“As I thought. Yes, this is it. Yura, you’re really pretty.”

“Hoho, thank you, Mother.”

Seeing Yura laugh brightly, Lee Hyun also thought she was pretty once again.

Yura was a natural beauty, but to Lee Hyun, who didn’t place much importance on whether someone was pretty or not, she was just a friend’s younger sister. However, the Yura standing before him now was truly as beautiful as an elegant swan by a lake.

As Lee Hyun was unconsciously lost in thought, Min Hee’s teasing remark flew at him.

“How can you be like that to such a beautiful bride?”

At his mother’s scolding, he had nothing to say and instead let out an even colder tone.

“That’s enough meddling.”

“Who said what?”

Min Hee, glaring without malice, picked up her outer garment and advised:

“Well then, I’ll be going now. Feed Yura something delicious. Something nutritious. She’s gotten a bit thin, maybe because of all the work.”

“She was thin to begin with.”

“That’s why you need to feed her even better. How hard must it be with work and wedding preparations?”

Lee Hyun recalled Yura’s expression that had been showing signs of fatigue recently. As he slowly nodded as if agreeing with Min Hee’s opinion, she quickly left the room, asking him to pass on her greetings.

Lee Hyun pondered over the time that had passed without much thought.

While continuing her company work, Yura also dealt with Oh Se Jin and didn’t neglect wedding preparations. He suddenly felt concerned about her health, as she was running frantically without wasting a single day, just like him.

Meanwhile, Yura, who had changed clothes again, came out and looked around.

“Where’s Mother?”

“She left first.”

“It would have been nice if she had stayed for a meal.”

He carefully observed Yura as she gathered her outer garment and belongings. As Min Hee had said, her jawline, which seemed to have lost some weight, caught his eye, looking more gaunt than before.

Was the wedding schedule too rushed in an attempt to prevent Oh Se Jin from having second thoughts? He kept worrying about Yura, who looked unusually tired.

“Let’s go eat dinner.”

“Weren’t you busy?”

“I have time to eat.”

As Lee Hyun looked at his watch and was about to contact the restaurant, Yura’s words stopped him.

“I don’t.”

As he furrowed his brow, wondering if she didn’t even have time for a single meal, Yura spoke nonchalantly while putting her arm into her outer garment.

“I have a lot of work regarding the second half-year performance planning. Let’s have dinner next time. Is that okay?”

“I’ll take you.”

“No, it’s fine.”

Is it a habit to refuse everything first? He felt somewhat hurt that Yura declined everything he said like this.

“Sleep on the way. You look tired.”

Yura muttered ‘It’s not that bad’ while rubbing her face with the back of her hand in the mirror. Then, as if giving in, she followed Lee Hyun.

Things were progressing more smoothly than expected, and time was passing quickly.

Lee Hyun was concerned about Yura, who had seemed to be in a bad mood for the past few days.

He thought Oh Se Jin might have stirred things up again, but according to reports, the two hadn’t met recently. The only unusual point was a report that she had visited her family home not long ago.

Yura hadn’t visited home since falling out with Jin Kang Su. This visit after several years was the first since announcing her marriage.

It would be natural for a bride-to-be to visit her family home, but that was for normal cases, and for Jin Yura, it definitely wouldn’t be so, which made him more concerned.

Lee Hyun pressed Jin Yu Geon to find out about the situation. The information he obtained was not very pleasant, and he concluded that some appropriate mediation was needed.

“Is the food to your liking?”

At Lee Hyun’s polite question, Jin Kang Su smiled with satisfaction as he took in the neatly arranged dishes.

“Excellent.”

“How about you, elder brother?”

Yu Geon’s hand twitched as he was about to pick up food with his chopsticks.

He never thought there would come a day in his life when the great Baek Lee Hyun would call him ‘elder brother’. He was a guy who lived without caring about such formalities. So that form of address was both strange and uncomfortable.

“Baek Lee Hyun, it’s awkward. Let’s just do as we’ve been doing.”

“Oh my, we’re about to become family, so we should be even more formal.”

At Kang Su’s nagging, Yu Geon finally put down his chopsticks. He had no desire to continue the meal. It was the same old-fashioned attitude he had heard all his life, but it was starting to become more burdensome recently.

“Father, we can do that after the wedding. I’d like to have a more comfortable meal.”

“Are you becoming like your sister too? Tsk.”

Lee Hyun observed Yu Geon’s uncharacteristically cold gaze and said words that would please Kang Su.

“We’ll get used to it soon. He’s excellent at learning anything. Don’t worry too much.”

“Hmm.”

As the meal continued quietly again, Lee Hyun, recalling the purpose of arranging this meeting, stared at Kang Su.

“I heard you’re thinking of calling Yura back home.”

“Did Yura say that?”

Kang Su frowned, wearing a somewhat disgruntled expression.

A few days ago, Kang Su had called Yura home. With wedding preparations in full swing, he thought that to avoid offending CH, he needed to bring Yura, who had left home, back and teach her everything properly.

He believed that staying at home modestly and supporting her husband was a wife’s duty, rather than unnecessarily working at a company.

For that, there was much to teach. She needed to build up her lacking education, learn how to behave at public events, otherwise, he felt it would tarnish his reputation.

But Yura reacted irritably from the start.

‘You want me to come home? Why so suddenly?’

‘To prepare for the wedding and learn household management.’

‘I’m already preparing well for the wedding, and I won’t be doing the housework, so it doesn’t matter.’

Seeing his daughter consistently refusing to back down, Kang Su, who had intended to speak nicely, raised his voice again.

‘Do you intend to continue that work even after marriage?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jin Yura!’

‘Dear, calm down. Yura, stop being like that.’

Her personality, who knows who she took after, that never seemed to yield, kept grating on Kang Su’s nerves.

‘My thoughts haven’t changed. Don’t call me for things like this again. I’m busy, so I’ll leave first.’

‘How dare you get up while an elder is speaking!’

‘Do you not care if this marriage is called off?’

‘What?’

‘The new department store. You’re marrying me off because you need investment funds for that, right?’

‘Yura, how can you say such things?’

Young Eun quickly intervened with a word. Kang Su was inwardly startled that Yura had grasped the purpose of the marriage, having thought she had no interest in company affairs.

It wasn’t that he had Yura in mind from the beginning. At first, he was looking into arranging a meeting for Yu Geon’s marriage with the second daughter of Dongho Industries.

But it seemed the eldest son of Dongho Industries had taken a liking to Yura, and they wanted to marry off their eldest son first.

Just as he was planning to marry off Yura and secure investment funds for the new department store, the marriage proposal came from CH.

‘You’ve already agreed to receive investment from CH, and if the engagement is broken off, it’ll be difficult to find another investor, won’t it? Are you okay with that?’

Kang Su thought of Yu Geon at Yura’s continued words. If it wasn’t for that guy, Yura wouldn’t know such information. There’s no way Baek Lee Hyun would have told Yura about such business matters.

Kang Su had no words to refute Yura’s statements, which showed a perfect understanding of the company’s situation. It would be no small trouble if the marriage really fell through while trying to break his daughter’s stubbornness.

Moreover, given Yura’s personality of seeing things through once she set her mind to it, no matter what happened, he had to be even more careful.

‘If you want to sell me to grow your business, don’t say things like this.’

Despite the fierce glare and disrespectful words that made his blood boil to his head, Kang Su ultimately remained silent.

Even thinking about it again made Kang Su’s face harden as heat rose to his head. The one who broke the heavy silence was Yu Geon.

“I told her.”

“Why did you unnecessarily… tsk tsk.”

Kang Su clicked his tongue in displeasure as he looked at Yu Geon. He had guessed that Yu Geon had leaked company information to Yura, but he never imagined he would leak even this kind of talk. It felt like being stabbed in the foot by a trusted axe, leaving a bitter taste.

As sharp gazes clashed, Lee Hyun’s voice once again intervened.

“I like that Yura works. That’s what made me fall for her.”

“Ahem.”

“Yura is already following along well enough, so please don’t worry too much.”

“Well, if you say so.”

Fortunately, Kang Su didn’t bring up that issue again.

Of course, it would be quiet for now, but in the future, a stronger method would be needed to put a lock on that mouth. Since tendencies don’t change easily, it was an unavoidable choice for Jin Yura’s freedom.

The dinner ended in a somewhat chilly atmosphere. Lee Hyun saw Kang Su off and headed to the bar at the Grand Garden Hotel, a place he often visited with Yu Geon.

“I wondered why you suddenly wanted to have dinner.”

The pretext was to greet Yu Geon, who couldn’t attend the formal meeting of the families, but the real intention was to prevent interference with Yura.

“Someone kept looking uncomfortable.”

“What did Yura say?”

Lee Hyun just drank his whiskey at Yu Geon’s question.

Yura wasn’t the type to easily open up about anything happening to her. The reason for her shocked expression when she visited Oh Se Jin’s practice room the other day was still a mystery.

If asking would make her tell, he could ask hundreds or thousands of times, but knowing she wouldn’t tell even if he did, he just endured.

“She’s not one to do that.”

Yu Geon shook his head as if well aware of Yura’s tendencies.

Jin Yura with her many secrets was charming, but the secret about Oh Se Jin was increasingly stirring Lee Hyun’s insides as days passed.

All he could do was dig into Yura’s surroundings more closely and follow along, guessing at the secrets she hadn’t spilled.

If he could, he wanted to make her let go of that performance, but he couldn’t rashly step forward for fear that it might really overturn this marriage.

“Did you really fall for that side of her?”

Lee Hyun, who had been swirling his whiskey glass, smirked.