BLOOM

-2-

She is but a flower

[TAEHYUNG]

While Karter is away...

'She refused me. I've got to get her to agree with me. The door to my private room opens up and I had a smile on my face thinking that Karter had come back. Only when my eyes reached the doorway, the smile slowly dropped and turned into a stupefied expression. In the doorway were my parents.

"How did you guys even find me? I'm sure that Karter didn't tell you where I was either." That's because she'd been glued to my side since the ass crack of dawn this morning. My eyes bounced back and forth between my parents as I waited for one of them to open their mouth.

"Oh? We didn't know you were here at first. An associate of mine saw you here and told me. I thought it would be interesting for us to greet each other." My father said.

What associate? I thought to myself. My parents were the last two people I wanted to be bothered with right now. I had just gotten done with this exhausting ass work day. I had enough on my plate with trying to convince Karter to marry me. Looking from her standpoint it wouldn't be as easy as I thought it was.

"I asked the waiter to show us to your room." My mother said with a smile on her face. I frowned with disdain. I noted that patron discretion was an issue with this particular place. That was an issue. If they were killers the employee had signed my death certificate.

"I haven't seen you in days son." My mother kissed my cheek and ruffled my hair. I moved her hand away from my hair.

I rolled my eyes upwards. "I'm a busy man mother. I can't just drop everything because you want to see me." She and my father both took seats across from me.

"You won't go on the blind dates I set up for you either. That's why I took the liberty to do it myself." She gave me a sarcastic remark with a pointed look.

My brows dipped as I slowly stood to my feet. "What do you mean? What did you do?" I pulled my phone from my pocket and quickly sent a text message to Karter.

[To🌻:] CODE RED! GET BACK HERE!

To my surprise, Karter's phone vibrates and pings from the table. My eyes snap to it, just as my mother's does. She glances at it before glancing at me. "Was someone with you son? Whose phone is this?"

"It's Karter's phone mother," I sighed before rubbing my temples. I felt a headache coming on. Why the hell did she leave her phone here?!

"Karter is here with you? This late? Why?" She questioned me.

"She's my executive assistant? Why wouldn't she be with me when we just got out of meetings?" My brows rose as I deadpanned her.

"She's of no consequence to me. So it doesn't matter." Mother shrugged. "Lena? Darling, you can come in the room now." My mother called out sickeningly sweet. I frowned at her honey-filled voice. It didn't suit her.

"Who is Lena?" My face scrunched up. But I would soon know who she was.

The door slides open and in walks a woman who I had the displeasure of meeting a few times in the past because of work. She wasn't a bad person, that I knew of. But it was something off about her. Her aura, it was unsettling to me.