A Man in Heat
Seol-hye left without even starting her shower, summoned by the emergency call.
She gripped the steering wheel herself and sped toward Club Roll at full throttle.
The entire club had been thrown into crisis by Cha-yul’s rampage.
—I think you’d better come, Director An.
Though such incidents had once been routine, she had convinced herself that nothing like today would ever happen again.
Yet Tae-yul had caused another scene.
It was obvious that if she didn’t go herself, the situation would spiral out of control. Her heart couldn’t help but race.
The sound of shattering objects over the phone, mixed with the voices of countless women, still rang in her ears.
When she learned that every room except the P-zone VIP lounge—reserved exclusively for the highest echelons of politics and business—had been cleared, her anxiety only deepened.
Finally arriving at the club entrance, Seol-hye stepped out of the car and climbed the stairs without any formalities.
The moment she opened the door to the room, guided by a waiting guard, silence fell like a blade.
“Wow, our nuna’s here. Fuck.”
Seol-hye didn’t even have time to register Cha-yul’s bright, welcoming face before she squeezed her eyes shut at the sight before her, then forced them open again.
In situations like this, she had to assess the damage quickly and devise a strategy to ensure nothing leaked outside.
Her brow furrowed as she evaluated the five women scattered in the corners.
Cha-yul sat with blood streaming from the back of his hand. The woman beside him had a bruised, swollen lip, and her clothes were torn so badly that her entire chest was exposed.
Suddenly, she remembered the first time she had met Cha-yul four years ago. He had said with such innocent eyes that alcohol tasted so good, that drinking and enjoying himself until he dropped dead one day seemed perfect, so he couldn’t stop.
Back then, pity had outweighed contempt, and she had tried to gently persuade him. Was that the root of all this? The reason she kept facing scenes like this?
It felt as if her own inadequacy as a member of the Owner Risk Management Team had led her all the way to this position, filling her with guilt.
She had learned through Cha-yul that emotions must never take precedence. Quoting Madam Cha, she handled matters with ruthless precision, as if she were someone from whom not even a drop of blood would spill.
Thanks to that, she had become the control tower responsible for the current Kang-an family.
“Hey, all of you, get the hell out.”
Seol-hye took off her jacket and draped it over the trembling woman who stood up to leave, then handed her off to the team members waiting outside.
“Come here and sit, nuna.”
Three years apart. The only person in the Kang-an family who had ever called her “nuna” with such warmth, when she had no blood relatives left in the world.
Sometimes he felt so much like a real younger brother that her heart ached for him.
“Please stand up, Managing Director.”
But she knew better than anyone that such personal feelings would only poison Cha-yul. She had to remain cold. Utterly cold.
“Ugh, boring. There she goes again.”
“Once you return home—”
Though she maintained a calm facade, her instincts warned her. It might be impossible to subdue Cha-yul tonight with the usual methods.
“Come here, just one drink, and I’ll go home without another word.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Then I’ll call the police right now.”
“Managing Director Kang Cha-yul!”
When Seol-hye raised her voice with a stern expression, Cha-yul—who had looked ready to cause a major incident—immediately softened his gaze again.
“So let’s just have one drink, okay? Is that so hard? No, wait. You hate it when I curse, right? Is it really that difficult?”
As expected, he had crossed the line. There had only been one other time when Cha-yul had broken his own boundaries like this. Perhaps it was her fault that such a moment had come again.
Her weakness had always been the problem.
“Yes, it is difficult.”
“Ha, shit.”
He grabbed a liquor bottle as if to hurl it at the wall, then stood up unsteadily.
At Seol-hye’s quick gesture, two bodyguards moved behind him and stood ready.
“I made a promise, so for today I’ll be satisfied with just seeing your face, nuna. But I don’t know how long I can stay this obedient.”
“You should stop drinking.”
The instant Seol-hye snatched the bottle from his mouth in what was almost a threat, the liquor spilled everywhere.
“Escort the Managing Director out.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Left alone in the room, Seol-hye closed the door and unbuttoned her soaked blouse, peeling it off.
She roughly wiped away the alcohol that had seeped into her camisole with tissues from the table, then wrung the blouse out with her hands.
She shook it once in the air, slipped one arm into a sleeve, and was about to put the other arm through when—
The door suddenly opened.
A man with an overwhelmingly striking physique and a face like carved sculpture stepped into view.
“You seem quite busy, running around serving one man after another, inside and out.”
He appeared with those elegantly vulgar words.
That was how it must look to him. That she couldn’t resist any man, throwing herself at them and selling her smiles.
The memory of a few hours earlier resurfaced—when Do-yul had been arguing with her while she searched for Tae-yul out of habit, only to encounter another one of his tantrums.
It came back together with the lingering scent of cigarette smoke beneath the pine tree and the kindness of the empty seat he had left behind.
Only then did the word “serving” echo in her ears, making her stomach turn.
It seemed he had begun to misunderstand her quite thoroughly.
He still believed only what he saw.
“You don’t seem to care about other people’s opinions at all.”
His sharp gaze, angry tone, and twisted lips formed a perfect sneer.
“Well, I suppose keeping that position isn’t exactly easy, is it?”
Was it the unique arrogance that seeped from his expression, as if he were offering profound sympathy?
Both in the past and now, in front of this man, her own existence felt endlessly insignificant.
“I’m getting curious. How exactly did you catch our grandfather’s eye?”
Though his eyes seemed filled with curiosity, she realized the moment their gazes tangled in the air that he was already certain.
His gaze, deliberately pouring out contempt, had been lingering on her chest, which was still flushed from the alcohol.
“Both brothers taking turns getting worked up over you… that’s something.”
Seol-hye, who had been staring blankly as if her soul had left her body, finally began buttoning her blouse.
Her eyes burned for no reason, and the stinging sensation she had hoped would remain superficial reached all the way to her heart.
“This is getting more interesting by the minute.”
She quickly suppressed the unpleasant emotions stirred by his following words.
With her lips pressed tightly together, Seol-hye straightened her disheveled clothes, bowed slightly at the waist, then straightened again.
“I’ll be heading back first.”
With a response that bordered on outright dismissal, she sent him a polite look asking him to step aside, his long arm stretched out to rest against the doorframe.
Fortunately, he withdrew his arm and made way. The moment she slipped through the doorway, a warm sensation settled over her shoulders. More precisely, fabric carrying that warmth touched her.
“You must have driven here. Lead the way.”
Before she could fully process the heavy voice that had settled near her ear, the man who had gone ahead turned back.
“What, am I excluded? Well, I guess there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Perhaps it was because of his intense gaze. The warmth of the coat—its owner’s coat—felt even hotter.
“Anyone watching would think I’d made some outrageous demand.”
Just as he said, it was nothing special.
“Is this your strategy to make me a man in heat too?”
For a second, laughter almost slipped through her teeth. She barely held it back.
Who? The great Kang Tae-yul, in heat for her?
It was a statement so ridiculous that even a stray cat passing by would laugh.
She found herself following behind him again, his innate arrogance and characteristic haughtiness blending in a strange harmony.
Probably drawn in by the overwhelming aura that could stop an accident in its tracks.
As if it were an unstoppable force.
Even so, she told herself she was simply repaying the debt of the coat now resting on her shoulders.
This was what he was like.
Like a fated opponent she could never defy, he kept pulling her in, again and again.
She was helplessly sucked in, as if it had been decided from the moment she was born.
After all, nothing had changed from nine years ago.