The espresso with a thick layer of fresh cream on top, known as Einspänner, tasted quite good. Ji Hyun put down the empty cup that she had finished drinking, revealing the bottom, and licked her lower lip with her tongue in regret.

“You like sweet things.”

Seung Ho’s words grated like sugar remaining in her mouth. He was still staring at Ji Hyun with the cup in his hand.

Aware of the dark eyes fixated on her like a nail, not moving, Ji Hyun forcibly suppressed her pounding heart.

She thought to herself like chanting a spell that the beautiful eyes staring at her without a word only seemed affectionate due to her imagination, and that it was absolutely impossible for him to be like that given his remarkable personality.

Shin Seung Ho was strange. From the beginning, he was not within her realm of understanding. He would torment her, then treat her well, and then pretend not to know as if he had never done so.

“Hey!”

Just like right now……

“Huh? Why?”

Ji Hyun was startled as if her thoughts had been caught by his casually blurted out, indifferent voice.

“Do you know that your face is turning red as if it’s about to explode right now? Don’t tell me you got drunk from a single cup of coffee?”

Leaning his upper body and thoroughly scanning her complexion with his eyes, his gaze was a little sharper than before.

Feeling embarrassed by his stare without blinking even once, Ji Hyun raised her hand and lightly touched her cheek. The heat rising from the intoxication was faintly felt on her hand.

“Ah, I guess some of what I drank in the evening is still left over.”

“You drank? What? Alcohol? With whom?”

In an instant, the flow of the air changed. The languid atmosphere disappeared from Seung Ho’s face as he asked like an interrogation, and irritation mixed into his voice.

“Huh?”

“I asked with whom did you drink until your face was about to explode.”

“With friends, just a little bit……”

Although she didn’t know why she had to, Ji Hyun couldn’t help but be conscious. Seung Ho seemed displeased with the reluctant answer, and he sneered greatly.

“This is a complete alcoholic. I sent you home to rest, but it seems you met up and drank in the meantime?”

‘It doesn’t seem like something a person holding a glass of alcohol should say……’

Ji Hyun pursed her lips in discontent.

It was hard to shake off the feeling of becoming an eighteen-year-old high school student who often faced embarrassing situations in front of him, even now as an adult. Then, she suddenly recalled the white apartment walls that were different from that time.

“By the way, there’s something I’m curious about.”

Seung Ho, with eyes that showed the question was unexpected, nodded his head.

“Speak.”

Ji Hyun thought of the blue-winged morpho butterfly he used to love. Butterflies could be seen everywhere in the spaces he frequented inside the mansion.

“You don’t collect butterflies anymore?”

“……”

“They weren’t in the apartment…… You used to like them before.”

Instead of answering, Seung Ho put down the cup and stared intently at Ji Hyun. The dark eyes sending a leisurely gaze while leaning back in the chair strangely evoked a sense of tension. So she added words that didn’t need to be said.

“Did you get tired of it? They were quite pretty……”

He wiped the glass cup with his long fingers. They were hands that once touched butterfly wings and pinned them.

“I like it.”

Ji Hyun trembled at the low and deep voice that seemed to echo in a cave. Even though she knew that confession-like statement was talking about butterflies, her insides strangely felt hot.

“Huh?”

“I still like it. Both the butterflies and the joy of collecting.”

“Then why don’t you do it now?”

He chuckled and turned his head as if appreciating her innocent face filled with questions.

“Well…… Why could that be?”

In the end, Seung Ho did not answer.

Fortunately, the work that was initially clumsy and only difficult gradually became familiar. The mountain-like data research he ordered was not so hard either.

Sometimes when he told her to buy snacks, Ji Hyun would deliberately purchase multiple menu items and carry them all at once. Each time, Seung Ho would slightly open his eyes as if displeased, but fortunately, he let it slide quietly.

It was definitely not because his picky appetite changed or he suddenly developed consideration for Ji Hyun’s effort.

He just had a lot of work to do, so he let it go. Ji Hyun, who was handling a large copier in one corner of the living room due to printouts, tilted her head.

They were not simple documents. The tasks Seung Ho ordered were either detailed stock analysis data or mostly composed of unfamiliar terms in English. Even to her who didn’t know well, it was clear that it wasn’t simply the work of a scholarship foundation.

‘Should I ask what this is?’

At that moment, the sound of the front door opening and hurried footsteps were heard. It was Min Woo. He came rushing towards Seung Ho, waving what appeared to be an invitation card.

“Hey, hey, Shin Seung Ho, we have a problem.”

“I think I told you before……”

Don’t set foot in this house as you please!

Seung Ho’s eyes were not kind as he looked at Min Woo approaching in a fuss.

“Th-That’s not what’s important right now. Do you know what this is?”

Min Woo, who flinched involuntarily at the cold gaze, quickly continued his words as he remembered his business.

“It’s an invitation sent from Shin Yang ES.”

At the news he heard for the first time, Seung Ho’s eyebrows immediately rose high.

“What?”

“It’s a party for major shareholders.”

The party can freeze to death……

Seung Ho, who threw the pen irritably, checked the invitation in Min Woo’s hand and burst into laughter.

“They’re playing around.”

“Do you know what’s even funnier?”

He spoke in a loud voice as if venting his anger and handed a tablet to Seung Ho.

“Your name is not on that long list of attendees. Shin Seung Ho is not there, this is really……”

Seung Ho interrupted Min Woo’s words and spat out as if chewing.

“They’re trying to go against me.”

It was the will of his elder brother Shin Myung Ho to completely exclude Seung Ho, who was being mentioned as the next successor of Shin Yang Group, using his authority as a manager. Myung Ho was already showing his teeth, as if in a hurry.

“What are you going to do now?”

However, there was a fact that Myung Ho overlooked. It was common for uninvited parties to be unable to attend, but Seung Ho was different.

He was one of the top major shareholders and VIPs of Shin Yang ES. There was not a single place with the name Shin Yang that he couldn’t enter.

“Of course, I have to attend.”

“Great, that’s how you should come out. Go and completely flatten elder brother Myung Ho’s nose.”

Ji Hyun only stared at the screen of the innocent copier. Based on inferring the content of their conversation that she could hear even if she didn’t want to, they seemed to be topics that would be better not to know.

Beep beep beep-

At that moment, a notification sound rang indicating that all the printouts were completed. Seung Ho turned his head and gave his attention to Ji Hyun, who was organizing the papers.

“You prepare too.”

“Huh? For what?”

Ji Hyun was not the only one surprised. Min Woo blocked Seung Ho, who was organizing files.

“Don’t tell me you’re taking her too?”

“She’s the attending secretary, so of course she has to go.”

Min Woo, frustrated by Seung Ho’s usual attitude, hit his chest.

‘I deliberately showed the list of attendees to tell you to hold back a useful card, but what if you bring a completely useless card!’

“Hey! Do you know who’s coming there?”

“Who’s coming?”

“Park Chae Rin.”

Who was Chae Rin again……

She was the precious maternal granddaughter of Rivernic, a company that rivaled Shin Yang, and the other party with whom marriage talks were secretly exchanged between the two families after profit calculations were finished.

“Do you know her personality?”

Chae Rin, who fell for Seung Ho at first sight while studying in London and threw away her pride to follow him around, would not leave Ji Hyun alone if she saw her. As Min Woo kept mentioning Chae Rin’s name, Seung Ho frowned his dignified appearance, not hiding his displeasure.

“What does she have to do with me?”

Min Woo held his forehead.

‘It’s not you, but the kid behind you who has a lot to do with it.’

His peaceful study abroad life was possible thanks to Chae Rin, a fact that Seung Ho, who had no interest in others even as much as an eye booger, had no way of knowing.

Most women from wealthy families tried to approach Seung Ho in any way possible when they saw him, but it all went to waste. The one who kept the women away by using all sorts of methods whenever they tried to even talk to him was not Min Woo, but Chae Rin.

Min Woo recalled a conversation he had with her on the lawn during his study abroad.

“I’m going to marry Shin Seung Ho.”

At Chae Rin’s confident declaration, Min Woo was startled and dropped the sandwich he was holding. Under the sunlight, Chae Rin’s expression was triumphant with the belief that she would always be on the sunny side.

‘Should I say she’s innocent or stubborn, not all the children from wealthy families are like this, but why is she like this?’

Min Woo, who swallowed a sigh, gently asked.

“Uh, um…… this thing called marriage. Is it something that has been agreed upon by both you and Seung Ho?”

“As if I would dislike it? I’m the maternal granddaughter of Rivernic Corporation. Grandpa will definitely say okay.”

When comparing families, wealth and reputation that never fell behind were the most important conditions in choosing a spouse.

Chae Rin’s attitude, which did not consider the other person’s feelings at all, gave off a feeling befitting a materialistic family that was second to none among wealthy families.

“What if Seung Ho says he doesn’t like it?”

As if she had never thought of rejection even once, Chae Rin frowned.

“That can’t happen. This is something that benefits both of us.”

At her very typical answer, Min Woo couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth.

That Seung Ho hated Park Chae Rin terribly and would continue to do so……

Min Woo shook his head to shake off his thoughts. The cold man, who seemed to have never experienced rejection, had eyes similar to Chae Rin who talked about marriage in the park.

‘If the feeling was mutual, it would have been a happy ending.’

“Do you know that you and Chae Rin are quite similar?”

“If you’re going to talk about that unpleasant girl, get out.”

Seung Ho’s voice was cold as he thoroughly read the confidential documents about Shin Yang ES.

“The unpleasant part you mentioned is really similar.”

That tenacity and meticulousness to obsessively pursue only what she was fixated on, the indifference of not knowing at all how Ji Hyun felt, who had to attend an uncomfortable event against her will……

The eyes of pity kept turning towards Ji Hyun. The urge to tell her to run away quickly if she didn’t want to face a female version of Shin Seung Ho kept rising from within.

‘Tsk tsk, how pitiful……’

Min Woo clicked his tongue and adjusted his posture, and his body suddenly stiffened. Seung Ho’s eyes, which he thought were looking at the tablet, were glaring at him.

“If you keep doing that, I’ll rip your eyeballs out.”

“L-Look at this. Even the threats are similar.”

Seung Ho suppressed his anger and pointed his finger at the front door.

“Get out right now.”

As Min Woo left as if being chased out, silence flowed between the two. The name Chae Rin that Min Woo had been shouting lingered in Ji Hyun’s mind.

‘Who could it be? They seem to know each other well with Seung Ho, ah, what does that have to do with me!’

Ji Hyun shook her head hard. What broke her thoughts was a single word from Seung Ho.

“We’re not in any kind of relationship.”

“……Huh?”

Surprised by the words that seemed to have caught her thoughts, Ji Hyun’s eyes turned to Seung Ho. Since when, he was looking at Ji Hyun.

“Chae Rin and I, we’re not in any kind of relationship……”

She didn’t know why he was saying this, but the low mumbling voice that added on was quite nice to hear.

“I-I see.”

Ji Hyun’s cheeks reddened as she mumbled, not knowing how to respond. The winter sunlight passing through the large window shone quite warmly in the living room.