Getting married.

[ST will have a future with Hanju in the bio sector. As In Woo took over Raon Soft for NFT, you should take charge of ST.]

A laugh escaped due to the absurdity.

[What is your intention in saying this now?]

By this point, I was suspicious of the motive for finally dragging him into the Hanju Group, who had been living quietly in America even at the cost of being branded as an idle person.

As Chairman Cha said, there was a debt to repay to In Woo, but why bring someone seen as In Woo’s rival into the group?

[You’ll have to get married anyway. For people like us, marriage is just business. It’s like securing one more contract.]

I’m willing to be the ruffian who helps the weak-natured In Woo wield the knife.

I also want to save my mother, who has been living lonely, bound by a marriage contract after my father’s death.

But marriage is a different story.

And ST, of all things.

[Pretty women are a dime a dozen on the streets, you could have any of them if you wanted. But not ST.] [That kind of talk applies to my straight-laced elder brother. Wouldn’t I be different?]

So I pushed back even more defiantly.

It was a roundabout way of saying I wouldn’t get married.

[When it comes to women, it’s all about looks.] [I’ll set you up with a pretty one.]

That’s how the condition came about.

[Once you’re engaged, you’ll have to end all your known relationships anyway. Instead, I’ll set you up with a girl so pretty it’ll hurt your eyes, so you can continue your mischievous ruffian ways in secret.] [You mean take a mistress?]

It means he’s determined to force the marriage through no matter what.

And that he’s intent on making me play the role of In Woo’s rival.

Why on earth?

[Ha, then go ahead and try.]

I need to know why Chairman Cha Ji Seop suddenly wants to check his eldest grandson by putting his younger grandson on the chess board.

For that, I need time.

So I attached a very difficult condition.

[But find a woman who blows my mind. It’s out of the question until then.]

The woman the Cha chairman’s side put forward to fulfill that condition was quite something.

Seo Yeo Eun, that woman, keeps coming to mind.

−Do Ha.

Chairman Cha called his name gently over the phone.

It seems he used to call him like this all the time before that incident.

Until Cha Kang, his father, died leaving behind a bad reputation.

“Your father, it’s time to return him to his original place now. We should hold proper memorial services too.”

“All of a sudden?”

It was laughable.

He could hardly believe those words came out of Chairman Cha’s mouth.

“Didn’t you say you’d remove him from the family registry, saying he used the money meant to support his presidential bid on mistresses instead and died?”

Family registries haven’t existed for who knows how long, but that’s how Chairman Cha erased his second son from Hanju.

And now he wants to bring him back?

Where was this when he coldly rejected Do Ha and his mother’s demands for an investigation, saying the circumstances of the accident were unclear?

“Forget it.”

His mother is holding very sincere memorial services, and there’s no place left here for his father, Cha Kang, to return to.

“And the woman you set me up with.”

Do Ha recalled Seo Yeo Eun once again.

He could vividly picture her white face turning red at his few words.

Her ears turning pink and her slender fingers fidgeting nervously.

Her slim waist and the straight long legs revealed below her pencil skirt.

Suddenly, he felt a dull ache below his navel.

It was because a sadistic desire to crush the woman surged up.

“I don’t like her.”

Do Ha closed his eyes tightly, then opened them as he continued speaking, erasing the woman from his mind.

“What good is just a pretty face? She was just pure and innocent without any sex appeal.”

−You rascal, talking about sex appeal in front of your grandfather…

“I told you clearly. Just being pretty isn’t enough. She has to blow my mind. So if you want to satisfy me, bring a woman who’s good at being bad like me, at my level.”

Having said all he wanted to say, Do Ha hung up the phone.

Irritation weighed heavily on his chest.

Do Ha turned his head to look out the window, clenching his jaw tightly and sinking deeper into the backrest.

Ridiculously, plump lips that had been quietly slurping up noodles appeared on the glass.

And dark brown eyes that had looked scared but boldly took him in.

“Ah, damn it.”

Only silence flowed inside the car.

But his mind was more chaotic than ever.

* * *

“This guy.”

Chairman Cha frowned in displeasure as he looked at the mobile phone in his hand.

It was because Do Ha had arbitrarily hung up the phone.

“Insolent brat.”

Even as he spat out the grumpy words, a satisfied smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“What is it, Chairman? Did Do Ha hang up?”

Cha Hyun asked, carefully observing him.

“So ill-mannered, hanging up without even saying goodbye.”

Though his tone was grumbling, his voice couldn’t hide his satisfaction.

“To dare act like this within the Hanju Group…”

No, perhaps even outside the group.

“He’s the only one who would dare act like this towards me, Cha Ji Seop.”

As displeased as he was with Do Ha’s insolence bordering on irreverence, he quite liked it.

It showed how confident he was.

Knowing Chairman Cha’s feelings well, Cha Hyun smiled and added a word.

“That’s what you like about him, isn’t it? That he’s not afraid in front of you, Chairman.”

“That’s right.”

Chairman Cha, who had been sitting on the sofa, suddenly stood up and walked to the desk in his study.

Cha Hyun followed behind him.

“According to Do Ha…”

Chairman Cha continued speaking as he sat in the chair with Cha Hyun’s help.

“He says he doesn’t like that girl. She’s… too pure and innocent without any sex appeal. He says she doesn’t seem like she’d match him in doing bad things.”

At that, Cha Hyun let out a chuckle.

“Do you believe those words?”

It was a somewhat insolent smile.

Which meant she was confident in what she was saying.

“That girl is drenched in Do Ha’s taste from head to toe.”

Cha Hyun was also unafraid in front of Chairman Cha.

“No sex appeal, he says. That’s up to Do Ha to bring out, isn’t it?”

In moments like these, Do Ha seemed to take after his aunt Cha Hyun more than his father.

Of course, if Cha Hyun was a serpent, Do Ha would be a dragon.

“You really…”

Sometimes it was regrettable that Cha Hyun was a daughter.

“My daughter, but how can you be so…”

“Why are you like this? Among your children, I’m the one who takes after you the most.”

That’s why she was saying this.

If Cha Hyun had been born the eldest, as a son, wouldn’t Hanju Group be a little different?

Chairman Cha’s gray eyes looked at Cha Hyun with a bitter gaze.

Facing such a Chairman Cha, Cha Hyun smiled sharply.

“And a girl he doesn’t like, why would Do Ha bother to…”

Cha Hyun placed her mobile phone in front of Chairman Cha.

“Feed her?”

Cha Hyun touched the screen with her finger and showed a photo to Chairman Cha.

In the photo was Do Ha’s side profile entering a restaurant with a woman.

Though he looked indifferent, Do Ha’s gaze was clearly directed at the woman.

“Just wait and see. Do Ha will definitely fall into your hands, if only to have this girl.”

Cha Hyun smiled confidently.

* * *

Loud club music blared through the rooftop lounge of Persona.

Yoon Ji Soo, the CEO of Persona, often invites neighbors to the rooftop lounge to enjoy dancing and drinking when she’s feeling down, and today was exactly such a day.

A day when depression rises up and threatens to swallow even the soul.

Of course, today’s protagonist wasn’t Ji Soo.

It was Yeo Eun.

This afternoon, after leaving the udon shop in Euljiro, Yeo Eun returned to Persona and sat in front of the computer.

Then she searched for “Kim Hae Ri scandal” on a portal site and was dumbfounded.

Kim Hae Ri, a former idol singer known as the nation’s first love or goddess.

She is considered the most beautiful woman born in Korea among those currently living.

Such a woman caused a scandal 5 months ago.

It was revealed to the world through paparazzi that she had gone on a secret romantic trip with a third-generation chaebol.

Photos of her engaged in intense displays of affection with the man in a private pool villa at a luxury hotel were also leaked intact.

Of course, at the time, the man’s face couldn’t be identified from the photos.

But soon after, it was revealed that the man was Cha Do Ha, director of Hanju Group, and both sides tacitly acknowledged the scandal by keeping silent.

To try to use feminine wiles on such a man, a man who had held the nation’s goddess.

“I must be crazy.”

It really was insane.

Yeo Eun shook her head to clear her thoughts and finished the rest of her canned beer.

She was beyond wallowing in self-loathing, about to become one with it now.

“Seo Yeo Eun. It’s okay.”

Ji Soo comforted her.

Normally she would have quietly accepted the comfort, but perhaps because she’d had too much to drink, useless words poured out of Yeo Eun’s mouth.

“It’s not okay at all. I’m already mortified for trying to use feminine wiles for business, but to not even meet the standard and Cha Do Ha…”

How dare she try to do anything.

“I changed my clothes more than ten times this morning because I was going to meet Cha Do Ha, you know?”

Ji Soo was a bit surprised by that point.

It was something that rarely happened to Yeo Eun in the 9 years she’d known her.

But given that the other party was Cha Do Ha, it wasn’t incomprehensible.

No matter how much of a ruffian he is, with that face, who could resist?

“Hey. Ask any woman passing by in Korea. They’d all do the same if they were meeting Cha Do Ha. If it were me, forget clothes. I’d take a bath again in the morning, wear really sexy underwear, and go like that.”

That’s just instinct.

At that moment.

Someone who had just entered the rooftop lounge said to Ji Soo:

“CEO Yoon Ji Soo, please refrain. It might be okay for Yeo Eun, but.”

It was Cha Hyun.

Her black, shiny eyes quietly took in Yeo Eun, whose eyes were glistening with tears.

“Our Yeo Eun needs to be a bit like that, you see.”