Dedicated Attendant
As soon as Seol-hye stepped inside the house, she began peeling off her clothes one by one, walking briskly toward the bathroom.
She yanked the tightly wound ribbon free, letting her long hair cascade down, then stepped into the stall and turned the shower on full blast.
Out of habit she cranked the music to its maximum volume; the thunderous sound swallowed even the rush of water.
Desperate to empty her mind, she surrendered her whole body to the straight, unrelenting stream pouring downward.
If she simply let herself get drenched, maybe the emotions scattered in every direction would finally settle into some kind of order.
Yet the fever that seemed to have been dragged up from the deepest part of her chest had no intention of letting her go.
She even remembered the dance they had shared, hands clasped, moving together to the music drifting from the LP record.
She had trembled so much back then.
Was human thought always this relentless, one thing endlessly chasing the tail of another?
A sensation—whether lingering aftertaste or dull ache—she couldn’t name came back to life, making her lips tingle.
He had told her to take the lips he had so carelessly abandoned, yet why had he left his own behind?
For one brief moment she sank back into that dizzying memory.
As if it had been waiting for her, a deep tremor settled in that hidden place and twitched, as though craving something without end.
What would you know.
Just as there were things the body understood without ever experiencing them, perhaps that deepest part of her also knew without having known.
Was this what people called instinct?
The kind you could not defy.
What could she possibly do about it?
She didn’t understand why her body behaved this way.
But one thing she knew with absolute clarity:
her body and her heart had never managed to break free from him—her first love, the young master.
She had hoped the heat would fade, yet every inch of her burned hotter still.
What was she supposed to do now, An Seol-hye?
Tomorrow was already a mountain of worry.
Her body had already fallen apart from a single kiss; how was she supposed to face him?
She struggled to keep her mind intact, but it refused to obey her will.
If she had known it would come to this, she would have at least pretended to push away that invading kiss.
Instead of offering her tongue like a woman possessed to his frantic strokes, only to be swallowed whole.
It seemed she would not fall asleep easily tonight.
Just like nine years ago, when she first tasted a man’s lips.
She had clearly lost her mind. After behaving like that, how could she claim she had forgotten everything?
With a mind this weak, how was she supposed to uncover the truth?
The thought of having become so powerless and fragile nearly drove her insane.
If she had known, she would have used any means necessary to stop his return.
After two full days of completing the handover preparations, Seol-hye was summoned by Chairman Kang and headed to Pax.
An inexplicable urgency clung to her, making her steps less steady than she would have liked.
It was not the tension of knowing that, with multiple crises piling up, the Chairman understood better than anyone the need for immediate results and that she must deliver them.
The owner’s dedicated team existed primarily for risk management; she had therefore prepared flawless briefing materials on key figures in order of priority, complete with their track records, proposed solutions, and detailed blueprints for the most efficient future responses.
Above all, she had meticulously organized lists of associates surrounding each family member along with vulnerability files that could be weaponized to maximum effect.
In short, every contingency was perfect, as always.
So why did her heart feel so restless, almost excited?
Straightening her spine and swallowing the tension that was not quite tension, Seol-hye followed the servant’s guidance toward the living-room sofa.
The moment she met Chairman Kang’s kindly face, the news was playing.
The decision had been made for the sake of the company.
Chairman Kang had not stepped in to prevent the embezzlement convict from receiving a real prison sentence.
It was a matter of sacrificing the small to save the large—the best possible decision to prevent an even greater risk to the corporation as a whole.
As a result, the stock price had risen for several consecutive days last week, and public opinion had remained largely favorable. Seol-hye had played a major role in orchestrating that outcome.
At that moment, she sensed a presence behind her and glanced back before quickly snapping her gaze forward again.
The memory of what had happened at dawn surged up; the heat that began in her face spread through her entire body at frightening speed.
“Come here.”
He stepped closer, matching her stride, shoulder to shoulder. His scent reached the tip of her nose.
It was still unfamiliar, yet somehow felt as if she had known it forever.
An unidentifiable shiver—impossible now to trace to its origin—spread all the way to her deepest core.
—Take the lips you so carelessly left behind nine years ago.
In that instant she felt his sidelong glance and realized, to her horror, that her fingertips were unconsciously brushing her own slightly swollen lips.
The kiss had been brief, yet it left a long, lingering echo that triggered the same inexplicable symptoms then and now.
Her mind could not understand it, but her body seemed to know. Perhaps it was simply the natural awakening of the senses.
“Manager An, is the handover preparation complete?”
Seol-hye, who had been lost in thought instead of focusing as usual, clenched both fists and wet her lips once.
“Yes, sir. The special team will be deployed to Veritas tomorrow.”
“Then you, Manager An, will move to Lux.”
This was an unexpected order she had not anticipated at all. Simply being assigned as his dedicated attendant already required considerable resolve.
Yet he was telling her to move in entirely.
“What do you mean, sir?”
His own tone sounded just as startled, and the entire vast mansion seemed to freeze over.
“From the vice-chairman appointment to acting president, you must secure everything within the next month.”
“Yes, and…?”
The man in question had no idea, and the Chairman appeared wholly occupied with making it clear how displeased he was with the current situation.
“There will be dedicated management for Manager An.”
“Dedicated management…”
From a professional standpoint the term was perfectly appropriate, yet for some reason it filled her with doubt.
Was it truly the most suitable word?
The moment she wondered why such thoughts kept surfacing, she found the cause.
“You are to be with him in every single move he makes.”
She had been dreading the moment those words would reach her ears through the twisted mouth of Kang Tae-yul.
“Chairman, Director Park has arrived.”
“Let’s go to Tempus.”
At the knock and Assistant Director Cho’s summons, Chairman Kang left the two of them standing there and departed.
Pax was quiet in Su-ran’s absence during the day, and Tempus was quite a distance from this living room.
In other words, they were alone once again.
Seol-hye, who had unconsciously been holding her breath, had just lifted the tip of her right foot to take a step back when—
“Every single move.”
“It means risk management is the highest priority, sir.”
The explanatory words slipped out naturally as she shifted her foot backward.
It was a survival reaction to the subtle pressure that crept over her whether she willed it or not.
“You’re even going to move in to provide him with dedicated service?”
Was it the heavy tone? Or the strangely mischievous combination of words?
“So now I’m yours exclusively?”
Her heart gave a strange flutter, and even the deep place where heat still lingered tightened with tension.
“I will come to see you tomorrow morning with the documents, sir.”
“Do as you like.”
Fortunately, he left first, leaving her alone. Only then did her breathing ease.
It had always been this way.
He always made people tense; she had to clench her fists tightly just to keep her mind from slipping.
Merely facing him often left her breathless, her heart seizing as if it had broken down.
She had probably first noticed something was strange around middle school.
Before then, seeing his face even from afar had made her happy and brought smiles; she had thought it was because he smelled nice up close.
That was why she used to run off to Lux at every opportunity.
But she no longer had the luxury of tending to such useless emotions.
She knew all too well that setting everything down and nursing her feelings alone would change nothing.
Therefore, all that remained was to deal with Kang Tae-yul from now on. There was no path of escape.
Steel herself though she might, the moment she stepped out of the Pax building, crossed the main garden, and caught sight of the Lux building, she froze.
He had been striding forward with his long legs when he suddenly turned and their eyes locked.
Those intense eyes she had barely dared to look at—she was now facing them from so close she could almost touch them.