Page 52 of The Valentine Agenda

"Sir," Angela's voice gentled. "Is everything alright?"

The question hit him like a physical blow. Because everything wasn't alright. Everything was completely, wonderfully altered.

"I'm falling in love."

The words fell into the space between them, and James felt the truth of them settle in his chest. He was in love with Hannah. Not the careful, calculated attraction he'd known before. Not the kind of love you could schedule or manage or control.

"I can't stop thinking about her," he continued, the revelation spilling out now that he'd started. "About how she makes every space warmer just by existing in it. How she remembers everyone's stories. How she straightens that painting in the lobby."

Angela lowered herself into a chair, but James barely noticed. How had he not seen it before? How had he not understood why his perfectly ordered world had started feeling hollow?

"The board meeting," Angela prompted gently.

"Right." He tried to focus on business. But all he could think about was Hannah's laugh. How had he ever thought Vanessa's practiced society laughs meant anything?

"I'll handle it," he said, but even as the words left his mouth, he was remembering how Hannah's eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled without thinking about it. "It's just..."

"Just?"

"None of it matters anymore." He gestured at his office—the view he'd chosen for its ability to impress, the furniture selected to project success. "All of this—the mergers, the acquisitions, the endless meetings about meetings—it's just noise. Compared to her."

The James Park of three months ago would have been horrified by this admission. Would have seen it as weakness, as a distraction from success.

But that James had never seen Hannah Miller teach children to understand their feelings through weather patterns. Had never noticed how she poured her whole heart into tiny kindnesses that made the world better for everyone around her.

That James had never really seen anything that mattered.

"I'll reschedule the board meeting," Angela said, and he heard the understanding in her voice. "And Legal can file the Sinclair documents for you.”

James nodded, already lost in thoughts of Hannah. Of how she made him want to be better, not for show or status, but simply because she saw the good in everyone—even him.

Especially him.

The Sinclair merger was done. The Mitchell acquisition would still be there tomorrow.

Right now, James Park—successful businessman, corporate power player, master of mergers and acquisitions—was doing something he'd never done before.

He was falling in love.

And for the first time in his life, he didn't care who noticed.

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The Park family home looked exactly as it had for James' whole life—elegant brownstone, tasteful landscaping, wealth expressed through understatement rather than flash. James hesitated at the front steps.

He'd cancelled these dinners for months, always too busy with deals or meetings or... or dinners at Nero's that ended in disaster. His mother had stopped asking why he didn't come. She'd just kept sending the invitations, patient in that way that made him feel like a disappointing child.

The door opened to his father's warm smile. "James-ah! Your mother's in the kitchen."

"The kitchen?" James frowned. His mother hadn't cooked since—

"She says if you won't come discuss your quarterly projections, she'll draw you in with your childhood favorites." His father's eyes twinkled. "Though between us, I think she just misses you."

The house was unchanged—original hardwood floors polished to a soft glow, family photographs arranged with his mother's military precision. James passed the spot where his fifth-grade science project had once scorched the wallpaper. His mother had been cross about the damage, but his father had convinced her to keep that section unrepaired. "Some mistakes," he'd said while winking at James, "teach us more than perfection."

The kitchen smelled like his childhood—kimchi jjigae bubbling on the stove, the specific way his mother seasoned the banchan. She stood at the counter like a general commanding troops, her designer clothes protected by an apron as she chopped vegetables with surgical precision.

"You're late," she said without turning. "The Sinclair merger announcement was due last week. Why hasn't it posted?"

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