Se Jin felt like going crazy with the articles and comments flooding the portal sites all day. Reporters from media outlets were persistently calling to the point where the phone was about to catch fire, and no solution came to mind.

“Damn it!”

The past incidents that had clearly been neatly resolved were now exploding uncontrollably, which was clearly someone’s scheme. Who could have leaked such a hidden secret? Se Jin felt a burning thirst as if his insides were on fire.

Se Jin glared at Jin Woo, who knew all of his flaws.

“Was it you?”

“What?”

“I’m asking if you leaked it to the reporters!”

Se Jin probed his manager Jin Woo.

“Why would I spread rumors about you, sir? It wasn’t me.”

“Then who was it!”

Se Jin grew even more furiously angry at Jin Woo’s adamant denial.

Jin Woo was just as frustrated. This was clearly confidential information within the company. But who could have leaked this, and how did those victims find out?

Jin Woo suspected it was someone who held a grudge against Se Jin. If there were people with a grudge, it would undoubtedly be the victims.

Would they really have so easily revealed their shameful past like this? But no matter how much he thought about it, there was no one else who would do this.

“Damn it, who the hell ruined everything when it was all going well!”

Se Jin felt like his head was about to explode as new tips and comments were being posted in real-time.

“Argh!”

Jin Woo urgently tried to calm him down from his beast-like outburst.

“I-I’ll inform the director. The director will take care of it.”

Se Jin glared at Jin Woo with bloodshot eyes, exhaling rough breaths. Jin Woo felt chills all over his body from the mad dog-like frenzy in his eyes.

“It’s always been like that, right? The director will take care of everything.”

“Call him.”

Se Jin finally seemed to calm down a bit as he slumped to the floor. Jin Woo dialed Hye Rim with trembling hands.

But after a few rings, the call was cut off. Wondering what was going on, Jin Woo nervously repeated the call.

Se Jin quickly lost patience waiting for the call to connect.

“What are you doing?”

“The, the phone is turned off.”

“What?”

Just when they thought they’d found someone to resolve the issue, hearing it couldn’t be connected made his irritation surge. He soon urged Jin Woo as if knowing where that person would be.

“The office, try the office.”

Seeing Jin Woo’s actions as slow as if he’d eaten boiled snails, Se Jin irritably reached out his hand.

“Give it here. I’ll do it.”

Se Jin dialed the office number saved in the phone. After a few rings, a familiar message was heard.

-This is IF Management.

“This is Oh Se Jin. Is Director Ju Hye Rim there?”

-The director is currently on a business trip.

“I can’t reach her. Is there no emergency contact?”

-No, she didn’t leave one separately.

Se Jin roughly hung up at the response that there was no way to contact her.

“She’s not there?”

Se Jin glared at Jin Woo who asked hesitantly.

“Didn’t you hear? They said she’s on a business trip.”

“Business trip? No, I haven’t heard anything about that.”

Se Jin looked at Jin Woo with suspicious eyes. It was Ju Hye Rim who had assigned Jin Woo to him. She had sent away the competent manager and suddenly attached this green rookie to him.

Ever since Jin Woo came, Ju Hye Rim would appear like the wind to handle things whenever something happened. Because of that, he thought Jin Woo was flapping his mouth like a bat in between. But it was ridiculous that he didn’t know Ju Hye Rim’s whereabouts.

On the other hand, seeing him tremble and say he didn’t know, it seemed plausible. Ju Hye Rim was more than capable of doing so.

She was a woman who only obtained the information she needed and never leaked any information to the other party. So Ju Hye Rim probably already knew what was happening in Korea.

After threatening that she couldn’t clean up anymore and to find another backer, now she was blatantly avoiding contact and turning his insides out.

“Where the hell did she go!”

“I-I’ll keep trying to contact her.”

As if he didn’t want to hear any more from Jin Woo, Se Jin went into the bedroom.

Yu Ra pouted her lips as she looked at Hyun holding her bag.

Hyun had really intended to ravish her for the full three hours.

He only backed off when she threatened that she was so hungry she felt like she would die from lack of strength. Even while eating the sandwiches Secretary Ahn had prepared for a simple lunch, Hyun’s lewd touches didn’t cease.

Whether his talent for pushing people to the extreme was innate or learned as he grew up. Yu Ra surrendered completely to his beast-like stamina.

As she was fixing her clothes, it felt strange to see Hyun standing there holding her bag. When she got up, he followed behind as if he would accompany her all the way to the parking lot.

Yu Ra snatched the bag from Hyun’s hand, not wanting to see the sight of a vice president meekly following a woman while holding her bag.

“I’m going.”

“Go to the main house.”

Yu Ra looked at Hyun at his words that naturally followed.

“The tables have turned, so is there really a need for that?”

“Just until things completely calm down. Bear with it even if it’s uncomfortable.”

Hyun seemed to think the reason she wanted to go to their newlywed home was because it was uncomfortable. For Yu Ra, it was more that she felt guilty for causing such a commotion because of her.

She couldn’t bear to show her face and hadn’t gone downstairs unless called. If anything, her own family home was more uncomfortable than her in-laws’.

“It’s not particularly uncomfortable.”

“I’ll come home early.”

“You’re busy. Don’t worry about it. I’m going.”

Yu Ra’s face reddened as Hyun too naturally lowered his lips to her forehead, and she hurriedly pushed him away and turned around. The secretaries’ calm faces as if they hadn’t seen anything added to her embarrassment.

Yu Ra awkwardly smiled and bowed her head to the secretaries before quickly leaving.

Secretary Ahn walked ahead and pressed the elevator button, waiting for it to arrive. Although Yu Ra tried to stop Secretary Ahn from accompanying her, saying it was fine to go about his work, he smiled and said he had to follow orders.

In the meantime, with a short mechanical sound, the elevator arrived. As the doors opened, a tall woman with striking looks strode past Yu Ra.

Yu Ra mindlessly passed by her and got on the elevator with Secretary Ahn. And then the woman’s clear voice came through the closing elevator doors.

“Long time no see, White Fox.”

The casual use of what seemed like a nickname rather than a name sounded strangely familiar.

‘White Fox?’

Wondering if there were other executives on the floor with Hyun’s office, Yu Ra carefully asked Secretary Ahn.

“Secretary Ahn, are there other executive offices besides the vice president’s?”

“No. The 25th floor only has the vice president’s office.”

If so, the White Fox that woman mentioned was Baek Hyun. White Fox, Baek Fox. Whoever she was, the thought flashed that she knew him as well as Yu Ra did.

In business, there would be more than one or two close partners, and among them there would be a few people they were open with. But is it okay to call a professional relationship partner by such a private nickname? Or were they that close?

The sudden questions that arose made Yu Ra uneasy.

As Yu Ra ruminated on the appearance of the unfamiliar woman, Hyun cast a displeased look at Hye Rim who had suddenly appeared.

“You’re still rude as ever.”

“Tsk, you’re still prickly.”

Her tone that seemed to pick a fight with everything was always grating no matter when he heard it. Hyun furrowed his brow deeply and stared at Hye Rim with a displeased expression.

“What’s the matter?”

“I heard you butchered Oh Se Jin. That was your work, wasn’t it?”

The familiar way of speaking that could be misunderstood as a very close relationship grated on his ears. Using “you” which he hadn’t even heard from Yu Ra yet. Hyun spoke threateningly with sharp eyes.

“Watch how you address me.”

“Ooh, scary.”

Hye Rim, who had been pouting her lips, spoke to the secretary as if she was just here to play.

“Pretty unnie, could you get me a cup of coffee?”

As Secretary Kim stood up and bowed politely, Hyun raised his hand to stop her movement. He didn’t like the rudeness of coming without a prior appointment and making someone else’s employee run errands for coffee.

The act of flaunting her high position and unconditionally looking down on others was also unpleasant. In short, Hye Rim was steeped in arrogance.

“Secretary Kim, don’t mind her and go about your work.”

The most fundamental reason Hyun disliked Ju Hye Rim was her basic character. She had no manners, lacked basic refinement, and was incredibly rude.

Hyun spoke with the intention of sending Ju Hye Rim away as quickly as possible.

“If you have something to say, say it.”

“You’re not even going to invite me in?”

“I don’t see any reason to talk with you, whether officially or privately.”

“I clearly said I came about the Oh Se Jin issue…”

He was about to chase her away right away, but the name Oh Se Jin caught his ankle.

He had been thinking about meeting Hye Rim. He just didn’t like her rudeness in barging in without a prior appointment.

When he told her through his secretary to come another time, she suddenly brought up Oh Se Jin like that. That ultimately became the excuse for her to come up to the 25th floor.

Although he thought there wouldn’t be much to hear, he let her in on the off chance, but now she was eager to enter his office.

As Hyun briefly pondered what to do with this woman, the worry also flashed that Yu Ra’s name might be mentioned in some way in connection with Oh Se Jin. He no longer wanted Yu Ra’s name to be bandied about by others.

Hyun reluctantly allowed Hye Rim’s visit.

“Tsk, keep it brief.”

“Okay.”

As Yu Ra got in the car to head to her in-laws’ with Secretary Ahn seeing her off, she glanced back at CH headquarters. Just as the question of who that woman was kept lingering endlessly.

“I remember now.”

Why hadn’t she recognized her? Yu Ra had only met her once, but she remembered her as a fellow alumna. She was two years her senior, and Hyun’s classmate.

“IF Management Director Ju Hye Rim.”

That one meeting was as a management company and a concert planner.

Before the current contract with Oh Se Jin of IF Management, she had contracted with a violinist named Park Hyo Jin two years ago. The person in charge who came then was Ju Hye Rim.

“Were Ju Hye Rim and oppa close?”

When Yu Ra entered university, Hyun and Yu Geon were in the military.

And when they returned as sophomores, Yu Ra was dragged around by Hyun and Yu Geon for 3 years. Ju Hye Rim was their classmate, but after returning from military service their years were different, and Yu Ra never saw them hanging out together until graduation day.

She remembered that Yu Geon and Hyun didn’t become close with Ju Hye Rim or any other female classmates.

They were busy keeping Yu Ra by their side all day, and because of that Yu Ra also grew distant from her friends. Well, it wasn’t exactly because of them, but still.

‘Long time no see, White Fox.’

The naturally flowing nickname she didn’t know, and moreover, Ju Hye Rim’s voice didn’t sound businesslike or official.

“Too… friendly.”

When did they become such close friends? Was there time for them to become close without her knowing? What kind of relationship did those two have?

Yu Ra’s expression darkened rapidly at the incomprehensible unpleasant feeling.