Kalypso didn’t do much as a flinch.

She didn’t look guilty as if she’d been caught or even like a woman who’d registered the anger rolling into the room like a weather front.

She was planted there, one leg crossed at the ankle, the bad foot floating just above the marble, her heel dangling off two fingers and swinging in a lazy little arc — back, forth, back — like she was rocking a cocktail at a garden party.

The smile on Kalypso face wasn’t sharp or nervous or even particularly warm. It was the smile of someone who’d circled this date in red ink a long time ago and had been killing time ever since.

"Hi, Emmie."

She waved like they’d done brunch last week.

Park looked from one to the other, head on a swivel.

Of course they knew each other!

Wasn’t even surprising anymore; he was starting to think every stupidly gorgeous woman above the eighty-ninth floor was in some private group chat — probably called something cringey — and the chat had one pinned topic, and the topic was him, unfolding in real time while they all sat on the inside and passed notes.

Nobody had thought to loop him in. Typical.

Emmeline’s eyes hooked into Kalypso and held.

They ticked from that sly little smile, down to the bare foot, the swollen ankle, the heel still swinging.

Then sideways, to Park, still close enough that the heat off his body was probably still on Kalypso’s skin. Then down to their hands, still too near each other after the thing he’d done with his mouth about nine seconds ago.

Something behind her face hardened.

"You really a such a bitch."

That was years of acid packed into three words yet Kalypso’s grin just unspooled wider and didn’t flinch or blink:

"Still lovely to see you too."

Emmeline didn’t even waste a breath on her. Her glare swivelled — slow, deliberate, the way a spotlight finds its second mark — and landed on Park.

Whatever she’d been aiming at Kalypso picked up a new target mid-flight.

"And you."

Park straightened. Shoulders back. Chin up:

Nothing he’d ever been through had ever prepped him for his sister’s face in that exact second; the way her jaw was set, wet shine starting at the corners of her eyes.

The tremor in her lower lip that wasn’t sadness but raw rage with no exit wound.

"I can’t believe you."

"Emmie, wait—"

She turned and walked heels cracking against the stone like gunshots with her hair swinging behind her in a mess, still roughed up from where he’d tussled it twice that day.

Park watched her go for one dumb, frozen second before he shot up.

A hand snapped around his wrist before his legs got the memo.

"Park."

He looked down at Kalypso’s fingers that were wrapped around his —

Light as a suggestion telling him to stay, no to go but she wasn’t holding him back; just offering him a choice she clearly expected him to take.

He yanked his hand away quickly with zero thought involved and was gone before his brain even registered the warmth of her palm.

"Sorry."

Her eyebrows arched, genuinely surprised — the first real thing he’d seen on her face all evening.

But he was already moving. "Emmie!"

He chased.

Behind him, the assistants dove for phones and delivery slips scattered across the table.

Emmeline’s bodyguard lengthened his stride, shoulders squaring as he fell into pursuit mode and slipped past Park and Quinn of them.

Quinn moving like water materialised at Park’s shoulder with her expression wiped so blank it was almost aggressive.

The murmur started low and spread like a ripple — forks pausing halfway to mouths, wine glasses hovering, napkins forgotten on laps. Rich people, it turned out, couldn’t resist a scene any better than anyone else.

Park didn’t give a single damn. He locked onto Emmeline ahead, moving through the glass doors toward the skybridge, her personal guard glued to her six like a shadow she couldn’t shake.

"Emmie, slow down!"

She didn’t glance back.

"Young Master," Quinn said, quiet and right behind him, her voice cutting through the noise like a blade through butter.

"I know."

"You do not, in fact, know."

"Quinn."

"Apologies, Young Master."

He pushed harder. Legs burning. Breath coming in short, sharp pulls.

’Okay,’ Park thought, the words stitching together between strides. I get how that looked. I get it completely. It looked like a man on his knees in a packed lounge, mouth on some woman’s knuckles, while his sister stood fifty feet away trying to wedge her drunk friend into a lift. It looked exactly like what it was.’

But it wasn’t that simple he knew; there had to be a story behind apart from just kissing another woman’s hand.

The embarrassment hit hot, flooding his chest — reckless, shameless, in front of a room full of phones. Emmeline had walked back in at the only moment that could possibly make it worse and caught him right in the act, being exactly the guy she’d spent the entire afternoon roasting him for.

Solid theory. Clean. It explained the fury, the exit and the best part — the part that made his lungs unclench for half a second — what was that he’d done to actually apologize for it.

And he had about eleven minutes before that landed:

Because Emmeline had watched him flirt with Jessie for the last hours.

She hadn’t just watched — she’d directed smooched them closer, moved his arm three times so he could hold Jessie well, held the phone at chest height and complained about the glare off the windows.

Whatever had just detonated inside that lounge had absolutely nothing to do with Park pressing his lips to a woman’s hand!

It was about whose hand.

***

Kalypso stayed right where she was.

Her heel sat on the leather next to her, abandoned; her ankle had started to swell properly now — puffing up along the outside, the skin going tight and pink; but her gaze was pinned to the glass doors Park had disappeared through, still swinging faintly on their hinges.

She leaned back, slid her good leg over the bad one with a slow, deliberate grace, and smiled to herself.

He’d pulled away from her. ]]

Wasn’t bashful — nothing about the last ten minutes had been even slightly bashful. Wasn’t regret, either. He’d leaned in, kissed her hand with his eyes locked on hers, and meant every bold, unblinking second of it.

He’d let go and moved because Emmeline had stormed off raw and furious, and he’d done it so fast it wasn’t a decision but reflex and his body had answering before his brain got a vote.

Kalypso had watched plenty of pretty boys squirm when two women wanted something from them at the same time.

She knew the playbook: the darting eyes, the sweaty hesitation, fumbling attempt to split the difference and ending up with nothing.

Almost none of them moved that fast.

Honestly, zero of them — not one — would’ve made that call.

Her fingers drifted up, feather-light, and came to rest on the back of her hand, right over the patch of skin his mouth had touched. She left them there, motionless, the ghost of the kiss still humming under her skin.

Her eyes stayed fixed on the empty doorway.

"So that’s who ’SHE’ was talking about."

Her eyes narrowed, a flicker of real amusement, sharp at the edges.

"Finally out of the cage, are we?"

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