Lin of Edge
"Maybe this actually works in your favor. Kang Tae-kyung goes absolutely crazy for women. If you play up the innocent angle with a face like yours, he might just eat it right up."
Se-yeon spoke as if the mix-up were a stroke of luck.
But Seo-ah could neither agree nor disagree.
She couldn't ask outright. Ask how she knew—ask whether, perhaps, she knew that Dong-ha had been gay.
Mouth sealed shut, she studied her cousin's face.
But maybe she had imagined it after all; Se-yeon's expression was exactly the same as always, the look of someone simply worried about her.
Of course. What was I thinking.
Seo-ah shook her head hard, as if to shake the sordid thought loose.
That was when Se-yeon began rummaging through her bag, as if she'd brought something along.
"Hold on a second, Seo-ah. I want to show you something."
Se-yeon pulled a single photograph from her bag and laid it on the table.
"I don't know who took it or why, but someone high up at Taeyu Motors gave it to me."
When Seo-ah drew the photo toward her and looked at it, her eyes trembled violently.
The man in the photograph was none other than Dong-ha's father—Lee Se-jung, CEO of Dongha Motors.
"Why...? Why my father-in-law?"
Se-yeon took the photo back, checked something on it, and held it up before her eyes again.
"See the date? Exactly one year ago. Which means he was already meeting with someone from Taeyu to discuss something—before the leak from Won Electric had even happened."
Seo-ah nodded slowly, her heart hammering as though it would burst.
She couldn't tell who was standing beside her father-in-law, but the man in the enlarged upper-body shot wore a Taeyu Group badge on his jacket.
"A friend of yours gave you this?"
"Mm. She said someone tipped her off about it, and she went and tracked it down herself."
Whether Se-yeon's words were true hardly mattered. At the very least, the image captured in that photo could not be a lie.
Seeing her father-in-law plotting everything with Taeyu in advance like this made her feel as though her heart were being shredded to ribbons.
Seo-ah thought of her father, who had opposed the marriage from the very start.
Even though the marriage had pulled Won Electric back from the brink of collapse, he had still been against it—and there had surely been a reason.
If only she hadn't been so stubborn back then, if only she'd refused the proposal. Even if Won Electric had gone under, wouldn't things be better than they were now?
And then her father would still be at her side.
You idiot. The biggest fool in the world. Because of you—because of stupid you, Dad is. Dad is...
Seo-ah's fury turned on herself.
And now, there was nothing she would not do.
"I'll do it, unnie."
"Will you... be all right?"
Se-yeon asked, her voice edged with worry.
"Yes. I can do it."
For all the calm in her voice, Seo-ah's bloodshot eyes were awash with a dozen tangled emotions.
"All right, then. Let's give it a try."
Under Se-yeon's pitying gaze, she gave a small, quiet nod.
Once again, Se-yeon's little stage play appeared to have succeeded in deceiving its single member of the audience.
But Seo-ah didn't know.
She had no idea that whatever happened inside that hotel room, Se-yeon couldn't have cared less.
All her cousin had wanted was any woman at all—someone, anyone, to entangle with Kang Tae-kyung.
A week later, a red sedan pulled to a stop at the rear entrance of the largest hotel in downtown Pyeonghan.
In the passenger seat sat Seo-ah, looking nothing like her usual self.
Her long, straight hair now tumbled in rich curls, and her face was buried under makeup so heavy she could barely remember what her bare skin had looked like.
It was as if Jin Seo-ah had been wiped clean away and someone else painted in her place—an awkward, ill-fitting disguise.
Se-yeon swept her gaze over the getup and smiled with satisfaction.
"Tonight, you're 'Lin,' working at 'Edge.'"
Seo-ah nodded slowly.
"Kang Tae-kyung went up to his room half an hour ago, so you can head up too."
Se-yeon pressed a pen-shaped voice recorder into her hand—a clunky, old-fashioned black model that started recording when you clicked the middle of the barrel.
"Keep it on, just in case. Something incriminating might come out of his mouth."
Tension was written plainly across Seo-ah's face as she took the recorder.
The day she would finally come face to face with the Kang Tae-kyung she'd only ever heard about through Se-yeon's mouth was actually here. One slip of the tongue, and everything would be over.
She clenched her trembling hands into fists, trying to smother the unease that refused to settle.
Watching her, Se-yeon gave her clenched fingers a light tap.
"Don't worry so much. There's no way you'll get caught. Even if Kang Tae-kyung himself calls down to Edge, we have people on our side—so don't be too nervous."
Our... side? She must mean there's someone who'll vouch for Lin, right?
It was meant to be reassuring, but the words did little to ease her anxiety.
"Ah—okay."
"Seo-ah, don't forget. The truth is in Kang Tae-kyung's hands."
Seeing the fragile look on her face, Se-yeon smiled quietly, driving home her purpose and her motive.
"I know."
At Seo-ah's strained smile—the corners of her mouth forced upward against their will—Se-yeon nodded.
"Good."
The older sister's sorrowful expression, directed at the younger, came free of charge.
In front of room 2101.
For ten full minutes now, Seo-ah had been unable to press the doorbell.
She had the feeling that if she delayed any longer, everything might end right here, like this. But her trembling fingers simply would not obey.
"Hoo... You can do this."
She kept murmuring encouragement to herself.
And just as she finally worked up the courage and reached her hand toward the bell, the door to 2101 burst open.
"...?!"
Startled out of her wits, Seo-ah stumbled backward, her heels wobbling.
"Ah...?"
At that very moment, the man who had flung open the door grabbed her wrist and pulled her upright.
"What is this?"
Only once her buckled ankle had found its footing again, braced against his firm grip, did a rough male voice come flying at the crown of her head.
"I asked who you are."
The man's voice was more than a little irritable.
Apparently the presence of a woman blocking his door without warning had rubbed him the wrong way.
Flustered by his tone, Seo-ah worked her frozen throat and finally lifted her head.
"Ah—yes. I, I'm..."
And the moment she got a proper look at the man in front of her, Seo-ah doubted her own eyes. He was, without question, a face she knew.
Huh? Where have I seen this man? His name is...
While she stood there in a daze, the man cocked his eyebrows to different heights in irritation, then echoed the tail end of her sentence back at her.
"You're...?"
"...Oh!"
As his voice layered over the living man standing before her, the name finally surfaced.
"K-Kang Tae-kyung!"
Not even aware of what had come out of her own mouth, she stood rooted to the spot for a long moment.
"'I'm, Kang Tae-kyung?' Who is, exactly? Because I'm Kang Tae-kyung."
The man stitched her broken words back together, mocking her in that same dissatisfied tone.
"...I'm sorry, what?"
"I said I'm Kang Tae-kyung. Not you. You look nothing like me, no matter how I check."
"Ah..."
Eyes lowered, Seo-ah struggled to sort through the chaos in her head.
So the Kang Tae-kyung her unnie had spoken of was this man? Then who was the man she'd seen at the funeral?
"Kang Tae-kyung. You asked who I was."
Once her memory clicked into place, she squeezed her eyes shut.
That voice—it had definitely been this man's.
The musk that clung to him, the long line of his monolid eyes, his towering height that made it impossible to tell whether he was an athlete or a model. For that brief moment, the Kang Tae-kyung in her memory and the man before her had matched perfectly.
Then Tae-kyung, apparently done with watching her stand there gaping, spoke up.
"Are you a spy?"
Jolted by the question from left field, Seo-ah's head snapped up.
"Excuse me?!"
"I asked if you came here to snoop. Though for a snoop, you're a little... overdressed, wouldn't you say?"
Tae-kyung's appraising gaze traveled up and down her body.
The top she'd thrown over her shoulders was, to be fair, long-sleeved—but it was a sheer bolero that stopped at her waist, which only made the short slip dress beneath feel that much more naked.
At his undisguisedly lecherous look, Seo-ah seemed to finally register what she was wearing, and snapped back to reality in a rush.
"I'm... Lin."
"Lin?"
"Yes. Sent over from Edge."
Even as she gave the name of the establishment Se-yeon had told her, a nagging dread gnawed at her—surely he didn't remember anything from the funeral.
Because of it, she kept her head bowed and only darted her eyes upward to steal glances at him—and that furtive behavior made her look all the more suspicious. But the current Seo-ah was in no state to notice such a thing.
After studying her for a long beat, Tae-kyung asked flatly.
"How long have you been doing this?"
Strange as it was, the question came as a relief. He was asking something like this—which meant he didn't seem to suspect who she really was.
"A f-few days. Serving a... guest is—that is, today is my first time."
Relieved as she was that he didn't suspect her, the words still wouldn't come out properly.
Her heart kept slamming against her ribs, and even her breathing had gone ragged and uneven.