“Except for Minwoo.”

Of course, she didn’t plan to go with Minwoo. But the words “Except for Minwoo” made her tense up. Worried that her desire to go back might be misunderstood, Yuri added:

“I think I lost my necklace there.”

At the mention of the necklace, one of his eyebrows raised.

“You mean your mother’s keepsake?”

“Yes.”

He twisted his lower lip while maintaining eye contact with her. He seemed to be contemplating something, but his expression made the observer unconsciously hold their breath.

“Construction resumes tomorrow, but let’s pause it for a while.”

After a moment, he opened his mouth and continued.

“If you’re sure you lost it there, we should be able to find it.”

Judging by his expression, he seemed genuinely concerned. The intense gaze that had been looking at her seductively just moments ago was completely gone. Yet somehow, she felt a bit disappointed. Even as she tried to build a wall of defense to avoid falling for him easily, when he withdrew like this, a part of her heart silently crumbled.

Fortunately, there was a pile of work to be done before leaving, and focusing on her tasks helped shake off her unsettled feelings.

When it was time to leave, Jeho turned off his computer first and stood up. Yuri silently packed her bag and followed him out.

“Let’s take one car.”

“Then let’s take my car.”

“Alright, then.”

Despite saying he was uncomfortable riding in someone else’s car, Jeho willingly got into Yuri’s car. Upon arriving at the mansion, Jeho turned on all the indoor lights simultaneously, making it as bright as day. However, he didn’t help search for the necklace.

“Take your time looking. I’ll prepare dinner in the meantime.”

“What?”

“We should eat while searching, right?”

Yuri didn’t think it would take that long to find a single necklace, but she nodded silently. She couldn’t understand how he could casually prepare dinner in someone else’s house, but being in the position of asking for help, she couldn’t nitpick.

Jeho opened the door of the large refrigerator and started taking out ingredients to cook.

Strange. It was completely empty until yesterday…

Yuri furrowed her brow in puzzlement as she moved to the living room.

Being a high-end brand with a single unit costing tens of millions of won, and a premium model not yet officially imported, Minwoo had examined the refrigerator with quite curious eyes. He had opened the door and looked inside, and it was clearly empty yesterday.

But today it was filled with fresh ingredients. However, that wasn’t important right now.

Yuri tied her hair back and began searching for the necklace in earnest. She crouched down, almost lying on the floor, examining every nook and cranny. But contrary to expectations, the necklace was nowhere to be seen.

The enormously spacious mansion was also a problem. It took quite a long time just to look around the first floor. As she was about to lean against the wall to catch her breath, Jeho, who had finished preparing dinner, approached her.

“It would take all night and more to search everything. Let’s eat something first, shall we?”

He was right. After being in a low posture for so long, her knees were sore, her back ached, and her limbs were starting to cramp.

“…Ah.”

As Yuri stood up, she suddenly felt dizzy and lost her balance, stumbling. Having been in a head-down position for so long, her blood had rushed upwards, messing up her sense of balance. As she tried to steady herself by placing her palm on the floor, Jeho supported her, almost embracing her as he helped her up.

“…I’m dizzy.”

Yuri mumbled as if making an excuse, her face buried in his broad chest. A long sigh was heard from above her head, then a large hand gently stroked her back up and down.

Although she knew she should pull away from his embrace, Yuri remained still. His embrace was too comfortable to push away. Fortunately, he seemed to think she couldn’t steady herself properly due to dizziness. He lowered his head and whispered in her ear with a sweet voice.

“Let’s have dinner first. We can continue searching later.”

Jeho led Yuri to the dining room, seated her at the table, and placed a dish he had just taken out of the oven. Steam rose from the pasta, topped with a generous amount of cheese like snow.

“If you finish this, I’ll help you search too.”

He said in a gentle voice, as if coaxing a child, as he sat across from her. But the food just wouldn’t go down her throat. She felt she should be searching as quickly as possible, not sitting here leisurely eating.

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she couldn’t burst into tears in front of him. Losing such a precious necklace so carelessly. Yuri lowered her head and pushed the pasta around with her fork.

Seeing that she wasn’t eating at all, Jeho gently spoke up.

“What’s wrong? Worried you won’t find it?”

“…Yes.”

At her response, Jeho twirled some pasta around his fork and stretched his lips to the side.

“If we don’t find it today, we can come back tomorrow.”

Surprised, Yuri looked up. Jeho smiled leisurely as he brought the fork wrapped with pasta to his mouth. Yuri waited anxiously for his next words as he chewed the pasta and swallowed.

“If we don’t find it tomorrow, we can come the day after that. We can keep coming until we find it.”

“Is that really okay?”

“Of course.”

He answered briefly as he wiped his mouth with a napkin. Then he added with a smile.

“Last time I went down to the bottom of a cliff to find something for you… This is nothing.”

Jeho shrugged as if it were no big deal, even though it wasn’t his own house. Although she didn’t know how long he could postpone the construction, Yuri didn’t ask any further. From cooking openly in a client’s house, the situation was incomprehensible, but she decided to let it slide. Finding the necklace was the priority for now.

After dinner, they searched every corner of the house again, but unfortunately, the necklace was nowhere to be found. Jeho approached Yuri, who was standing blankly with a dejected face.

“There’s an old saying that gold objects hide in unseen places the moment they’re dropped. They say you have to wait until it comes out on its own. Come back tomorrow. It’s too late today, so let’s call it a day.”

Comforting her that they would find it tomorrow, Yuri had no choice but to turn back with heavy steps.

As Jeho had promised, they visited the place every day in succession, but the necklace remained hidden somewhere out of sight. Yuri was burning up inside, worrying if they might never find it. Although he said it was almost at the finishing stage, they couldn’t delay the construction indefinitely.

Fortunately, it was clear that the client trusted Jeho greatly. Otherwise, they wouldn’t accommodate him to this extent.

Still, today was Friday, and tomorrow was the weekend, so they could search until late at night. If necessary, she planned to stay up all night to find it today without fail.

However, during breakfast, she received an unexpected schedule notification from Assemblyman Chae that she hadn’t anticipated at all.

“Today? Wasn’t it next week?”

“The schedule suddenly changed. You’ll have to take a day off today and come down with me.”

Next week, Assemblyman Chae and several other assemblymen were planning to visit the site to help with the by-election campaign in Geoje. As always, Assemblyman Chae had planned to be accompanied by Yuri.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem, but the situation was different now. If they went down to Geoje in the afternoon, they would return to Seoul late at night, or possibly even the next day if things went wrong.

“I’m very busy these days. Couldn’t Yuri go instead of me this time? Yuri is your daughter too, after all.”

With that one sentence, the breakfast atmosphere suddenly froze. Mrs. Ahn, looking uncomfortable, silently got up and left the table, and Yuri, after briefly gauging the situation, followed Mrs. Ahn out. Only Assemblyman Chae remained, his expression hardened.

Yuri had never attended an official event. When Yuri was young, they used to make excuses that she was too frail. But after the ugly truth came to light, it became clear that it was all just excuses. They were cautious in case the secret of her birth might be exposed. Yuri’s existence was Assemblyman Chae’s biggest weakness.

“Once you marry Minwoo, you won’t have to do this anymore. Consider this the last time and help me out, will you?”

It sounded like a request at first glance, but it was actually closer to coercion. It meant he wouldn’t let her go until she became in-laws with the KG Group.

“Alright.”

Yuri had no choice but to nod.

As always, she had no free will of her own.

“Yuri took a day off today.”

After arriving at the office, Jeho noticed that Yuri’s seat was empty. Seonyoung approached Jeho, who was looking on with puzzled eyes, to inform him.

“With the wedding right around the corner, she must be busy with preparations.”

As someone voiced this thought, Seonyoung quickly corrected it.

“No, it’s not for wedding preparations. She had to go help the assemblyman. There’s a by-election campaign in Geoje today.”

“Geoje?”

“Yes. Oh, and Yuri asked me to tell you she couldn’t make it today.”

“I see. Thank you.”

She didn’t say anything last night, and suddenly Geoje…

Is she planning to stay there until the weekend? Should I call her?

As Jeho took out his phone from his pocket, he realized he still didn’t have Yuri’s number. There had been several opportunities, but he had missed them. Jeho let out a cynical chuckle and got up from his seat to approach Seonyoung.

“Seonyoung, I have something to ask you.”

Seonyoung looked up with a questioning expression.

The sun had been shining brightly all morning, but as the afternoon approached, dark clouds began to gather. However, since there was no rain in the weather forecast, they continued their all-out campaign efforts, canvassing various areas.

After landing at Sacheon Airport on the first morning flight, the group arrived at the campaign area in a van sent by the party and had been on a forced march without any breaks until now. Yuri stood by Assemblyman Chae’s side, shaking hands with countless voters one by one.

Her fingertips had become numb from shaking hands all day. Still, she gritted her teeth and endured, thinking she just had to hang on a little longer. But just as they were nearing the end, an incident occurred. People from the opposing party started hurling verbal abuse and throwing raw eggs.

The problem was that there seemed to be stones mixed in with the eggs. One of the assemblymen fell to the ground, bleeding from the head. Screams followed, and the aides and security guards quickly surrounded the assemblymen and moved them to the van.

It all happened in the blink of an eye. When Yuri returned from a brief trip to the bathroom, all that remained was the chaotic scene.

As she looked around with a bewildered expression, someone passing by explained the situation to her.

“Oh, I see. Thank you.”

Yuri tried to hide her dismayed expression. She had left her jacket and bag in the car… All she had in her pocket were two 10,000 won bills and some loose change.

No matter how urgent it was, how could they just leave like that?

She called Assemblyman Chae, but he didn’t answer. The aide didn’t answer either. They might have even forgotten that Yuri had come down here with them.

“Sigh.”

Yuri sighed and tried calling Mrs. Ahn this time. But it was the same. Yuri, who was about to leave a message, quietly hung up the phone.

She believed that they had left in a hurry due to the chaos, but would soon realize she was missing and come back, so she waited in place.

But no matter how much time passed, no one came back looking for her. No calls came in, and no one answered when she called.

The scattered dark clouds that had been visible here and there now covered the entire sky, and thick raindrops began to fall with a plop.

Ha, how pathetic.

Yuri laughed coldly as she lifted her face to the sky.

Why does it have to rain at a time like this?

Again, when she’s left alone like this…

Was it because she was tired from overexerting herself all day? Her emotions welled up suddenly.

She already knew that no one in her family cared about her, but this was too much.

“…Mom.”

Did mom feel this loneliness too?

Hot liquid, whether raindrops or tears, began to wet her face.

Just then, a thin, angry voice was heard from behind.

“Are you crazy?”

Before she could recognize whose voice it was, Yuri’s body was pulled into a warm embrace.