Not to My Taste

She had no regrets about accepting Se-yeon's plan. If anything, she only resented herself for being so utterly graceless in a moment like this.

Seo-ah buried her face in the long, winding curtain of her own hair.

Watching her fumble through every single movement, the man scratched at his brow, looking vaguely dissatisfied.

"Hmm."

He let out a low sigh and studied her for a long moment. Then, as if he'd finally made up his mind, he tossed out a single word.

"Come in."

At the sound of his voice breaking the silence, Seo-ah flinched and lifted her head. The door—unlike before—now stood wide open.

"Ah..."

Before the open door, she hesitated, unable to make herself step inside. Tae-kyung, leaning his back against the raised door, added with a note of irritation,

"Or would you rather just leave? That works too."

"N-no, sir."

"You're being awfully... slow, aren't you?"

Tae-kyung deliberately dragged the words out, making it blatantly obvious that her sluggishness was getting on his nerves.

Catching on, she hurried to respond.

"I'm sorry. I'm coming in."

She couldn't afford to stall any longer. Before he could change his mind, Seo-ah pushed quickly into the room.

Once she'd scurried inside and stopped at the entryway, her eyes went round as saucers.

The suite, occupying the entire twentieth floor by itself, was extravagance beyond imagining—a private living room, bedroom, and office all separated into their own spaces, with a swimming pool out on the terrace.

She swallowed dryly without meaning to. A guest who stayed in a room like this for a single night.

Only now did it truly sink in, firsthand, exactly who she was dealing with.

"Have a seat."

Tae-kyung brushed past her and settled onto the sofa first, gesturing for her to sit across from him. But Seo-ah instead stopped in front of the coffee table, surveying its surface.

A neatly arranged whiskey bottle and an ice bucket, along with two crystal glasses that looked expensive at a glance, sat side by side.

"Standing more comfortable for you? Well, doesn't matter to me either way."

"Pardon? Oh—no, I was just thinking that if I'm to pour your drinks, Director, shouldn't I be sitting beside you?"

Pfft. Tae-kyung let out an open scoff, his gaze raking over her.

"Eager, I'll give you that. But drinking with a woman fawning all over me isn't really my taste."

Seo-ah froze, unable to summon a single word. So the man rumored to be hopelessly addicted to women had, unexpectedly, tastes of his own.

His reaction had caught her completely off guard, and she stood before the opposite sofa with a somewhat awkward expression. Then, carefully pinning the hem of her short skirt down with one hand, she took her seat.

As she did, Tae-kyung's eyes landed on her fingers.

Her movements were cautious, her eyes anxious. The fingers nervously clutching that short skirt gave it away entirely. Click.

Don't tell me she's never worn clothes like this before? Anyone else watching would have thought the same—the whole performance was that unnatural.

"Who sent you?"

"S-sorry?"

Seo-ah's heart plummeted. Wasn't it the established arrangement that one of Edge's hostesses would be sent here?

"I asked who sent you. The owner of Rin's wouldn't have sent you over without a reason. Director Seo, was it? An executive at Dongha Motors?"

"...!"

Merely hearing the company's name was enough to send a storm churning through her chest. From the moment she'd received those photographs of the Shibuk and Taeyu executives from Se-yeon, they had been perfect enemies.

Pressing down the fury that rose inside her, Seo-ah steadied her gaze.

"Yes. Director Seo. That's right."

"Ha."

Tae-kyung let out a hollow laugh, as if he'd expected as much. Then, rubbing at the deep crease between his brows a few times, he pressed his lips together.

Son of a—. He had just swallowed the curse under his breath and was reaching for the bottle in front of him, as if to drown his irritation in a drink, when—

"I know it's not to your taste, but let me pour you one anyway."

Seo-ah had gotten to the bottle before he did.

Tae-kyung stared at her in stony silence for a long moment.

Then, at last, he raised his glass with an unreadable expression.

"Go ahead."

Seo-ah tilted the bottle she gripped in both hands, slowly filling his glass.

The drops fell one by one, so lingering that even the final bead seemed determined to express the weight on her heart.

Then, unable to control her trembling hand, she set the bottle down too hard—it struck the glass table with a loud clatter.

Perhaps the sound had grated on his nerves; a faint crease furrowed Tae-kyung's brow as he lifted the half-filled glass.

"Yeah. Definitely not my taste."

He tilted his head and set the glass he'd been holding right back down on the table.

"...!"

The color drained from her face.

What if he doesn't like me and throws me out? What if he's already seen through the act? The anxiety swallowed her whole before she knew it.

"I don't know what Director Seo told you, but I don't drink with women in the room, period."

No way. Seo-ah, who had trusted Se-yeon with an iron faith, couldn't bring herself to believe it.

"Is it... that you don't find me appealing?"

It had to be one or the other—an excuse to chase off someone he suspected, or a genuine matter of taste.

"And if I said yes, would you leave?"

Seo-ah was thrown into confusion.

It wasn't that she had confidence in her looks. It was that she had believed the version of Kang Tae-kyung that lived in Se-yeon's stories.

Yet when she thought of the man she'd encountered at the funeral, it was impossible to believe the two were the same person.

If anything, nothing in Se-yeon's account seemed to match him at all.

What do I do? Seo-ah struggled to steady her wavering heart.

There's only one Kang Tae-kyung either way. The trash from Se-yeon's stories and the benefactor who saved me are both this man.

She argued it to herself: everyone had two faces, and just as every person did, she had simply glimpsed both sides of one of them.

In that moment, her cracked voice slipped out between lips gone dry from nerves.

"Then what should I do to win you over, Director?"

She didn't care if it looked shameless and clingy, pride be damned. If only she could please him, she had to do whatever it took.

But contrary to her hopes, the disdain on Kang Tae-kyung's face only hardened further, his intentions impossible to read.

Those deep, cold eyes felt as if they were skewering her through.

What am I supposed to do? His eyes are telling me I'm not the one. How on earth do I seduce a man like this?

For a woman who had never once had a proper romance, the problem was far too difficult.

Worse, with her stage-makeup-thick cosmetics and a hostess dress that concealed only the barest essentials, she was the very picture of what people called a "working girl."

Even a man crazed for women wouldn't want... someone who looks like this, would he?

Just as Seo-ah, who had been steeling herself to try anything, sank into her own self-loathing—

the man, who had watched her in silence all this while, finally spoke, his voice like ice.

"Do what, how? Do you think you can win someone over with effort? And do I really have to spell out what you are for you?"

"..."

She couldn't manage a word.

And yet, perversely, his ice-block demeanor—the tone, and now even the look in his eyes—only made her resolve harder.

Accepting a plan that required sharing a bed with a man who might well be her enemy had hardly been easy.

It had been a choice she couldn't avoid—a risky, even shocking one. Uncovering the truth demanded this method, and nothing else.

Seo-ah gathered her courage once more and resolved to throw herself at him one more time.

"I'm nothing, of course. But still... I want to be to your liking."

Had those words, dredged up after all her deliberation, struck yet another nerve? The hollow laugh that left Tae-kyung's lips sank lower and lower.

As if her transparent amateur act, her groveling persistence, simply rubbed him the wrong way.

"Do you need money?"

"...Pardon?"

"Why do you keep asking me to repeat myself? It's exhausting. I asked if you need money."

Money? Her mind went white for an instant.

Unable to grasp what he was really getting at, Seo-ah could only search his face with questioning eyes.

"Is my question that hard? Should I set a figure and ask again?"

His manner had changed entirely from the man at the suite door.

The mischievous playfulness that had toyed with her, even the lazy flicker of curiosity that had teased her—both were already gone.

"N-no. It's my first time doing anything like this, so I'm awkward and a little flustered. I'm sorry. And yes—I need the money."

Tae-kyung gave a small nod at her answer, then picked up the jacket he'd tossed over the arm of the sofa.

"A hopeless amateur who won't quit—must mean you've got one killer move up your sleeve. Go on, then. Show me. Right now."