Laurelwood Drive was still wrapped in that early-morning stillness, the air cool enough to make you linger outside a little longer. Kang Young Kwang was halfway to his car, mentally listing the things he needed from the bakery, when he noticed her.
A woman stood at the curb, suitcase parked by her leg, in front of his house.
She looked out of place here—like she belonged somewhere behind the velvet rope of a five-star hotel lobby, not on a quiet San Francisco street. Yet she was dressed simply: a white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled, the top few buttons undone to reveal a fitted spaghetti-strap top tucked into well-worn, tattered jeans. Her long brown hair framed a face that could stop traffic. Mismatched earrings—a heart on one side, a tiny palm tree in a circle on the other—caught the morning light.
He noticed. He always noticed.
The little things stood out first. How she stood—spine straight, chin lifted like someone who'd been taught posture from birth. How her eyes, a warm brown, carried the faint almond shape of someone who might have Asian roots. And then there was that undefinable aura: money. Not the flashy kind. Old money. The kind you don't announce because everyone in your world already knows.
"Hello?" he called.
She turned toward him, a hesitant smile playing at her lips. "Hi… I think I'm lost."
"What's the address you're looking for?"
She glanced at the folded paper. "4287 Laurelwood Drive, San Francisco."
He stopped walking. "That's my address."
"Oh." She didn't move.
He studied her carefully. "Who are you looking for?"
"Kang Young Kwang."
His jaw tightened. His name, spoken by strangers, never failed to trigger that flicker of suspicion. In his head, a checklist started—stalker? journalist? crazy fan?—but none of it seemed to fit the shy woman in front of him.
"Why are you looking for him?" he asked slowly.
She looked him straight in the eye. "Because…" A pause. Then, matter-of-factly: "I'm his wife."
For a moment, the street, the houses, the cool San Francisco morning—all of it faded into static. He'd never seen her before in his life.
He stared at her, blinking once, twice. "You're… what?"
"Kang Young Kwang's wife," she repeated, like she was telling him the weather.
He laughed once—sharp and short. "Pretty sure I'd remember marrying someone."
Her gaze didn't waver. "Maybe. But you're Kang Young Kwang, right?"
"Last I checked."
She tilted her head, as if studying a face from a photograph she half-recognized. There was no flicker of recognition, no gasp of oh my God, you're that actor—nothing. That in itself was unsettling. These days, strangers recognize him in airports, supermarkets, even with a cap pulled low. Yet she looked at him like he was… just some guy.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Ashling." She said it simply, the syllables clean and deliberate.
He narrowed his eyes. "Ashling… what?"
"Just Ashling"...
"What, like Madonna, Cher, Dr. Dre?"
"Yes", she said simply
He hesitated, glancing down at the suitcase beside her. It was scuffed, one of the handles wrapped in a strip of duct tape. This was not how heiresses traveled.
"I don't let strangers into my house," he said carefully.
"I'm not a stranger," she said. "I'm your wife."
"How can you be my wife?, You don't even have a last name."
"I can take yours."
Her voice was steady, but her fingers curled against her palm—nervous.
He should have told her to leave. Called the police. At the very least, asked for an ID. But instead, he found himself staring at her earrings again—the heart and the palm tree—and wondering why, out of all the women in the world, this one was standing in front of him with a suitcase and a story that made no sense.
Young Kwang didn't move from the bottom of the steps. He wasn't about to let a woman who just claimed to be his wife stroll into his house without answers.
"You want to start explaining," he said, "or should I call someone to take you back to… wherever you came from?"
Ashling—because he'd already decided that name fit her in some inconvenient way—didn't flinch. "I came here from Manila."
"And you ended up at my house because…?"
She shifted her suitcase handle from one hand to the other. "Because this is where my husband lives."
He exhaled slowly. "You keep saying that like it's supposed to make sense."
His eyebrows shot up. "I think I'd remember signing marriage papers."
While looking at him directly she said: "You might have been busy… you know, doing whatever it is you do."
"Whatever it is I do," he repeated. "You don't know?"
"Should I?"
He stared at her, genuinely thrown. "You don't recognize me?"
She tilted her head. "Am I supposed to?"
That was a first. No one asked him that anymore. "I'm… an actor."
Her brows rose, not in recognition, but in polite acknowledgment—like someone told her he sold insurance. "Oh. That explains the 'Are you serious?' look earlier."
"You've never seen me on TV?"
"I don't watch TV," she said with a shrug. "Especially not K-dramas. Too… baduy. No offense."
His mouth twitched despite himself. "Baduy?"
"It's a Filipino thing. It means… tacky. Corny."
He couldn't remember the last time anyone had called his work corny. But there she was, in tattered jeans and mismatched earrings, looking at him like he was just some guy on the street.
He rubbed a hand over his face. "You really think I signed marriage papers?"
Ashling arched a brow. "You didn't?"
"No." He dropped his hand and met her eyes. "I wouldn't have forgotten marrying someone like you."
She blinked. "That's… oddly flattering. But the papers are real. I have copies."
He didn't doubt it. What made his stomach twist was the creeping suspicion of how those papers got signed.
"Oh, hell," he muttered.
"What?"
"I think I know who's behind this."
Two names immediately came to mind—Kim Bo Rang and Shin Young Sik—otherwise known as the pain in his ass since high school. The same two who insisted he "lighten up" whenever his mother called with another blind date lined up. The same two who thought life was one long variety show.
And the same two who'd been obsessed for weeks with some ridiculous "marriage challenge" app they'd heard about—like that Australian reality show where strangers got married at first sight.
"You've got to be kidding me," he said under his breath.
"What?" Ashling pressed.
"Let's just say… my friends think they're hilarious. And I'm starting to think they may have entered me into something I didn't sign up for."
She frowned. "You mean—"
"They probably forged my signature. Filled out all the forms. Match me with you through whatever algorithm that app uses." He stared at her suitcase. "And apparently, they forgot to mention the part where you'd show up in person."
Her mouth fell open slightly. "Wait. You didn't… know about this? At all?"
"No." His voice was flat. "And you?"
She shook her head. "My mother signed me up. I told her no. She said it was a… business networking program."
He gave a humorless laugh. "That's one way to spin it."
Ashling crossed her arms. "So we're both here because other people decided we should be."
"And," he said grimly, "if I remember the pitch my friends gave me—this 'program' comes with a one-year contract. We're supposed to actually try to make it work."
She stared at him. "You're joking."
"I wish I was."
"And if we do?" she asked cautiously.
He hesitated, remembering the rest of the ridiculous setup. "…We split a million dollars."
Her eyes widened. "One million—"
"USD," he added dryly. "That's why my idiot friends probably did it. They thought it would be easy money. No more blind dates from my mother, no more nagging from them… and if we survived a year, we'd all celebrate on a yacht somewhere."
Ashling stared at him for a long moment before letting out a soft, incredulous laugh. "So… what you're saying is, we're fake-married, strangers, and contractually stuck together for twelve months… because your friends and my mother are meddling lunatics?"
"That about sums it up."
Ashling shook her head, still half-smiling, half-shocked. "Then we end it. Right now."
Young Kwang blinked. "End it?"
"Yes. Get a lawyer, get the contract annulled, or whatever it is you do here. There's no way I'm staying married to a stranger for a year just because other people think it's cute."
He let out a short, dry laugh. "Cute isn't exactly the word I'd use."
"Good. Then we're in agreement." She bent down, grabbed her suitcase handle. "I'll find a hotel for the night. We can meet tomorrow to figure out the paperwork."
"You think it's that simple?"
She straightened and looked at him, brows drawn. "It's not?"
"No." His mouth pressed into a thin line. "You clearly don't know Bo Rang and Young Sik. If they went through the trouble of forging my signature, they've already covered their tracks. And your mother—what did she tell you this was?"
"A business networking program," she muttered.
He gave her a pointed look. "Exactly. Two sets of meddlers with two different agendas. Do you really think they'll just smile and let us walk away?"
Ashling's lips thinned. "They can't force us to stay married if the whole thing is based on fraud."
"Legally, maybe not," he said. "Socially, politically, financially? I wouldn't bet on it. People like them don't like to be embarrassed."
Her jaw tightened. "So what do you suggest? Just… play along?"
"I suggest we find out exactly what we're up against before we start swinging."
She crossed her arms. "Fine. We investigate. But if there's a way out, I'm taking it."
He held her gaze for a beat longer than necessary. "Deal."
Ashling shifted her suitcase closer to her side. "So what's the first step in this… investigation?"
"We call the company." Young Kwang pulled his phone from his pocket. "Bo Rang bragged about them once. Said they were the 'future of relationship matchmaking.'"
"Future of fraud, more like."
He smirked faintly, scrolling for the number he vaguely remembered. She caught the sharp, assessing glance he sent her way — quick, but not quick enough.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing," he said lightly, but his mind was already turning. People didn't sign up for things like this unless they needed something. Her calm acceptance of the setup earlier… the way she didn't flinch at the mention of the one million dollars… It didn't take much to connect the dots.
Maybe she was in it for the money. Wouldn't be the first time someone in his orbit had played the long game for a payout.
He tapped the screen and put the call on speaker.
The line rang twice before a pleasant, overly chipper voice answered. "Welcome to HeartMatch Global, the premier partner program for serious commitments. How may I help you today?"
"Yeah," Young Kwang said, "we're calling to terminate a match contract."
There was a pause. "May I have your Match ID number?"
Ashling fished in her bag for a crumpled page and slid it across the counter to him. He read off the number.
Another pause, this one longer. "Sir, I'm seeing that your match is part of our Elite Partnership Initiative. Per the terms, early termination is only possible under mutual consent from both parties and approval from all sponsoring stakeholders."
Ashling frowned. "Stakeholders?"
"Yes, ma'am," the voice said cheerfully. "For example, your families, any associated businesses, and relevant program sponsors."
Young Kwang's eyes narrowed. "So you're saying we can't just sign something and be done?"
"I'm afraid not. All cancellations for the Elite tier require stakeholder consensus. Until then, you are encouraged to complete the one-year term."
Ashling sat back, lips pressing into a thin line. "And if we don't?"
"Potential penalties include breach of contract fees, public disclosure clauses, and litigation from the sponsoring parties."
The call ended a few minutes later with polite goodbyes neither of them meant.
Ashling let out a slow breath. "So they've locked us in."
"Looks like it." He leaned against the counter, studying her again. Pretty, composed… and maybe just opportunistic enough to ride this out for the payout.
She caught the flicker in his gaze, the one that made her feel like she'd been quietly weighed and measured. She thought about correcting him, telling him that she didn't need the money — not from him, not from anyone — but stopped herself.
Let him think what he wanted.
Ashling crossed her arms. "So what's the plan now?"
Young Kwang's mouth curved in something that wasn't quite a smile. "We give it a little time. See if there's a loophole. In the meantime…"
"In the meantime what?"
"We keep up appearances."
She arched her brow. "Appearances for who? The neighbors? Your friends?"
"My mother," he said flatly. "And whoever else might try to turn this into a bigger scandal than it already is."
Ashling considered that. She had her own mother to contend with — the queen of polite pressure, who could ruin a social season with a single whisper. "Fine. We play along. But only until we find a way out."
"Agreed."
He pushed away from the counter and reached for her suitcase. "Guest room's this way."
She hesitated before following. "You're really okay letting a stranger live in your house?"
"No," he said over his shoulder, "but until this mess is cleaned up, you're not exactly a stranger, are you?"
Ashling bit back a retort, trailing him down the hallway. He didn't have to know she had no interest in the prize money. And she didn't have to know that he had no intention of letting her see just how much this whole thing was starting to intrigue him.
One year. That was all they had to survive.
And if they were lucky, they'd walk away from each other exactly the same as they'd arrived — strangers.