livewire. A week. Alone with Japheth, in a country neither of us had been to, staying a

**JASMINE POV**I checked the peephole before opening the door, half expecting hotel staff, and instead found a striking stranger on the other side tall, black hair falling just above his shoulders, dressed like he'd wandered off a runway between meetings.He smirked the second the door opened, clearly clocking the once-over I gave him before I could stop myself."You must be the famous redhead Peaches," he said, a slight British lilt threaded through an accent I couldn't quite place otherwise."How do you know my name?""I'm Alexander Shin. Old friend of Japheth's. He's mentioned you approximately four hundred times since I picked him up from the airport four years ago." He held out a hand, and I shook it, already deciding I liked him."Come in. He's still getting ready.""Still primping. Some things never change." Alex strolled in like he owned the place, dropping onto the couch with the easy familiarity of someone who'd clearly stayed here before. "Has he been giving you a hard time

**JASMINE POV**We spent the next few days easing into a rhythm that felt, for the first time in longer than I could remember, entirely uncomplicated mornings at the Korean team's offices closing out the last details of the deal, afternoons wandering wherever Japheth's Korean was good enough to get us lost and found again, evenings falling into easy conversation that never once felt like it was building toward an argument.Alex picked us up on our last full day in the city to take us to his family's countryside home, a traditional hanok an hour outside Seoul, insisting we couldn't leave the country without seeing "real Korea" instead of just the parts that came with room service.The house was beautiful in a way that made my chest ache a little stone walls, a clay tile roof, autumn leaves scattered across a small gravel courtyard with a pond at its center. Alex walked us through it with obvious pride, explaining the underfloor heating system, the mulberry paper walls, the traditiona

DEAN POVI stared at the number on my screen until the digits stopped making sense, which didn't take long, because they'd stopped making sense three weeks ago and had only gotten worse since.Two hundred and forty thousand dollars. Money I didn't have, owed to people who didn't accept "I'm working on it" as a payment plan.It had started small, the way these things always did a few bad trades I was sure I could recover from, then a loan to cover the first loss, then another to cover that one, until the hole I'd dug myself was deep enough that climbing out of it honestly wasn't an option anymore. The men I owed weren't the kind who sent polite reminder emails. They'd made that very clear three nights ago, in a parking garage, in a conversation I hadn't told a single person about, least of all Kate.Kate, who thought I was a rising associate with a bright future and a slightly stressful caseload. Kate, who had no idea her boyfriend was one missed payment away from finding out exactly h