“Are you planning to run away like this?”

Se Hee’s heart sank at the chillingly cool baritone voice.

A tall man with broad shoulders that even blocked out the high noon sun.

Kyle Graham Evans.

He was standing right in front of Se Hee.

The deep shadow cast over Kyle’s face darkened his pale white skin to match his black hair color.

His deep blue eyes, like the deep sea, stared directly at Se Hee without wavering.

Se Hee’s heart, which had stopped in shock the moment their eyes met, began to pound again.

“…It’s not running away, but returning. To my original place.”

Se Hee spoke as calmly as possible, trying to hide the trembling in her voice caused by her shaken emotions.

“Why does it look like fleeing to me?”

His arrogant gaze scanning Se Hee felt like it was binding her whole body.

“It’s natural to break away from a deviation when the trip is over.”

“It was just a deviation?”

Kyle’s thick eyebrows twitched at the word ‘deviation’ that Se Hee uttered.

His voice, lower than before, was even dropping the surrounding temperature.

“…Yes. A deviation that can easily occur in an unfamiliar travel destination. And something insignificant that’s easily forgotten.”

Even though Se Hee herself said it was nothing, her heart crumbled at those words.

All the words she was uttering now were actually the opposite of what her heart was feeling.

Se Hee bit her trembling lips hard.

“Easily forgotten… something insignificant?”

Displeasure filled Kyle’s deep blue eyes as he muttered lowly.

Se Hee tried not to be fooled by that appearance.

It’s all an act anyway.

Everything is a lie anyway.

If I hadn’t met you on the Deco cruise ship, no, if it wasn’t the first voyage.

Complicated emotions mixed in Se Hee’s heart.

Kyle’s eyes, gazing at Se Hee like that, darkened even more than the deep sea. Almost to the point of being black.

Those eyes that seemed to pierce through a person’s inner thoughts clearly reflected Se Hee’s pale face as she suppressed her emotions.

“Am I supposed to believe that? That it’s your true feelings?”

Kyle’s questioning pulled down Se Hee’s heart heavily like iron chains.

Enduring that weight, Se Hee painfully met Kyle’s gaze.

You don’t know at all.

Even while knowing all this is a lie,

How my heart can’t help but waver

At your eyes,

At that one word.

You probably can’t know.

That my heart may have already fallen for you the moment I first saw you.

Because my feelings probably don’t matter to you at all.

Se Hee exhaled a long breath to calm her turbulent emotions.

And she came to a conclusion.

That she was simply breaking away from a deviation she had caused herself, not being fooled by his false deception.

Se Hee’s long hair, fluttering in the sea breeze of the Venice port, settled calmly like her resolved mind.

One wound was enough.

She didn’t want to create another wound.

“…It’s my true feelings.”

Se Hee spoke coldly, steeling her heart.

“So, you’re going to… end it after all?”

As if unable to accept Se Hee’s decision, Kyle did not back down.

Rather, he closed the distance toward Se Hee.

As he came close enough to almost touch, his deep scent overwhelmingly invaded Se Hee’s lungs.

“…But Lee Se Hee. I have no intention of letting you go at all.”

Kyle’s intense gaze toward Se Hee restrained her as if not allowing her to be free.

Completely captivated by that gaze, Se Hee could not push him away.

As if knowing she wouldn’t be able to refuse, Kyle’s strong arms naturally wrapped around Se Hee’s slender waist.

Kyle’s dizzying kiss that followed, as if he had been waiting, engraved itself on Se Hee’s heart, causing a strong thrill.

* * *

“It’s the 4th of next month.”

Hyo Jun said indifferently, lifting his frameless glasses perched on his neat nose bridge with an arrogant fingertip.

At 9 AM, the office where work had just begun was quiet.

Hyo Jun deliberately chose this time.

To exert unspoken pressure to keep quiet.

The blood drained from Se Hee’s tightly clenched fist at Hyo Jun’s shameless behavior.

Three years.

The precious time she had wasted thinking this trash was her lover.

The golden engraving on the desk stabbed Se Hee’s heart.

A wedding invitation.

How can a person be so shameless?

Even though they work in the same department, how many crazy people would boldly hand a wedding invitation to their ex-girlfriend?

Se Hee gritted her teeth, her face white with anger.

Though her head was sending strong signals to act rationally since it was already an ended relationship, the rising anger had already pierced her heart.

Originally, the person whose name would be alongside the trashy Cha Hyo Jun on this wedding invitation was Se Hee.

At least until 3 months ago.

3 months ago, at the first meeting with Hyo Jun’s parents, Se Hee was flatly rejected.

At the time, she thought it was because of the extreme opposition from Hyo Jun’s mother, who even shamed her, saying she probably hadn’t learned anything properly without parents.

When they first started dating, Se Hee had confessed to Hyo Jun that she was from an orphanage.

Since it was a formal greeting to his parents that day, she thought his parents would know that fact too.

But his mother, as if hearing it for the first time, flew into a rage and didn’t hesitate to insult not only Se Hee, but also her parents whom even Se Hee didn’t know well.

In the shocking situation, Hyo Jun, who Se Hee believed would be her only shield, stood by as if watching someone else’s business.

Se Hee was greatly disappointed in Hyo Jun, and the two ended up arguing.

From that day on, Hyo Jun’s attitude began to change noticeably.

But because Hyo Jun was the one who had given her the expectation and excitement that she might have a real family for the first time, Se Hee tried her best for him, thinking everything was due to her own shortcomings, even as he grew distant.

Then one day, Se Hee went to the company with a carefully prepared lunchbox to cheer up Hyo Jun, who had coldly said not to contact him because he was working overtime.

Wanting to surprise him, she quietly went to his desk, but only the monitor was on and Hyo Jun wasn’t there.

And faint sounds of a man and woman…

For a moment she was gripped by an inexplicable uneasiness, but Se Hee denied that feeling and carefully headed toward the source of the sound.

In the darkened employee lounge, Se Hee witnessed a shocking scene she should never have seen.

The owner of the passionate moans was Yoon Ye Ri, a new employee who had proudly entered the company as a parachute hire with the title of daughter of a current executive at SY Hotel where Se Hee worked.

And the man engaging in such natural skinship with her, as if it wasn’t the first time, was none other than Hyo Jun.

‘Oh my God.’

Se Hee couldn’t believe it even though she was seeing it with her own eyes.

That such a thing, which should only happen in makjang dramas, was happening in her reality.

Her breath caught and her legs gave out.

Only then did Se Hee understand Hyo Jun and his parents’ behavior.

That it was all Hyo Jun’s pathetic plan to create a situation where it would be easy to break up with her.

Se Hee had completely trusted Hyo Jun, so she didn’t doubt him.

Right up until witnessing this tremendous event.

Only at that moment did Se Hee finally realize what Cha Hyo Jun had chosen.

What kind of trash he was.

Not knowing he was this kind of guy, she felt so pitiful and pathetic for having sacrificed herself devotedly to Hyo Jun with just that one expectation of having a family.

So she didn’t cling on.

But it hurt a lot.

Both her body and heart ached terribly.

After suffering like that for a while, when she got up, she swore while looking at the rising sun.

That she would never live like such a fool again.

Se Hee opened her eyes wide as she recalled that nightmarish time.

Although 3 months had passed, the wound from back then was still bleeding red as if it had just been made.

The wound was deeper and bigger than expected, as much as she had trusted Hyo Jun.

The wedding invitation Hyo Jun handed to such a Se Hee became a well-sharpened knife, poking at the wound that had not fully healed yet.

Se Hee couldn’t help but laugh dejectedly.

While she had been unable to get her act together because of the wound from Hyo Jun, he had been busy preparing for his wedding.

There was no need to hear from others about the fact that they had openly started dating.

Painfully, she could see the whole process directly since they worked in the same hotel business department.

But she hadn’t expected Hyo Jun to get married so quickly.

If there was such a thing as minimum courtesy, he wouldn’t have pulled this kind of prank.

Is trash just trash after all?

Se Hee, whose anger had risen, had no intention of keeping quiet.

There was no reason to.

From the moment the two of them started dating publicly, Se Hee was already receiving painful gazes from the department staff.

No matter what she did, it couldn’t get worse than this.

She wanted to punch that smug face of his.

Cha Hyo Jun, you’re wrong!

“Is that so?”

After taking a deep breath, Se Hee’s voice was cold as she spoke.

With a cold expression, she took out five 10,000 won bills from her wallet and stood up.

Then she scattered them toward Hyo Jun standing in front of her.

“I’ll be too busy to attend. So eat well and live well.”

Hyo Jun’s eyes widened in shock at Se Hee’s unexpected attitude.

“The Lee Se Hee who used to blush in front of you is gone now.”

Se Hee’s gaze at Hyo Jun, who was dumbfounded with an absurd expression, was colder than frost in May.

“What? Not enough? What to do? It’s too much for Cha Hyo Jun. Just coolly eat and leave, like you told me.”

Se Hee’s sharp voice drew the attention of the office staff.

“…You, are you crazy?”

Hyo Jun’s hoarse voice barely came out, showing how surprised he was.

“Assistant Manager Cha Hyo Jun. I’m your senior by 2 years, right? From now on, I’d like you to be politely respectful.”

Se Hee spoke in a calm and firm commanding tone.

As the surroundings started to stir, Hyo Jun, bothered by it, scowled fiercely at Se Hee as if to say ‘we’ll see about this’ before quickly returning to his seat.

Having dealt with Hyo Jun, Se Hee calmly sat down at her desk and busily wrote something on the monitor before immediately printing it out.

Se Hee quickly scrawled her signature on the printout and stuck it in the approval form to take to the department head.

Manager Yang, who received the approval form, looked at Se Hee with surprised eyes.

“…What is this?”

Having directly witnessed the commotion just now, Manager Yang worriedly asked if Se Hee was submitting her resignation in anger.

“It’s a leave of absence request, sir.”

However, contrary to Manager Yang’s expectation, Se Hee submitted a leave of absence request.

“Le-leave of absence?”

Manager Yang asked again, as that was also surprising.

“Yes. All of our team members have taken long vacations, but I’m the only one who hasn’t.”

After the special policy of ‘One Month Vacation’ was introduced a year ago from the HR department, the department staff had been taking turns going on vacation.

For a while after implementation, the company was noisy with talks of family trips and overseas travel.

But Se Hee had been quietly watching, yielding her turn to them.

To match her time with that trash Hyo Jun.

Of course, Hyo Jun had spent it with someone else, not her.

Se Hee thought she should use that lost time for herself now.

“You’re going to use it now?”

“Yes. This is when our business department is least busy. Everyone else has gone, so there’s no overlap, and I’d like you to allow it.”

Manager Yang’s brow furrowed at Se Hee’s words.

Although instructions from HR to actively use long vacations had come down, having two people absent at the same time was burdensome for the department head.

“If you don’t have plans, why don’t you leave after Assistant Manager Cha returns from his honeymoon?”

Manager Yang said, subtly observing Se Hee’s reaction.

Se Hee let out a small laugh at that ridiculous question.

After seeing this situation, to ask her to wait for Cha Hyo Jun’s wedding and honeymoon.

But Se Hee had no intention of yielding her time to the trash Cha Hyo Jun, not even a tiny bit.

“Assistant Manager Cha Hyo Jun’s wedding and honeymoon period is only a week. Even if the periods overlap, I don’t think it will cause much difficulty with work.”

Taken aback by Se Hee’s combative attitude today, Manager Yang reluctantly nodded.

Se Hee, having obtained approval, turned around proudly.

‘Things will be different from now on.’