The Young Lady Wants That Dog 2

He had seen her exactly once — right before Jang Hee-jo was dragged off to the army.

Word had come down that a disturbance broke out in one of the Ant Cave's VIP rooms, and Woo Tae-kyung, being the closest, went first. A VIP, and a woman at that — handle with care, no force allowed. The radio order alone told him this would be a tedious job, and the premonition had settled in before he even opened the door.

A woman's voice, laughing as she threatened a group of very obviously guilty men, a shattered beer bottle clutched in her hand.

Because he'd been told not to subdue her by force, he reached out and took her shoulder as gently as he could manage — and that was when the bottle swung.

Ah, this one isn't going to fade. The thought flickered through him in that instant, and sure enough, the wound only grew more prominent with time; unlike the scar Chairman Jang had given him, it never softened, never disappeared. Everyone assumed his face bore Chairman Jang's handiwork, but the person truly responsible for the face he had now was right here.

"Heard Jang Hee-jo went under. But you two still stick together, huh? What's going on between you two? Are you seriously Jang Hee-jo's dog?"

Woo Tae-kyung was still gripping her wrist — the moment he let go, she would waste no time pawing at his face again. Her eyes glittered. A faint thrill ran beneath the delighted tone of her voice.

"They say when the master falls, the dog leaves. So why are you still with Jang Hee-jo?"

Jang Hee-jo's dog. It wasn't an inaccurate description, and Woo Tae-kyung didn't particularly take offense. They had met exactly once — and he knew full well the memory couldn't have been a pleasant one for her either — yet her lips still chattered away like a bird. She surrendered her twisted arm to him without a fight, while her free hand fidgeted at her fingers, apparently unable to resist the urge to touch the wound. She was keeping her distance only because she feared that if she raised it again, he'd catch that hand too.

"I've got nowhere else to go."

If he didn't answer, she'd only get louder. People already stared at him plenty on this campus, but today, somehow, they were staring more than usual. Even passing students stopped in their tracks to look. When they started pulling out their phones to take pictures, even Woo Tae-kyung felt his irritation rise.

"Then should I take you in?"

"Take me in? Please. Hey, get off me."

At the woman's magnanimous offer, as if she were doing him some grand charity, Woo Tae-kyung shook her hand off with an irritated flick.

"You people have been meeting with my daddy lately, haven't you?"

The woman arched the corner of her mouth in an elegant smirk and crossed her arms. She shifted her weight onto one leg and lifted her chin high, as if she absolutely had to look down her nose at Jang Hee-jo's dog.

"I wasn't aware the youngest daughter of Chairman Lee had taken an interest in me. My master's fallen on hard times lately, so his brat's been acting up too — don't push your luck."

As Woo Tae-kyung spoke with a shrug, the woman slowly licked her lower lip. If she were wearing lipstick, it should have smeared away, but her lips remained vividly red. And the instant her tongue swept over them, they gleamed — as though madness itself had been pressed firmly against her mouth. Woo Tae-kyung frowned reflexively.

"Come to me."

At that supremely confident voice, Woo Tae-kyung fell silent for a moment.

This was the second time he'd laid eyes on the woman, and the first had been anything but a pleasant encounter. Just as she said, a scar that would never fade for the rest of his life had been carved into him that day. And this second meeting felt, to his mind, hardly a welcome one either — so what exactly had he done to deserve her making a spectacle of herself right in front of him?

"Lee Do-hee's acting crazy again."

"Isn't that the gangster? The one who shows up at school sometimes — scar on his face, so yeah, that's gotta be him. Ah, right, Lee Do-hee."

Amid the voices drifting in from around them, Woo Tae-kyung finally dredged up the name of Chairman Lee's treasured youngest daughter.

That was it, all right.

The beer bottle that had slashed his face and dropped from her hand, the girl's face frozen on the spot — she'd looked so young that he couldn't even muster anger. A scar on his face on top of the ones littering his body; for him, that day had been nothing more than an unremarkable one.

"Jang Hee-jo can't raise you properly, so come to me."

And with that, a single condition attached to the deal he'd accepted from Chairman Lee not long ago surfaced in his memory.

"So she's out already…"

As Woo Tae-kyung muttered to himself about whether the Korean justice system had ever moved this fast, Lee Do-hee answered in a voice loud enough for anyone to hear.

"Yep. It hasn't been that long since I walked out of the detention center, fresh as a daisy."

Woo Tae-kyung slipped his hands into his pants pockets, hunched his shoulders, and regarded Lee Do-hee with the most world-weary expression he could summon. This was hardly something to boast about — not in a space where ordinary students could hear every word — yet she brought it up without a shred of hesitation.

Every eye in the vicinity locked onto them.

"You're good at obeying your master, aren't you?"

So that means you'll take me home, right?

Somehow, the words landed in his ears as the latter, and Woo Tae-kyung tilted his head slightly sideways.

What was wrong with his ears. He picked at one with his pinky as he watched her — the girl who had so unmistakably shoved him away — now fluttering toward him, light as a butterfly.

"Will you take me home?"

She was the one accustomed to giving orders.

And he, as it happened, was the one accustomed to carrying them out. Considering his current relationship with her father, Chairman Lee, escorting her home was well within what he could do.

As she came toward him, her long, unbound wavy hair swayed with every step. When the phones around them swung unmistakably in Lee Do-hee's direction, Woo Tae-kyung realized that every one of those cameras was moving because of her.

"Keep your head down."

"Why should I?"

She asked it with a smile, plainly aware that the cameras were chasing her.

There were certain things a man simply came to know, working the shadows.

Chairman Lee of SC Capital — built by gangsters who had long operated openly in Seoul — doted on this youngest daughter of his, fiercely and utterly.

Despite being the child of a mistress, he cherished her enough to raise her name above even his legitimate sons.

All of it resembled the Jang Hee-jo of the old days, and that was how Woo Tae-kyung had filed Lee Do-hee away in his memory. But unlike Hee-jo, Do-hee had come and gone freely through the Ant Cave's VIP rooms, was now attending university in broad daylight, and above all — Chairman Lee had poured everything he had into the murder case his daughter was entangled in and pulled her out with a verdict of not guilty.

Which meant Woo Tae-kyung had been swept up in the busyness as well. Jang Hee-jo had contacted Hong Kong himself and made a personal plea to his aunt — she had connections in the Korean prosecution service, didn't she? Get one person out. And that one person was Lee Do-hee.

To raze the Ant Cave clean and build a new resort in its place, they needed Chairman Lee and his far-reaching influence. And since Hee-jo intended to launder the slush funds flowing into the country through that very capital, his meetings with the man had grown noticeably frequent of late.

"Woo Tae-kyung."

Lee Do-hee smiled, slow and silken, and moved to link her arm through his — he made a show of drawing his hand from his pocket and smoothly shook her off.

"Shall I make things difficult for your master right here — Jang Hee-jo's little pet? Is that what it'll take for you to behave?"

Woo Tae-kyung looked down at her, his face blank.

Those glossy lips parted smoothly once more.

"A dog that only behaves when its master's in trouble? That's a rather bad look."

Threats spilled without hesitation from the mouth of Lee Do-hee — who could speak in the prettiest words when she pleased, and who had otherwise grown up doing exactly as she wished — and Woo Tae-kyung silently marveled: truly the daughter of that old snake, Chairman Lee. She wielded her father's power as if it were her own, without a flicker of hesitation.

"Hold still."

Saying so, Lee Do-hee rose up onto the heel of her sandaled foot.

When Woo Tae-kyung did nothing and simply stayed where he was, she raised her hand and finished what she hadn't managed earlier.

With smooth fingers, she toyed with the scar that ran from beneath his right eye, long, down across his cheek.

Unlike the rest of his skin, the flesh there was still dark, still torn as it had been that day — a lurid ridge of raised tissue. Lee Do-hee, without so much as a blink, ignoring even his gaze, devoted her every nerve to that scar.

As if admiring a piece she herself had made, she touched it slowly, rubbed it, studied it.

"This one's going to stay with you for life."

The warmth in that voice — regretting not at all what she had done — settled over Woo Tae-kyung with a strange, crawling discomfort.