“It wasn’t difficult at all.”

Yu Ra stood her ground, as if nothing had happened, and even if something had, she could handle it on her own. She herself believed so.

However, Lee Hyun persistently pressed on, as if unwilling to back down easily.

“That flustered face, I’ve never seen it before in my life.”

Though the words flowed calmly, Yu Ra couldn’t easily shake off the embarrassment of that moment. Unknowingly tensed up, Yu Ra could only stare straight ahead without saying a word.

As the car smoothly came to a stop at a red light, Lee Hyun’s gaze could be clearly felt. After a moment of silence, as if choosing his words, he sharpened his acute senses.

“What happened in there?”

As the terribly low bass voice resonated like an interrogation, Yu Ra unknowingly felt tension spreading.

Though knowing that if she kept quiet, no one would know, she feared that if it were Lee Hyun, he would figure it all out. As if a mistake she didn’t want anyone to discover had been exposed to the world, her clenched hands were sweaty.

Yu Ra maintained a poker face as much as possible and cut off Lee Hyun’s deductions with a firm voice.

“Nothing.”

“Jin Yu Ra.”

Though it was just her name being called, a heavy pressure washed over her. And at that perfect timing, the signal turned green. Not missing that split second, Yu Ra stretched her hand forward to indicate the signal change and changed the subject.

“Take me to the company.”

It seemed like a faint sigh spread, but pretending not to notice, she turned her gaze out the window. Her heart kept pounding nervously, fearing Lee Hyun might notice something. He seemed determined to dig into Yu Ra’s avoidance to the end, repeatedly calling her name as if urging.

“Yu Ra.”

“Work’s piled up. I need to take care of it quickly.”

Yu Ra, trying not to be swayed by Lee Hyun’s pace, recalled company work in her mind and urged him. She decided to ignore whatever Lee Hyun said from now on.

“Let’s get married.”

“Sure, the company… What?”

Yu Ra, who had been responding half-heartedly and indifferently, belatedly recalled the word Lee Hyun had thrown and whipped her head towards him.

“I said, let’s get married.”

Speaking in a calm voice, Lee Hyun was leisurely driving with one hand, resting his chin on one arm leaned against the car window. Unable to even think of pointing out the dangerous driving posture, Yu Ra just glared at him with a dumbfounded face.

“Are you sick?”

“No.”

“Did you fight with your parents?”

“No.”

Lee Hyun consistently answered no to each of Yu Ra’s questions. If it wasn’t delirious talk from being sick, nor a rash act due to conflict with his parents, there was only one thing that could be inferred.

“Are you having fun?”

Yu Ra thought Lee Hyun was simply intending to tease her. His gaze, which had been fixed on the front, briefly brushed past Yu Ra.

“Your expression is quite amusing.”

“Stop joking around. This isn’t the way to the company.”

Yu Ra, dismissing it as just an unfunny joke, glanced out the window. True to his nature of always ignoring her words, Lee Hyun was heading in a different direction despite her saying she was busy, and she grumbled at him.

“I really have work piled up.”

To Yu Ra gesturing for him to turn the car around quickly, Lee Hyun stubbornly drove down the straight road.

“We’re going to my villa.”

“Why there?”

“I have something to talk about.”

“Talk about it here.”

“It’s very important.”

At the rather serious voice, Yu Ra decided to stop dissuading and go along with Lee Hyun’s movements. She felt intimidated by the gravity that seemed more fitting for a formal setting.

Privately, he might be her brother’s friend, but officially, he was still a high-ranking superior, so having to lower herself was an unavoidable reality. And though that was bitterly disappointing, she couldn’t show it.

Yu Ra sat on the sofa, indifferently scanning Lee Hyun’s house interior on her first visit. Moving towards the kitchen, he asked as if treating a guest.

“Coffee?”

“No thanks, just tell me what you want to say quickly. I’m busy.”

She had no desire to sit face to face with Lee Hyun and leisurely drink tea. Her only wish was to end the conversation as soon as possible and return to the company.

Lee Hyun, seeing Yu Ra sulking all along, unknowingly let out a chuckle. Her appearance, bristling like a stray cat, looked quite cute.

“Just a moment.”

Lee Hyun told Yu Ra to wait and came out of the study with a thin envelope of documents.

“Here.”

“What’s this?”

“A contract.”

“Contract?”

Yu Ra frowned disapprovingly and clicked her tongue while glancing at Lee Hyun.

“Tsk. If you want to include an artist in the performance, discuss it with the CEO. I have no power.”

Lee Hyun almost laughed at her words, rattling on without even looking at the contents. He had occasionally recommended artists at his mother’s request, but that was only within an acceptable range.

But unlike himself, he well knew that there were quite a few others who tried to intervene in performances like this. Yu Ra seemed to be treating him as the same kind as them.

Lee Hyun, as if breaking that fragmentary prejudice, calmly uttered the name of a document completely unrelated to artists.

“Marriage contract.”

Yu Ra, who returned after having an argument at Lee Hyun’s house, gulped down beer from the refrigerator.

Her pounding heart had now found its rhythm, but despite it being late winter with lingering cold, the heat on her flushed face wouldn’t easily subside.

Yu Ra thought of Baek Lee Hyun as a white fox, recalling his calm face that had come close enough for their noses to touch.

She couldn’t understand how he could make such intimate contact so nonchalantly, with such an indifferent face. To be more honest, she couldn’t understand herself for feeling her heart flutter, not disliking it despite it being him.

It was not much different from Oh Se Jin’s way of contact, yet she couldn’t figure out why one was unpleasant and the other made her heart flutter, and it was frustrating not finding that difference.

The cold wind blowing through the window she had opened to cool off ruffled Yu Ra’s hair. Thanks to the cool air, her mind, which had been full of Baek Lee Hyun, seemed to clear a bit.

Yu Ra stared blankly at the envelope of documents she had received from Lee Hyun.

“A contract marriage…”

Lee Hyun’s proposal was sweeter than expected. If it were simply because of Oh Se Jin, there would be no need to take such a risky move, but the problem was that Yu Ra’s current situation was by no means that simple.

Yu Ra’s father is a patriarchal person with a severe preference for sons.

At one time, she had immersed herself in studying, wanting to be acknowledged by such a father, and even engaged in brief rebellion out of defiance. However, she soon realized that nothing could change her father.

Since then, Yu Ra has tried to live thoroughly independently.

Except for those she inevitably came to know, she even hid the fact that she was a daughter of the Jin Hwa Group, and avoided all gatherings of people who might know. She began to seriously clash with her father around the time she graduated from college.

Yu Ra, who had a dream of performance planning, even studied abroad with her brother’s full support. Now it was time to take a step towards her desired goal, but unexpectedly, she ran into her father’s stubborn opposition.

‘Just stay quiet and get married, what’s a girl doing running a company. Tsk.’

Even in that bleak moment, the one who stood firmly on her side and persuaded Kang Su was Yu Geon.

‘The amount of money spent on education will help in managing a household later if she experiences social life.’

It was nonsensical and ridiculous rhetoric, but it was Yu Geon’s own second-best option. Although it wasn’t the way Yu Ra wanted, it was a very appropriate persuasion that didn’t go against her father’s mood.

In the end, with that one word, Yu Ra moved towards the independence she wanted. And it became completely twisted right after the accident that occurred with Se Jin’s declaration of breakup.

‘That’s what you get for doing that. Tsk. I’ll find a suitable match, so just stay put.’

Her father, not caring at all about his hurt daughter’s feelings, was only thinking of pawning her off to a suitable match.

She knew he was that kind of person originally, but after that incident, Yu Ra erased all emotions towards Kang Su. Leaving just one word to live as if he didn’t exist, she became independent from her father.

Kang Su, who had raged about removing her from the family register even after death, truly never sought Yu Ra out even once after that. It was the same for Yu Ra. If there was a way, she wanted to remove herself from the family register.

That father who had been like that started persistently contacting Yu Ra recently.

Avoiding and avoiding, when she finally faced her father, his first words, ridiculously, did not deviate from Yu Ra’s expectations. Far from asking how she was doing, he urged his daughter, whom he was seeing after years, to go on a blind date, and Yu Ra firmly refused.

‘You should be grateful it’s Dongho Industries. Where else could you meet such a man?’

He mocked Yu Ra with a sharp gaze, as if the answer was already decided. Yu Ra felt her blood run cold at her father’s remarks that ignored her own worth.

Unless a clear reason is made, that blind date will eventually happen.

What kind of person the son of Dongho Industries was didn’t matter to Yu Ra. She disliked such a marriage that had nothing to do with her own opinion. Maybe she just disliked her father’s coercion itself.

Yu Ra thought of Dongho Industries and Baek Lee Hyun simultaneously. Either way, it was a fork in the road that didn’t mean much. But what was clear was who had the upper hand.

“CH is on a different level from Dongho Industries from the start.”

The 1st and 2nd in the business world might seem similar at a glance, but in reality, there was a tremendous difference. No, there was no company that could challenge the unrivaled CH in the first place.

She disliked her value being determined by which family she married into, but if it had to be done anyway, CH would raise her value more, which was true.

Moreover, being tied to Dongho Industries was literally being sold off according to her father’s will, while being tied to CH was, after all, her own decision, wasn’t it?

“Rather than being sold off by my father’s hand, going on my own feet isn’t bad, but either way, being sold off feels disgusting.”

It’s better to go proudly on one’s own feet than to be pushed by someone else. However, it was just unpleasant that it was ultimately the same context.

Yu Ra leaned against the window and looked up at the pitch-black night sky.

Like her future, the darkness without even starlight visible further fueled her depression. Feeling her mood getting even lower, she turned her gaze, and Baek Lee Hyun’s face was filling the screen on the 9 o’clock news.

Suddenly, the question Lee Hyun had thrown came to mind, and she unknowingly let out a hollow laugh.

“Acknowledgment… Huh.”

Yu Ra had no interest in acknowledgment since turning her back on Kang Su.

Such feelings had long been exhausted during her ignorant adolescence. Rather than that, she focused on how to use this opportunity, activating her realistic senses.

Currently, the only person who could stop her father’s unilateral actions was her brother, Jin Yu Geon. Her mother wasn’t much different in thinking from her father, so she couldn’t even be a shoulder to lean on.

It was quite pathetic that despite declaring clear independence, she was still not free from her father’s grasp, and the situation of relying on her brother Yu Geon.

“It might not be bad. It’s getting a better backing after all.”

If she married Baek Lee Hyun, at least she could get further away from her father’s meddling. No, maybe her father wouldn’t be able to easily interfere in her affairs. It was an unprecedentedly good move, even if temporary.

“Moreover, if Baek Lee Hyun’s support backs me well, surpassing Argon won’t be a problem.”

Songrim is currently stuck in second place in this industry, but if they surpass Argon, Yu Ra personally would have no problem with overseas expansion, and if that happens, she could truly break free from her father’s domain.

It was an exquisitely perfect timing. Yet, the fact that she needed someone else’s cooperation rather than her own strength alone kept nagging at her, and it was true there was no alternative.

“And… Oh Se Jin too.”

It was an excellent shield for keeping in check Oh Se Jin, whose intentions were utterly unfathomable. Yu Ra, showing some satisfaction with the perfectly fitting picture, belatedly recalled an overlooked fact. It was the owner of the CH Group.

CH was in a position to choose from several marriage prospects at hand. The biggest problem was whether they would accept a marriage proposal with her, from Jin Hwa Group, ranked 3rd in the business world, and moreover, rumored to have cut ties with her family.

“But, can the white fox persuade his parents?”

Although she had exchanged greetings a few times thanks to Yu Geon, she had no personal rapport, and she felt uneasy not knowing at all how she appeared in their eyes.