Peerless Perverted Actor Has a Celebrity Harem?!

"So no," Park said. "I don’t think I can be just your acquaintance. I’d like to be, for your sake. I’m simply not going to manage it."

Emmeline had stopped eating entirely and was watching the pair of them like somebody at a tennis match involving live ammunition.

"And what makes you so certain," Jessie said, "that I’d smile at my phone?"

"You’re smiling at me now, and I haven’t even started."

Her breath caught somewhere on its way out, and she laughed to cover it, and the laugh did not fully work. Color had climbed all the way up from the low neckline to her ears, and she made no effort to hide any of it, which was somehow worse for both of them.

"So which kind of man are you, exactly?"

"The honest kind." Park’s mouth curved without softening. "Which is worse than the other sort. You can’t argue with me. You can’t catch me lying. Eventually you stop wanting to do either... and that’s when it gets interesting."

Jessie held his eyes for a long moment, those deep blue irises turning something over in private. Then she set her glass down and offered her hand across the table, palm up.

"I’m a slow horse," she said.

"I noticed."

"How about we start with really good friends?"

Park looked at the open hand. Then he took it.

"Really, really close friends," he corrected.

A quiet laugh left her. "You negotiate aggressively."

"I’m after something valuable. Opening low would be an insult."

Their hands stayed joined longer than any polite exchange allowed. Her fingers were warm. Slim silver rings and fine chains shifted against his skin with every small movement.

Park drew his thumb once across her knuckles — slow, deliberate, leaving no space for doubt. The contact was soft, but there was nothing innocent in the way he held her there. Jessie’s grip answered with a quiet, answering pressure, as if her body had already decided something her mouth hadn’t caught up to yet.

Neither of them moved to let go.

Emmeline’s voice cut through, dry as bone. "Should I ask for a formal proposal, or are the two of you planning to hold hands until the restaurant closes? I can have the staff bring a contract if that helps."

Jessie released him first, though the reluctance was clear. Park sat back with his glass and simply let her look at him for as long as she wanted. The heat of her palm stayed with him, low and persistent, like a mark that had not yet decided whether it was a promise or a warning.

Numbers were exchanged. A new contact appeared on his screen.

Jessie 💚

He glanced at the green heart, then across the table. She was already smiling into her wine, as if the small symbol had said something she privately agreed with.

’Interesting woman,’ he thought. The kind that left traces without raising her voice, she could make a man start calculating how long it would take before "really close friends" stopped being a polite lie.

By the time the plates were cleared, the afternoon had slipped further than any of them had noticed.

Jessie checked the time and made a small, horrified sound. "I have to go."

"Already, huh?"

"I was supposed to be home an hour ago."

"Tell them you were delayed by a struggling actor."

"That explanation would create more questions than it answered."

They rose and moved back into the main restaurant. Quinn and the rest of the staff had finished and were waiting in one of the private lounge areas. Near the entrance Jessie turned to him.

"It was nice meeting you, Nathaniel."

Park offered his hand.

She took it — then stepped in and gave him a half-hug instead. One arm slid around his back. Her body pressed warm and soft against his side for the length of two full seconds, the faint scent of her perfume rising with the contact. The brief pressure of her chest and the curve of her hip registered with a clarity that had nothing to do with friendship.

Park rested a hand lightly at the small of her back and left the ending entirely in her hands, though the dark part of him noted exactly how little effort it would take to keep her there longer.

"I’ll be in touch," she said near his ear.

"I’ll hold you to that."

She drew away slowly, still smiling. Emmeline took her arm without comment.

"I’ll walk her out."

Park raised a brow. "Protecting her from me?"

"Yes."

"Cruel."

"Stay here."

The two of them headed toward the lift lobby, still talking, and Park dropped onto one of the curved waiting couches not far from Quinn and the other staff.

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through everything Emmeline had transferred across, which turned out to be an alarming quantity of material: Jessie laughing beside him, Quinn in her new clothes, Park against a glass wall, Park in sunglasses, Park looking sideways because Emmeline had called his name while pretending she was not taking a photograph.

Eventually he found the one he wanted.

He stood alone against the glass high above Aurora, one shoulder resting against it, the entire city spread out behind him. Black T-shirt under an oversized black-and-white plaid jacket, loose enough to read casual without swallowing his frame. Straight black trousers over clean white sneakers, the hems broken by small zip details at the ankle.

A thin silver chain at his throat.

A few rings giving his hands enough detail to keep the whole thing from looking too tidy.

Simple, young, and expensive only to people who knew where to look.

To everybody else he was a handsome rookie actor who had finally found a decent jacket.

’Perfect.’

He uploaded it with a caption of two words.

{Second chances.}

Park posted it, watched the first notifications start to arrive, and set the phone down beside him.

A startled cry cut across the lounge.

He looked up in time to see a woman several metres away catch a heel badly against the edge of the floor. Her ankle turned, her balance went entirely, and she pitched forward face-first before anybody nearby had begun to react.

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