The Department Head's Secretary

Seo-ah had stood there for a long while, unable to settle her heart, before she finally took a step — and that was the moment her phone rang.

Half hoping, half dreading, she pressed the call button.

"……Hello?"

Seo-ah swallowed dryly and strained her ears, listening for Se-yeon's voice on the other end.

But then—

"……I'm sorry, what?"

Taeyu Motors?

In an instant, Seo-ah's heart began to pound.

"There's an internship opening at Taeyu Motors. Apply for it."

When Tae-kyung had first suggested she join the company a month or so earlier, she'd thought it was absurd.

But the truth was, she had nowhere left to turn. Just as she had confessed to him, the house her parents had lived in had gone to auction, and evicted from Siheung on top of that, she was truly a woman without a roof over her head.

Worse still, the money she earned giving private vocal lessons wasn't nearly enough to cover her living expenses and rent.

After her father's death, Won Electric had never escaped its brush with default. Setting aside the mountain of unpaid invoices for materials, the company hadn't even managed to pay its own employees' wages.

Somehow scraping together the two-room rental she now shared with her mother had been, honestly, the one small mercy in an ocean of misfortune.

"There's a department looking for a music major. It'd be best if you got placed there, but even if you don't, as long as I'm around, you won't be rejected."

The moment she'd heard those words, Seo-ah had wavered badly.

Large corporations had dedicated purchasing departments. Which meant that whichever department she managed to enter, there was always a chance her path might cross with that one.

And then, perhaps, she might stumble upon some crucial anomaly.

Something like a contract, for instance.

Evidence — anything that could prove the connection between the two companies.

"I'll write you a recommendation. We'll talk about your father once you're in."

Kang Tae-kyung's offer was a chance that would never come again.

And even if it was a sweetly ticking bomb, to the Seo-ah of now, it seemed worth embracing and letting detonate.

From that day on, she scraped together every scrap of information about Taeyu she could find, bracing herself for a possible interview. It was all she could do for the moment, and it cost her several sleepless nights.

It was during this stretch that she finally unearthed an article about Won Electric.

Of course. When she'd been desperate for it, nothing surfaced — and now, when she least needed it, here it was.

The tip of Seo-ah's nose flushed red as she read it.

A mere two-line summary introducing the company that had held an exclusive contract with Taeyu Motors.

Tucked away at the very end of the piece, no less — it hadn't even merited its own article.

'No wonder I could never find it…….'

At any rate, all that remained for Seo-ah now was to somehow pass, and to get what she wanted at Kang Tae-kyung's side.

She had already sunk to posing as an escort in a hotel room; a stint as an office worker was nothing.

Seo-ah let out a quiet breath and turned her focus back to the call, her heart trembling.

"Yes, this is a fine time. Please, go ahead."

'Oh……!'

More instructions and details followed, but Seo-ah had already sunk down where she stood.

The result of Taeyu Motors' internship selection — a grueling month and a half in the making — was an acceptance.

She couldn't say for certain whether the Division Director's recommendation had truly wielded such formidable power, but she had made it through to the end.

'Now it really begins.'

She had fought so desperately for the truth, yet only after meeting Kang Tae-kyung did time finally feel like it was moving again.

When the call ended, Seo-ah's eyes gleamed with resolve.

— Two Weeks Later —

It was still early when Seo-ah, following the HR team's instructions, took a seat to wait in the interview room.

On the final day of the two-day, one-night internship orientation, she had been assigned — exactly as expected — to the Brand Strategy Office.

Yet the evening before her first day of work, an unexpected message had arrived.

'A change to my team assignment?'

Instantly, Kang Tae-kyung's face flashed through her mind. She couldn't have said why — only that her instinct told her a personnel reshuffle was something only someone at the level of Division Director could pull off.

Her heart wouldn't stop racing, and she couldn't calm it down no matter what she did.

She had waited, fretful and restless, for about fifteen minutes when the door to the interview room finally opened and someone stepped inside.

A man in a calm, deep navy suit and a tie of the very same shade.

And a face that was, frankly, too handsome for its own good.

The Head of the Future Strategy Division — Kang Tae-kyung.

It was their first reunion in nearly two months since that day.

The moment she recognized him, Seo-ah swallowed dryly, her lips moving of their own accord.

"Kang…… Tae-kyung."

Had he caught that small whisper of hers?

One corner of Tae-kyung's eye crinkled thinly. Then, with a laugh like a passing breeze, he flashed a grin.

Seo-ah had no idea what was so funny.

"Don't tell me you were planning to pretend you don't know me again?"

His upturned mouth carried a distinctly mischievous edge, as if something delighted him endlessly.

"Wh-what? I would never……"

"I saw it all, you know. That little mouth movement just now."

When she failed to catch his meaning, Tae-kyung soundlessly mouthed her name at her, playful and exaggerated.

Jin. Seo. Ah.

He was teasing her about that day — how she'd called out his name right in front of his hotel room door and then pretended she hadn't.

"H-how did—!"

Only then realizing what she'd said, Seo-ah clapped a hand over her mouth in a panic.

Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined she would find herself murmuring that name again, this unguarded.

It felt as though she were being seized all over again by that strange, unsettling first impression from the funeral hall.

"I'm sorry, it just slipped out……"

The words were already beyond recall, and she stood there flustered, unable to gather them back.

It was Tae-kyung who spoke to her first, easy and unforced.

"Been keeping well?"

Perhaps because of the awkwardness that comes with any ordinary reunion after so strained and chaotic an encounter, his casual greeting — as though nothing at all had happened between them — felt unexpectedly ticklish, almost tender.

As if he were a completely different man.

"Yes. And you, Director…… I hope you've been well?"

"As you can see."

He answered her sheepish reply with perfect composure. Like someone who had known her for years, there wasn't a trace of discomfort in anything Tae-kyung did.

But Seo-ah only bowed her head deeply, trying to hide how red her face had become.

Because the moment their eyes met, the agonizing scenes from that night came flooding back all at once.

How could she possibly forget? That humiliating, unbearable night.

"If that's your wish, fine. Let's do it. Sex."

His provocative voice still rang in her ears, and Seo-ah bit her lip hard.

And yet — even in that rough, desperate moment, there had been an instant when he'd seemed to approach her as a man.

His face from that moment lingered in her memory too, refusing to fade.

'This is…… a problem.'

She'd bragged that a little office life was nothing she couldn't handle — and twenty minutes into her corporate career, she was already in crisis.

Seo-ah buried her eyes in her palm, squeezing them shut against the flush.

Tae-kyung carried himself in a markedly different air than he had under the hotel's dim, sultry lighting.

Was it the sunlight pouring down through the high-rise windows, or simply the setting itself — an office?

Watching him go over her paperwork, he looked surprisingly grave and composed, almost dignified.

She had just drifted into this idle musing when something felt off, and as she blinked, she realized his gaze was fixed not on the documents — but on her.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. I was just thinking about something else for a moment……"

"Handsome, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry — what?"

Ah?! After a beat of confusion, Seo-ah belatedly grasped what he meant and jolted in shock.

How long had she been staring, blank-faced, that she hadn't even noticed him looking back?

"That was rude of me…… I apologize."

"You can keep looking."

"……Excuse me?"

"I said, feel free to admire the handsome face."

Seo-ah herself thought Kang Tae-kyung was remarkably good-looking. Which made his absurd response so exasperating that she couldn't manage a single reply.

Taking in her expression, Tae-kyung let out a quiet chuckle, his eyes never leaving her.

"Surprised to see the chatty little thing show up out of nowhere looking like a perfectly respectable adult?"

Well — that too, honestly.

A Kang Tae-kyung who said nothing and merely looked over documents was, after all, an entirely different creature.

"N-no, of course not……"

But how could she ever admit as much? He was a Division Director now — practically the heavens themselves.

Tae-kyung closed the folder he'd been reviewing.

"Do you know why HR called you in today?"

"Ah — I heard there was a department transfer. But they haven't told me which department yet."

Was she finally about to learn her new posting?

Seo-ah held her breath, waiting for his answer as he glanced down at his wristwatch.

"Intern Jin Seo-ah will be working in the office of the Director of the Future Strategy Division from today onward."

As though she'd misheard, Seo-ah furrowed her brow.

"The secretary's office…… your secretary's office, Director?"

"Yes. My personal secretary."

"What?!"

Good heavens. Secretary to Division Director Kang Tae-kyung?

Her department transfer was more audacious than anything she could have imagined.