Page 7 of Fallen Starboy

“The hell you will. I don’t do the legal jargon-ese. That’s what you’re here for.”

I had to restrain myself from standing and thanking them for their time. As it was, this was one of the few agencies willing to take on a fallen, blacklisted star. And the others hadn’t been nearly as generous in their contract terms.

I couldn’t afford to offend.

But Arista seemed to have no such hangups. She crossed her arms and stared the two men down, her eyes narrowed to slits as she picked her words with all the calculating forethought of a professional with time in the industry and a knowledge of its inner workings.

“I advise you to put in a request for clarification on this line, as well as the following three, before you sign anything. I would also suggest asking for an explicit termination clause, allowing you to back out for mistreatment or dangerous working conditions.”

I read over the section Yang-Jin was now highlighting, realizing she’d essentially told him to have an entire sectionvoided or reworded for my benefit. It would have been a loophole most companies would not hesitate to use to help themselves if they needed to later on. She could have left it there and not said a word, given us lies in Korean, and made the contract more beneficial for her own company, but she didn’t.

Maybe there was some good in her still after all.

Or maybe she was playing some sort of long game here.

I wouldn’t put it past her to fuck me over again.

“We will take it under consideration,” the lawyer tried again, but Arista’s hand slammed on the table, her eyes narrowed to slits now.

“You will do more than that. The client has expressed an interest in changing or eliminating the clause altogether. You will confer with the execs and alter the terminology to suit the client, or you’ll have no contract to sign.”

I watched Minseo pale to my left. He was probably thinking the same thing I was.She was trying to keep me from signing.

Did her hatred for me run so deep? Was she really this unwilling to work with me that she’d make a stink over a single line or two of language in a contract that was worlds above better than any others we’d seen in our long run as leading kpop idols?

I opened my mouth, but Yang-Jin’s hand slapped over it gently, keeping my words at bay for a moment longer.

His smile to the agent and lawyer was as fake as a thousand-dollar bill ripped from the dollar store notepads. “Shall we continue?”

We went through the rest of the contract with minimal issues, save one other spot at the end where they had tried to slip in a higher rate of consultation fee for services I didn’t need, but Yang-Jin needed no translator for that. After drawing lines through the sections he didn’t like, he passed the annotated contract to the lawyer, asking if he’d like a copy, or if he’d taken his own notes.

“Keep a copy of the annotated requests for Jun,” Arista muttered, placing her hand atop his with a gentleness I hadn’t thought she still possessed. “If they didn’t make their own annotations, I can have a copy made for them from his at the front desk, and they can take that with them on their way out.”

If these corporate thugs had shown disrespect to her when we’d walked in, they were seething with hatred and displeasure for her presence now. With a few simple words, she made them look incompetent and foolish and emasculated them in front of a new client.

I had no doubt she’d likely get a glaring report of her actions today given to her boss.

And then the lawyer laughed and offered his hand to her, waiting as she stared at it like it might bite her. “You are quite the cutthroat liaison, Miss Simmons. You’d be invaluable in the legal department, you know that?”

“Not interested,” she muttered, taking his hand and offering him a crooked smile. “But you know that already. I’ve only turned down the offer six times so far. One would think you’ve developed selective memory for the topic.”

Thathad me nearly choking on air.

When we met her, she was an inexperienced, quiet, shy girl. Somewhere along the way, she’d become a sharp and dangerous adversary in the music industry.

She was not the same girl we used to know.

I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

The lawyer and agent shook our hands again and made for the door, but Arista didn’t follow. Something in the way she stood far away from the table clearly emphasized her lack of desire to be here.

Minseo turned to her the second the door closed behind her colleagues, his hands balled into fists.

“You’ve got some nerve sitting at a table with us today.”

The words landed as intended, and she physically recoiled from the venom he laced them with. Her eyes flashed with hurt before she schooled her features and turned to him with a frown.

“Minseo, I know we four have a past, but for the sake of your employment and mine, I think it’s best if we don’t inform anyone else of that. I’m here in a business capacity only. My job is to help Jun navigate anything he’ll need a translator for and assist in keeping cultural gaps and misunderstandings to a minimum as he adjusts to his new life as a talent with kNight Records. The secondary purpose of my being here is to protect a business asset for our company. If he slips up in public and commits an accidental faux pas that reflects negatively on our company, it’s my duty to find ways to mitigate the damage and prevent further issues.”

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