Just This Much Already?
Her hands curled in on themselves, as if she’d been caught red-handed.
I have to pull myself together.
“Are you planning to stand out there forever, staring at my feet like that?”
“If you tell me a more convenient time, I’ll come back later.”
Thanks to him, she had at least recovered the senses she’d lost. She told herself to stay calm. It was fine. It was nothing.
She repeated the words inside her head like a mantra, determined to keep her composure and not forget her place.
“Now is fine.”
“Understood. Then I’ll wait outside for a moment.”
“Just this much already has you this rattled? I wonder if you’ll even be able to handle being with me every single step from now on.”
That arrogant expression. The word just felt wildly inappropriate, and she hated how incompetent that realization made her feel.
As the control tower in charge of managing the owner-risk for the Kang-an family, she was supposed to be able to look him straight in the eye no matter what. No matter how he was dressed, or what kind of situation arose. Even if she couldn’t predict or imagine any of it.
“Or should I go tell them you can’t move in after all?”
Seol-hye lifted her head and met Tae-yul’s glistening face head-on. He was still slightly tilted, looking down at her. A stubborn surge of defiance had risen in her.
He turned his body sideways, leaned one shoulder against the open door, and even gestured for her to come in with a relaxed flick of his hand. She refused to be pushed back by that cocky attitude and stepped forward.
She had no idea why the entrance hall felt so endlessly long. It hadn’t seemed this way before.
While she blamed the poor innocent hallway and kept walking, the front door closed with a heavy thud, followed by the sound of slippers dragging across the marble floor.
The scent of shampoo was so strong it practically vibrated in the air, and his pace quickened.
As if something were chasing him, he lengthened his stride. Her fists clenched tighter, cold sweat beginning to form in her palms.
Her mouth went dry. The tension inside her kept climbing, and just as it reached its peak, the living room finally came into view.
It was a place she had once roamed as freely as if it were her own home. A time when she would bare her teeth in wide, unrestrained laughter at the slightest thing.
“I’ll have a cappuccino. Light on the sugar.”
The completely unexpected words came from behind her. When she turned her head, he was already climbing several steps of the staircase.
“To my room on the second floor.”
She needed to answer, or at least protest, but maybe it was because his legs were so long. He had already disappeared from the stairs, and it was too late to call him back with a single sentence.
With no other choice, Seol-hye moved to the kitchen and began preparing the coffee as diligently as if she were a professional barista.
She pulled an espresso shot from the machine, poured whole milk from the refrigerator into a steaming pitcher, and heated it to about 65 degrees.
She frothed the milk with a pump-style frother, then poured the espresso into a warmed cup.
She slowly added the steamed milk and topped it with the foam.
Finally, she dusted it lightly with cocoa powder, placed the finished cup on a tray, and was done.
It was a coffee she had perfected while remembering one particularly difficult customer from her old part-time job at a café.
As soon as Tae-yul entered the room and shrugged off his robe, his brow furrowed deeply.
It wasn’t like he was desperate, so why the hell was his body reacting like this for no reason lately? It was as if it were announcing its presence at full speed, ready to reach its peak any second. He really had no countermeasures for this.
If there were at least some kind of trigger, he could understand it.
Even on a bright, sunny day like this, she was wrapped up in a scarf around her neck, with only her face and hands exposed. To get hard in front of a woman like that… he had no dignity left. Seriously.
While he dressed, Tae-yul continued to heap blame on himself.
It seemed his body was far more easily swayed than his rock-solid mind. At this rate, he was starting to think he was the one who needed armor.
Otherwise, the next month was going to be pure torment in his defenseless state. Especially when his lower body moved however it pleased, completely ignoring his will.
Knock, knock.
He had just finished buttoning his shirt and was reaching for the last cuff on his wrist when the sound came.
While fastening the final button, Tae-yul stepped out of the dressing room, gave a low sound of acknowledgment, and sat down on the sofa.
He leaned back, then crossed one leg over the other to balance the lingering discomfort in his lower body.
He watched as Seol-hye set the coffee cup in front of him, neatly placed the tablet on her lap, and sat down on the opposite sofa. She looked surprisingly composed.
The aroma of the coffee, which seemed rather skillfully made, wasn’t bad either.
Tae-yul slowly reached out, picked up the cup, and finally opened his tightly closed mouth.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”
His low, heavy, yet strangely sweet voice somehow resembled the unique atmosphere of a cappuccino.
Her gaze was drawn to his long arm as it reached for the cup filled with foam that still held its shape perfectly.
It was probably because of the unique pattern engraved on the cuff button of his crisp white dress shirt.
Then her eyes moved to the fingers slowly wrapping around the handle. More precisely, to the smooth, perfectly shaped nails.
Perhaps the god who created this man was a perfectionist.
How could even his fingernails be that flawless? It was clear that not a single part of him had been overlooked; every detail had been meticulously crafted.
“I just can’t figure it out.”
While she had been lost in those irrelevant thoughts, his low voice settled softly against her ear, like the foam on a cappuccino slowly melting away.
“Do you dress like that on purpose?”
“No, I don’t.”
She hadn’t known exactly where his gaze had been lingering, but now she understood why those persistently serious eyes had been fixed on her. It was because of her clothes.
“What do you wear in the middle of summer?”
“It’s not much different.”
It was such a pointless question. It held no meaning and was probably only meant to make her uncomfortable. So why did her emotions waver and her body grow unstable?
“Aren’t you hot?”
At this point, it was clear he wasn’t asking out of genuine concern or worry. He was mocking her. But perhaps her guess about his reason for doing so was completely off the mark.
“Just whose taste in the family is it to dress like that?”
He had been circling around the subject, but it seemed he had something else he truly wanted to say.
The rumor that had been circulating was that behind all the work she had done to resolve the owner-risk for the family, there had been secret, personal relationships born from shady deals.
Especially the foundation director who hated and despised her the most in this household—his aunt, Su-ran—would have already spilled every last detail about the background that had brought her to this position.
In other words, now that several days had passed since his return, he had probably gathered quite a lot of information about her. He might even need to verify the data with his own eyes.
After all, since he was going to be living here in Lux and would have to spend every waking moment with her, he had the right to know.
“I would prefer it if you refrained from asking personal questions.”
On the other hand, she also had the right not to answer. Just as she had always done, she intended to keep her ears closed and her mouth shut. That was the best way to minimize any risks that might arise for her.
Sometimes, leaving things alone caused far less backlash than desperately trying to resolve them.
“While we are working together from now on, I hope you will treat me strictly as a business relationship.”
Seol-hye’s lips moved slowly once. The man sitting across from her was clearly displeased that he hadn’t received the answer he wanted, and he displayed that irritation beautifully through his exceptionally handsome features.
Was it because the depth of those sharp, piercing eyes was so profound? Even though a stinging sensation seemed to rise on the cheek where his gaze lingered, she couldn’t pull her own eyes away as easily as she wished.
“A business relationship sounds good. But I’m curious exactly what kind of business relationship you’ve had in the past.”
She could roughly guess what he was really asking with that what kind.
It seemed he wanted to know if the rumors were true—if she really had engaged in lewd, impure relationships with the members of the Kang-an family.
And sure enough—
“For example, how actively and in what ways did you use your body?”
Yes. He had clearly already come to that conclusion. The words he had carelessly spat out while drunk at the club last time hadn’t been a slip of the tongue. He had meant them.
“I’m curious. In great detail.”
The questions kept coming—blunt, unfiltered.
No, it would be more accurate to call them an interrogation.
“Tell me. Exactly how does one form a business relationship?”
His voice, which seemed to seize the air around her ears, carried a faint breath that brushed against her shoulder.