Instead of drooling like an idiot over the woman he’d married, Jonas squared his shoulders and pushed the erotic images from his mind. The merger with Park was still just a nebulous concept and no one had signed anything. This was the deal of the century, and Jonas had to get it done before anyone thought twice about marriage alliances. Sun Park’s grandfather could still pull the plug if he’d had his heart set on a much more intimate merger. Thus far, Jonas had done little but meet with Legal on it.
Four hours later, he had sketched out a proposed hierarchy for the business entities, worked through the human resources tangle of potential duplicate positions and then run the numbers on whether the Kim Building could support the influx of new people. His grandfather would be coming by soon to take a tour and this was exactly the data Jonas needed at his fingertips. Data that would solidify his place as the rightful CEO of Kim Electronics, with or without an impulse of the heart on his résumé.
So that was still a sore spot apparently. Jonas tried to shrug it off and prepare for his grandfather’s arrival, but wasn’t at all surprised that Jung-Su showed up twenty minutes early. Probably a deliberate move to see if Jonas was prepared.
He was nothing if not ready, willing and able to prove that he was the right choice. He’d been preparing to be his grandfather’s successor since college.
He strolled to the reception area, where his admin had made Grandfather comfortable. Technically Jung-Su was the boss of everyone in this building, but he hadn’t visited America in several years. Jonas held the helm here and he appreciated that Grandfather didn’t throw his weight around. They had professional, mutual respect for each other, which Jonas had to believe would ultimately hold sway.
Jung-Su glanced up as Jonas came forward, his weathered face breaking into a polite smile. Grandfather stood and they shook hands.
“Please follow me,” Jonas said, and indicated the direction. “I’d like to show you the executive offices.”
Jung-Su nodded and inclined his head, but instead of following Jonas, he drew abreast and walked in lockstep toward the elevator. Over the weekend, they’d done a lot of sitting down and Jonas hadn’t noticed how much his grandfather had shrunk. Jonas had always been taller and more slender to his grandfather’s stocky build, but more so now, and it was a visual cue that his grandfather had aged. As much as Jonas had focused on getting his grandfather comfortable with passing the mantel, he’d given little thought to the idea that becoming the next CEO of the global company meant his mentorship with Jung-Su would be over.
“Tell me,” Grandfather said as they reached the elevator. “How is your lovely wife?”
“She’s...” A vixen in disguise. Not the kind of information his grandfather was looking for with the innocuous question. “Great. Her shop is constantly busy.”
And Viv had ducked out early to take him on the ride of his life last night. For the first time, he wondered if she’d planned the evening to end as it had or if it had been as spontaneous on her part as it had been on his. Maybe she’d been thinking about getting naked since the weekend of torture, too. If so, he liked that she’d been similarly affected.
They rode two floors up to the executive level. As they exited, Jonas and Jung-Su nodded to the various employees going about the business of electronics in a beehive of activity.
“You’ve mentioned your wife’s business frequently,” his grandfather commented just outside the boardroom where Jonas conducted the majority of his virtual meetings. “Doesn’t she have other interests?”
The disapproval in his grandfather’s voice was faint. “You don’t understand. Her bakery is much more than just a business. It’s an extension of her.”
Cupcakes had been a mechanism to fit in among her older, more accomplished sisters, as she’d told him on numerous occasions. But it had morphed from there into a business that she could be proud of. Hell, it was a venture he was proud of.
“Anyone can pull a package of cupcake mix off the shelf at the grocery store,” Jonas continued, infusing as much sincerity into his speech as he could. His grandfather had no call to be throwing shade at his wife’s profession. “That’s easy. Viv spends hours in her kitchen doing something special to hers that customers can’t get enough of.”
“It seems as if you are smitten by her cupcakes, as well,” Grandfather commented with a tinge of amusement.
Jonas forced a return smile that hopefully didn’t look as pained as he suspected it did. Smitten. He wasn’t smitten with Viv and it rankled that he’d managed to convince his grandfather that he was. Cupcakes, on the other hand—no pretending needed there. “Of course I am. That’s what first drew me to her.”
Like it was yesterday, he recalled how many times he’d found excuses to drop by Cupcaked to get a glimpse of Viv in those first few weeks after meeting her. Often she was in the back but if she saw him, she popped out for a quick hi, ready with a smile no matter what she had going on in the kitchen. That alone had kept him coming back. There was always someone in the office with a birthday or anniversary, and cupcakes always made an occasion more festive.
“Ah, yes, I recall that conversation at dinner where she mentioned you pretended to go there for her cupcakes but were really there to see her.”
“It was both,” he corrected easily since it was true. He could own that he liked Viv. They were friends.
Who’d seen each other naked.
Before he could stop it, images of Viv spilled through his mind.
The rush of heat to his body smacked him, sizzling across his skin so fast he had little chance of reeling it back. But he had to. This was the most inappropriate time to be thinking about his wife wearing that see-through yellow lacy concoction strictly for his benefit.
“Pardon me for a moment,” Jonas croaked, and ducked into the executive washroom to get himself under control. Or as close to it as he could with an enormous erection that showed no signed of abating.
And while he stood in front of the mirror concentrating on his breathing and doing absolutely nothing constructive, he pulled out his phone to set a reminder to drop by the jewelry store on the way home. Viv had expressly asked for jewels as compensation for the favor she was doing him. She needed something pretty and ridiculously expensive.
Thinking of her draped in jewelry he’d bought wasn’t helping.
After the longest five minutes of his life, Jonas finally got the tenting mostly under control. No one had noticed. Or at least that’s what he tried to tell himself. His staff didn’t walk around with their eyes on his crotch.
The biggest hit was to Jonas’s psyche. How had he let Viv get under his skin like that? It was unacceptable. If nothing else, he needed to maintain his professionalism during this period when his grandfather’s support meant everything. There were other contenders for Jung-Su’s job, such as vice presidents who lived in Korea and had worked alongside the CEO for thirty years. Some of Mr. Park’s staff could rise to the top as worthy heads of a global company, and those under the Park umbrella arguably had more experience running the factories that would come into play with the merger.
Jonas had to reel it back with Viv. Way back. There was no excuse for falling prey to baser urges and he definitely didn’t want to find out what happened next if he kept going down this path. That was one absolute he trusted—the less he let a woman get tangled up in his emotions, the better.
Resolute, Jonas returned to find his grandfather in deep discussion with Jonas’s chief financial officer, a man without whom Kim Electronics would suffer in the American market.
Perfect. This was an opportunity to guide the discussion to Jonas’s accomplishments as well as those of his staff, who were a reflection of his ability to run the Americas branch. Back on track, Jonas smiled at the two men and jumped into the conversation as if he hadn’t just had a minor freak-out over an incontrollable urge to drive straight home and bury himself in his wife.