Hot tears prick my eyes and I blink them back furiously.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became an adult, I put away childish things.

What right do I have to Yujun if so many others suffer? What happiness could he have with me if his company would be taken from him and Wansu? How could I live with the fallout? A result that I had a direct hand in, accidentally or not, whether it stemmed from being overheard at the restaurant or Kwon Hyeun letting her festering bitterness have free rein.

Simply put, I could not.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

When I step out of the shower of the Four Seasons hotel suite, I discover an unfamiliar black garment bag lying across my bed. The Hangul characters are the same as the ones that were on the bag that Bomi had brought me two weeks ago on just my second day in Seoul. I had suspected that Wansu had bought my funeral dress, and this confirms it. I know enough now to make out the name—Hwaiteu Ip. I’m not sure what the second characters mean, but I think the first one is “white.” “White-eu.”

“It’s White Leaf,” Wansu informs me. “It’s a very nice shop.” She walks over to the bed and draws down the zipper. “It’s owned by sisters and they employ women who can’t find employment because of their past. The white leaf represents a new start.”

The dress isn’t white, but the palest pink—the color of the inside of a flower that’s too shy to show itself to the sun. It’s simple and lovely and will make me look like I’m the sacrificial virgin to the god of business.

“I have my outfit,” I say. I pull out the pinstripe gray pants suit Bomi bought with the very last available credit on my card. The straight-legged pants have cuffs that break right at the top of my black two-inch pumps. I pair it with a beautiful light blue blouse embroidered with white and pink cherry blossoms on the collar and down the front.

If Wansu is disappointed that I’ve opted for a different outfit, she doesn’t show it. Without a word, she returns the dress to the garment bag and zips it up. I step back inside the en suite bathroom and change. Wansu and Ellen don’t speak, so it’s eerily quiet. The only sounds are the ones made by fabric sliding over skin, the metallic slide of the zipper, and the breaths I take as I button, fasten, and smooth everything into place.

“Leave your jacket off. I have a makeup artist and a stylist,” Wansu says when I open the bathroom door. Since I already won the clothing battle, I meekly follow her out into the living room, which has been transformed into a salon. An army of staff appears to be milling about with brushes and curling wands and hair dryers.