Or Not
The grip on her wrist was fierce. Strong enough that it actually hurt a little.
When Juhee looked up in surprise, her eyes met Jeha’s.
It was that gaze again. Quiet as a winter night, yet burning hot enough to sear. That look always made her lose her sense of reality and drift into a daze.
Just like right now.
Voices from the end of the corridor sounded distant. But the air surrounding the two of them was taut and utterly still. As if only the two of them existed, trapped inside that bubble.
Jeha slowly lowered his face. Even at this suffocatingly close distance, she neither avoided his locked gaze nor closed her eyes.
Look at this.
His narrowed eyes seemed to whisper those words.
“If you touch my body without permission one more time…”
Jeha’s low, velvety whisper lifted her chin. Their gazes tangled at a strange angle, and their lips drew even closer.
Yoon Jeha would never kiss me. He’s just threatening me.
She knew that. She knew it perfectly well. So why had she squeezed her eyes shut? The moment her vision went dark, the hot, damp feel of his breath against her lips became painfully vivid. Her heart seemed to tremble and thunder at the same time, as if it might burst.
“You’ll have to take responsibility for your actions.”
The voice, laced with a faint smile, shattered against her lips and dissolved into the deep darkness. His breath moved away, and the wrist he had seized was freed.
When she lifted her eyelids, Jeha had taken two steps back. He looked utterly composed, almost annoyingly so, after thoroughly rattling her.
Though her eyes wavered, Juhee kept her posture straight and her hand firmly placed below her navel as she looked up at him.
“Shall I tie your tie for you?”
She really doesn’t know when to quit. Jeha muttered under his breath before answering gruffly.
“Be careful not to touch me.”
He had never mentioned having a pathological aversion to others touching him. Recalling his profile quickly, Juhee buttoned his shirt and tied his tie, taking extreme care to keep her fingertips from brushing his skin.
After straightening his crooked tie pin, she stepped back and spoke calmly.
“I know you’ve already made up your mind, but please give it one more day of consideration.”
“Why should I?”
“I’m confident I can become a secretary who satisfies you, Representative. If you permit it, I’ll prepare easily readable materials about myself…”
“Enough.”
At the abrupt cutoff, Juhee secretly swallowed a resigned sigh. He was probably about to tell her to get lost right now.
But contrary to her expectations, Jeha turned without a word and began walking down the corridor.
Is this silent approval or silent rejection?
Since he hadn’t delivered a death sentence to her face, she decided to take it as approval. Juhee hurried after him with quick steps.
The people in the dining room turned their gazes toward Jeha. A few even rose as if to greet him. But Jeha treated them like transparent ghosts with outright rudeness and simply walked past.
When they reached the garage, Juhee spoke quickly.
“I’ll drive you, Representative.”
Jeha whipped around with an expression that suggested he’d heard something ridiculous.
“I got in once by mistake because I fell for your lie, but I won’t ride with you a second time.”
Juhee thought back. She had obeyed every traffic signal, maintained a steady speed, and warned him before every right or left turn so he wouldn’t be startled. She didn’t think she’d shown any signs of being a closet-license driver, so what exactly was the problem?
“Car keys.”
Jeha snatched the keys from her hand. Before getting into the car, he glanced at Juhee, who stood ramrod straight, and tossed out carelessly.
“What are you doing? Get in.”
“I’ll make my own way back.”
“How? A taxi you called yourself will be stuck from the neighborhood entrance.”
“……”
“Or are you going to ask that grandfather who adores you for a favor?”
Faced with Juhee’s silence, Jeha spoke with an irritated expression.
“Get in. I’ll drive you.”
“It’s fine, Representative. As I told you before…”
“Listen, Secretary Gong.”
The fact that he called her Secretary Gong.
When Juhee looked up in surprise, she met a pair of icy eyes completely devoid of humor.
“Do I sound like I’m speaking to my friend’s woman right now?”
It was an order from her superior.
Haena, who had left the main house, climbed into the car in a foul mood. Her grandfather had showered her with praise, saying she had grown up enough to even make donations. But that donation had been made by Gong Juhee, not her.
“That damn bitch.”
Haena had first seen Juhee during her third year of middle school, at her brother Seok-hoon’s university campus. In the world of chaebols, corporate rank was the same as the rank of third-generation heirs. By that measure, those above Jeha could be counted on one hand.
Perhaps that was why Haena had been afraid of Jeha, whose unpredictable and prickly personality was infamous. She hadn’t even dared to begin a one-sided crush. Still, she couldn’t give up the chance to look at that face, which was practically a national benefit. While other girls couldn’t even get close, she had been allowed to stay by his side using her brother Seok-hoon as an excuse.
So that day too, she had shown up at Seok-hoon’s university during lunch hour wearing full makeup and a pretty dress.
Huh? Isn’t that Han Taemin?
The moment she saw the man and woman eating lunchboxes on an outdoor bench, Haena’s face twisted.
Jeha was out of reach, but Han Taemin, who had nothing, was someone she could aim for. Tall, well-built, and handsome, Taemin was a scholarship student who never let his grades slip. When she had tested the waters, Taemin had gone beyond treating her like a child and openly kept his guard up around her. Her pride had been wounded, but since Taemin was someone she could dig up if she really wanted to, she hadn’t felt particularly disappointed.
But then her mind changed.
‘My daughter takes after me and is so pretty. She studies well and is incredibly capable. If you and I get married, she’ll definitely pull her own weight, won’t she?’
The daughter in the photo that the woman who had once had an affair with her father had shown her was right there. With Han Taemin. And she was looking at him as if he were the sun.
She had thought the face looked familiar. She never imagined they would meet like this. But what exactly was the relationship between that girl and Taemin?
Her brother Seok-hoon had answered that question. The girl next door whom Taemin looked after. The girl Taemin wanted to marry in the distant future. A trivial, worthless existence not even worth paying attention to.
‘They say she’s from the countryside? Why does she look so tacky?’
She had said it in front of Jeha and Seok-hoon, wanting to tear the girl down any way she could.
‘Why? She looks neat and pretty.’
When the usually indifferent Jeha gave the girl such a generous assessment, Haena’s pride had taken another hit. And then her tactless brother Seok-hoon had added fuel to the fire.
‘True, a student should look like a student. Our Haena should tone down the makeup and wear longer skirts too.’
She hadn’t even heard Seok-hoon’s next words about being afraid some bastard might steal their precious little princess.
She hated that girl who had captured three men at once with a burning passion.
After that, the girl had been at the foreign language high school Haena entered with her parents’ donation money.
Her name was just as annoying—Gong Juhee.
At first, Haena had bullied her by nitpicking small things and isolating her. But when Juhee endured it without making a sound, at some point Haena began tormenting her for no reason at all.
Because the girl’s very existence was irritating.
Then, a few months before graduation, Gong Juhee had struck Haena squarely in the back of the head. Pretending to suffer quietly, she had gathered evidence and reported the school violence. It happened to be a time when the country was especially sensitive about bullying, and Haena’s aunt and uncle were about to run for National Assembly seats.
A perfect reversal. The winner was Gong Juhee. The loser was herself.
After being scolded by her grandfather until she cried her eyes out, Haena had been practically chased off to study abroad in France. She had spent ten years there, launched a decent brand, and returned to Korea to have a matchmaking meeting with Taemin.
Yet the man who had been so cold to her now desperately wanted to marry her. Even if it meant betraying Gong Juhee.
This was why you had to be born to the right parents.
Because Han Taemin, who had once been Gong Juhee’s sun, was willing to sell even his body to marry her.
The loser was Gong Juhee. The winner was her.
So why did she feel so awful, as if she had lost?
This wouldn’t do.
If being betrayed hadn’t been enough of a blow, she would have to make her see it with her own two eyes.
Starting the car, Haena checked her appearance. Under her coat she wore a modest blouse and skirt.
But the blouse could be unbuttoned in an instant, and the A-line skirt that reached her knees could be hiked up easily. It was perfect.
“What underwear did I wear today?”
Ah, red. What impeccable timing.
With a sly smile, Haena called Taemin’s secretary team.
“Hello, this is Joo Haena, Executive Director Han’s fiancée. You’re the secretary who prepared the proposal bouquet, right? The flowers were so beautiful. Thank you.”
Starting with praise, which was unlike her, and acting friendly had yielded quite a lot of information. When she heard that Gong Juhee had transferred departments after only two days, a triumphant smile spread across Haena’s face.
So she hadn’t been as unbothered as she pretended.
It was obvious that an angry Gong Juhee had requested the transfer without saying a word to Taemin. And if she was angry, this was the perfect time to show her properly.
Hiding her pitch-black intentions behind a clever facade, Haena spoke in a regretful voice.
“I was planning to surprise him with a visit today to see Taemin oppa and my old classmate, Team Leader Gong. What should I do?”
She casually added that she wanted to give the secretary team snacks from a famous hotel bakery and one of her brand’s clutches, which was about to launch, as a token of appreciation for taking good care of Taemin.
Jeha’s car, which had driven for over forty minutes without a single word, finally reached the entrance of Juhee’s neighborhood. With one smooth turn of the wheel, he parked neatly in the narrow space. Unfastening her seatbelt, Juhee spoke mechanically.
“Thank you for driving me. I’ll come see you this evening.”
“You’re already sick of being stuck to me, yet you want to come again? Unless…”
What was he going to say now? Juhee, who had unbuckled her seatbelt, looked at him quietly. Jeha let out a short laugh.
“Have you grown attached to me already?”
All she had to say was that the contract hadn’t been terminated yet, so she was simply trying to do her job. But the moment Jeha looked at her with that casual gaze, the words wouldn’t leave Juhee’s mouth.
Outside the car, the wind blew hard enough to shake the thick branches of the roadside trees. Inside the car, it was perfectly quiet.
Maybe that was why. Yoon Jeha filled her wide, empty eyes completely. His lips were smiling, but his eyes held no laughter at all. For some reason, he looked lonely.
That gaze dug deep into her, lodging somewhere in her chest. It felt strange.
It was an unfamiliar sensation, but not unpleasant. Those eyes held a persuasive power that made her feel she shouldn’t leave him alone.
Of course, Juhee knew it was a ridiculous thought.
Yoon Jeha, who had surely never felt sadness or defeat in his life, who had always reigned from the very top and never once dipped his toes into the bottom, feeling lonely? Who was she to worry about whom?
“Or not.”
When Juhee said nothing, Jeha gave a hollow laugh and turned his head. Only then did Juhee let out the breath she had been holding and repeat what she had said earlier.
“Then, Representative, I’ll come see you this evening…”
“You said to give it one more day of thought.”
Jeha cut her off sharply and looked at her again with an expression that said she was hopeless.
“You need to be alone to think, don’t you?”
“I’ll correct that. Then tomorrow…”
“Stay on standby until I contact you.”
The sudden thought that this standby might mean indefinite standby flashed through her mind. But Juhee asked no more questions and obediently got out of Jeha’s car.
“Drive safely.”
She greeted him and began walking, but the back of her head burned. She couldn’t hear the car starting. Suppressing the urge to turn around, she kept walking when her phone rang. It was Secretary Han from the Executive Director’s secretary team. After a moment’s hesitation, Juhee answered. She listened quietly to Secretary Han for a few minutes, then replied calmly.
“Please tell the Executive Director I’ll be there within the hour.”