The air in the room was heavily saturated with the scent of sun-warmed peaches. It was a clean, addictive smell that made Wonho's head swim, cutting through the sophisticated poise he'd spent years perfecting.
Wonho lay pinned against the sheets, his breath hitching as a pair of intense eyes locked onto his. The man above him moved with a quiet, natural strength, his gaze tracing Wonho's features as if memorizing a map.
A warm hand slid to the back of Wonho's neck, thumb grazing his pulse.
"You'll have my child, won't you? Wonho?" The voice was a low, steady vibration.
"You're mine, aren't you? You're mine."
Wonho's heart hammered.
He wanted to retort with something sharp, something in Latin or a dismissal in his coldest Korean but the biology of the moment was winning.
As he looked into those eyes, his mind drifted back to the week everything fell apart. At that moment he realized that his self-made life was a glass house, and the rocks were finally being thrown.
Five Days Earlier
The morning light in the Shin Gallery was perfect. It hit the white walls at a forty-five-degree angle, making the oil paintings look alive.
Wonho stood in the center of the room, adjusting a frame by a fraction of a millimeter. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, his frame looking lean and composed.
To anyone walking in, he was the picture of success, a sophisticated art appraiser who spoke multiple languages and lived a life of quiet luxury.
He liked it that way.
He had worked for this.
He had stripped himself of his past just as he had stripped himself of his clothes for three years, all to pay for the degree hanging in his office.
"Good morning, Mr. Shin," Min-ji, his assistant, called out as she entered the office, her heels clicking rhythmically on the concrete.
Wonho didn't turn around, his focus remaining on the brushwork of the painting. "The lighting in the east wing is slightly off, Min-ji. Have the technician look at the dimmers before the 10:00 AM viewing. We have a collector coming in who is particularly sensitive to glare."
"Of course, sir. Also, you have a delivery of catalogues from the auction house."
"Put them on my desk. I'll review them after I finish the appraisal for the Busan collection. And tell the florist the lilies are too fragrant; they're clashing with the atmosphere. I want something neutral. White hydrangeas, perhaps."
It was a random Tuesday, one which was supposed to start and end like the previous Tuesdays before it.
Starting with work and ending with work.
But peace was a fragile thing.
Around 11:00 AM, the quiet hum of the gallery was broken by a commotion in the lobby.
Wonho's brow furrowed, his eyes shifting to the security monitor on the corner of his mahogany desk. He saw Min-ji standing at the reception desk, her posture stiff and uncharacteristically flustered.
She was speaking to a couple who looked entirely out of place in the minimalist space.
They were draped in the kind of obvious wealth that felt loud, the woman was dressed from head to toe in pearls and silk, while the man in a tailored overcoat that screamed "Old Money."
"Mr. Shin?" Min-ji's voice came through the intercom, sounding strained. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but there is a Mr. and Mrs. Kang here. They... they say they don't need an appointment. That it's a family matter."
Wonho felt a cold prickle of unease at the back of his neck.
Family.
The word felt foreign, like a language he had purposely chosen not to learn.
"I don't have a family, Min-ji. Tell them I'm in a meeting with an overseas client."
"They won't leave, sir. The woman... She's crying. She says she's been looking for you for twenty-eight years."
-_-
That did it.
Was this a new type of scam?
Still he had to go out and see for himself, to avoid Minji being pestered.
He adjusted his jacket, checking his reflection in the window.
His 6'1" frame looked imposing, his face a mask of professional boredom.
He didn't believe in miracles, and he certainly didn't believe in long-lost relatives appearing just as his gallery was becoming profitable.
He walked out of his office and into the lobby, his footsteps silent on the rug.
The woman was indeed crying, clutching a designer handbag as if it were a life raft.
The man beside her was older, his face a map of stern lines and suppressed emotion. He looked like the kind of Alpha who commanded boardrooms with a single, devastating glance.
The moment the woman saw Wonho, she let out a strangled, breathless sob.
"It's him." she whispered, her voice cracking with an emotion Wonho didn't know how to process. "Look at his eyes, Dae-jung. He has your father's eyes. He even stands like a Kang."
Wonho stopped five feet away from them, his hands clasped behind his back in a gesture of refined distance. "I believe you have the wrong gallery. I am Shin Wonho. I don't know who you are, and I certainly don't know why you are disturbing my place of business."
The man, Dae-jung, stepped forward. He didn't look like a scammer; he looked like a man who was used to the world bending to his will.
"Twenty-eight years ago, there was a fire at the Seoul General Hospital," the man began, his voice steady but thick with an underlying tension. "In the chaos of the evacuation, two infants were switched. We raised the child we were given, never doubting he was ours... until a medical screening for a transplant last month revealed the truth. Our son…our biological son..wasn't the one in our home."
The woman reached out, her fingers hovering in the air as if she wanted to touch Wonho's face but didn't dare break the invisible barrier he had built. "We've been searching for you for weeks. We traced the foster care records, the hospital logs... everything. You are a Kang, Wonho. You are our blood."
Wonho took another step back and adjusted his jacket, then he let out a low laugh.
"I am a Kang you say? I'm your blood? Do I look like I give a damn about that? I'm a grown ass man in his late 20's, do you expect me to start jumping and jubilating that I've been found after 28 long years?"