Wear This

"Does it hurt?"

The slightest crease of her brow was all it took for Seo-won to fix every ounce of his attention on Yuju. He brushed his lips over her forehead and her cheek, easing the tension from her body—even as he forced down a desire that felt ready to burst.

Which meant that even lost in pleasure, he had never once stopped watching her face.

"It's all right. I won't do any more."

His own need still unsatisfied, once reason returned he had washed her himself—Yuju, who had spent every last scrap of her strength. Each time she flinched at the touch of his hands against her flushed skin, he spoke that gently, as if to soothe her.

And above all…

"I…"

After carrying her to the bedroom, he had stayed at her side until she fell asleep. He had said something then, but she could not remember what.

What she knew for certain was that she had glimpsed tenderness from Seo-won for the first time—and that she had done something enormous.

"Ahh…"

Yuju let out a groan as the memory of her own recklessness flooded back.

Yesterday she had shouted with such brazen nerve—that she wanted it, that they should sleep together, that if he wouldn't then she would find someone else. But Seo-won was not someone she was allowed to treat that way.

He was the man she had liked for so long, and yet had never dared approach—too magnificent, too perfect, too far above her.

Even after living through it, even knowing she had been the one to push first, she still could not believe she had shared a bed with him.

She had no confidence left to face him. Her plan was to run. Of course she was a rat in a trap, and there was nowhere to flee forever—but still.

"Huh?"

So absorbed in the need to escape the situation at once, when Yuju finally checked the space beside her her eyes went wide.

The other side of the bed was empty. Seo-won must already have left for work at this early hour.

It was a relief, and yet somehow it left her feeling hollow. Yuju sat up with a dejected little pout—then froze mid-motion.

"What's this?"

A small box sat on the nightstand. An instinct told her it was meant for her.

As if spellbound, Yuju opened it. Inside lay a ring.

Only then did she notice the slip of paper left with the box.

For a moment she stared blankly at the neat, careful handwriting. And then she understood why Seo-won had stepped into the bedroom for a moment the night before. He must have left this.

"It fits perfectly."

Yuju slipped the ring on at once. However he had known her size, it settled on her finger with uncanny precision.

He had given it to her, she supposed, so she could show other people the token of their marriage. Something for her father—and for Seo-won himself, something to put on a show for his grandfather.

But Yuju could not take the ring lightly. Perhaps because of what had happened last night. For the first time, the fact that she and Seo-won were husband and wife felt real.

Of all people, she had never imagined ending up like this with her brother's friend. The problem was that, awkward as it was, she did not dislike it.

Only minutes earlier she had been wracking her brains over how she would ever face Seo-won again. Living under the same roof, there was no avoiding him no matter how hard she tried.

And yet, separate from all of that, the mere thought of him left her feeling soft and warm.

"Managing Director."

Seo-won responded to the voice calling him. His face was expressionless, as if he had never been lost in thought at all. But to his secretary's eyes, the distraction was plain.

"You've been stuck on the same page for a while now."

Seo-won pressed his lips shut against a truth he could not deny.

Something had blown up before dawn. He had not slept a wink before rushing to the office, and even while he cleaned up the mess, the familiar print on the page somehow refused to register.

"Haa."

In the end, he had no choice but to set the documents down.

Like a madman, he kept replaying the night before. Again and again his mind slipped its leash.

Thinking of Yuju made him feel warm all over again. He rubbed at the heat prickling along the back of his neck. The sensations from last night were still vivid enough to prove that none of it had been a dream.

Remembering what he had done, Seo-won clutched his head under a wave of guilt.

"You crazy bastard."

The curse slipped out before he could stop it, and the secretary flinched. But Seo-won was in no state to consider anyone else's feelings.

In front of Tae-ju, who had already been suspicious of their relationship, he had been shameless. Even when he was treated like the worst kind of man alive, he had held his head high. And now, suddenly, he could not look his friend in the eye.

Just thinking about the cleanup that lay ahead made his head ache. Yuju's pointed words and behavior from the night before only deepened the confusion.

"I'm never getting a divorce from you, Oppa."

She did not want a divorce.

He had been so sure of what he saw—that the moment she escaped her father's surveillance she would seize any chance to end it, that even living under the same roof was only temporary, something she meant to take back when the opportunity came.

Seo-won had planned to release her too, when the time was right. And then, without meaning to, he had crossed a line.

Whether he could ever look at Yuju as nothing more than his friend's little sister again was an open question.

"Because I'm not as safe as you think."

He remembered with perfect clarity how Yuju's face had gone pale at those words.

From the day she heard them she had kept her distance, startling every time she saw him—he had known she was afraid.

But he had never tried to correct the impression. Of course he had never actually intended to do anything to her.

All the pressure he had put on her until then had been nothing more than petty revenge, a bit of teasing.

"You look like the safest person in the world. Even if I shared a bed with you, Oppa, I don't think anything would happen."

He might not have been interested in anyone that way, but that did not mean he had no pride as a man. Her certainty had stung.

It had started as a way to needle her. Then her reactions had been so entertaining that he could not stop.

But watching her flinch every time they met, he had just begun to think it was time to quit.

And then this accident had happened, and the thought of cleaning it up made his head pound all over again. Still, there was a more pressing problem, and he recovered his composure almost at once.

Because he, like Yuju, had had his own reasons for sealing a marriage with someone he had only ever seen as a friend's younger sibling.

"And the Chairman?"

The moment he thought of that reason, Seo-won's expression darkened. Faced with the gravity of the subject, the secretary grew serious as well.

"It isn't the most satisfying match, but it isn't an entirely unsatisfying one either, so he hasn't said much."

"Not an unsatisfying match."

"Of course, if what he wanted was the prosecution, allying with a family of lawyers generation after generation would be ideal—but Prosecutor Han Beom-su knows how to work the right connections, doesn't he."

"……"

"With greed like that, he may have decided the man would be easy to use. Whatever the case, for a chairman who lacks for nothing, someone who will prostrate himself is always preferable to someone with the power and authority to stab him in the back."

"……"

"And more than anything, this is the first time the Managing Director has acted this unilaterally. I suspect he's taken a step back for now, trying to read your intentions."

Listening in silence, Seo-won let out a long, deflating breath. The sound was not one of pleasure.

Whatever plan his grandfather meant to build on this marriage was not what mattered. What snagged on Seo-won's mind was something else entirely.

"Connections. Those matter, all right."

As he echoed the words he had just heard, Seo-won's face settled into something heavy.

Yuju was not a child who would deceive him and side with his grandfather. And even setting that aside, there had been reasons he had chosen her as his marriage partner.