And fortunately, Tae Joon didn’t bring up old feelings or rehash long past memories either. It was a huge relief.
“Support me at the shareholders’ meeting.”
“Yes.”
She nodded and looked at his inscrutable face.
What response would come?
It was a moment that took her breath away.
At that moment, the restaurant door opened and a waitress came in with a large sashimi set. Their conversation paused for a moment. This gave Seo Rin a breather from the tension that had been building up.
But while putting down the big and heavy set, the waitress accidentally knocked over the water cup next to Seo Rin.
Luckily, Seo Rin instinctively dodged and wasn’t soaked, but it was a mistake enough to embarrass the waitress.
“Oh my! I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!”
The startled employee offered a napkin to her, but Seo Rin refused and stood up from her seat.
“I didn’t get very wet.”
“What… what should we do?”
“It’s alright, you can go. I’ll take care of it.”
She calmly brushed off the water and asked Tae Joon to excuse her for a moment before entering the bathroom inside the room. When she looked at her face in the mirror under the red light, Seo Rin was taken aback.
She looked a mess. Not just her wet clothes, but the unfamiliar look in her eyes was unlike her usual self.
“Did my makeup smudge?”
She swept around her eyes in vain, but she knew. It wasn’t her makeup that had smudged, but her emotions.
That man who had existed merely as a memory for the past 8 years.
How many times had she thought of him in her life?
But Tae Joon, who had become reality from memory, had an undeniable presence.
She thought she was over him.
She thought she had cut him out cleanly.
“…Guess not.”
She wasn’t simply swept away by waves of memory. She was being relentlessly swayed by Tae Joon. But she couldn’t afford to make a mistake, swayed by old emotions.
Seo Rin clenched her hand placed on the sink, leaving the faucet on.
She could no longer question why he of all people had to show up here.
Because if she couldn’t secure the sword and shield named Kang Tae Joon in the battle for control, she would have to retreat without even a fight.
Three days ago.
The first place Tae Joon visited upon setting foot in Korea after a long while was Chairman Baek’s funeral home. Although he couldn’t attend the private funeral, it was a place he visited to pay respects to the deceased from afar, inside a black car parked a little distance away.
However, the place his soft eyes, devoid of their usual charisma, constantly looked towards was somewhere else.
To me… love is a curse.
Baek Seo Rin, the woman who had shredded Tae Joon’s soft heart with just one sentence.
From the moment he first saw her until the moment they parted, he was completely captivated.
He had loved her.
He had given unconditionally.
And was discarded without a trace.
Less than a year after they broke up, she got engaged. Of course, that engagement soon ended in a breakup, but the hasty engagement left him deeply hurt.
It was even harder feeling as if the year and a half they spent together meant nothing.
A few loves passed by him afterwards. But for some reason, he couldn’t burn passionately like he did 8 years ago.
His love always ended at a lukewarm temperature.
Presumably, it was because his heart, which she had shredded, could no longer function properly.
It was all that damned woman’s fault.
The woman who denied the time when he gave her everything with just one sentence.
The woman who dumped the curse of love on him, who had believed that love was everything.
Yet he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Despite the painful 8 years, she still had a massive influence on his heart.
He thought he would hate her, but he didn’t. The image of her, clenching her fists and unable to cry, was painfully etched into Tae Joon’s eyes.
What a foolish woman.
What was so shameful about crying that she had to suppress it so much?
“Shall we go?”
Sodam asked, but Tae Joon shook his head.
“Just a bit longer.”
He watched her for a while longer, and only after Seo Rin left her seat, he whispered quietly.
“Now… let’s return to the hotel.”
Tae Joon’s eyes were deeply downcast as he recalled the events of a few days ago.
The image of Seo Rin he saw at the funeral home was still before his eyes.
He thought he wouldn’t be able to even look at her because of his resentment. However, not only could he not take his eyes off her at the funeral, but he also unnecessarily created this situation that made Sodam, his secretary, uncomfortable.
It was understandable, because Tae Joon, who had raised The MG to a toptier investment company with his cool analytical skills and animalistic investment senses, was famous for hardly ever showing his face at official occasions.
The general meeting of shareholders was also supposed to be attended by a representative, not him. Moreover, he had another purpose for coming to Korea. A very important purpose that would dictate everything in his life.
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
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