Episode 03
At that moment, the door to the private room opened, and a server wheeled in a cart, carefully placing a modest yet delicately beautiful dish on the table.
Thankfully, it bought her a moment’s reprieve.
Once the server withdrew, Go Joon let out an irritated sigh and spoke to her.
“Hu—let’s just eat. No more wasting time or energy.”
“My grandma said you get punished for wastin’ food. Go on, have some first. It looks real pretty.”
She sliced into the buckwheat tart with her knife, sawing gently. Sweat trickled down her spine, but she pretended calm as she pushed the food into her mouth.
Go Joon’s gaze lingered on her—full of open disdain, noisy in its judgment. She deliberately avoided his eyes and asked as casually as she could,
“Then… what kinda woman is sexy to you? Tell me.”
Because she had to marry him smoothly—
Only then would her grandmother live.
“A woman who hasn’t received bridal training or anything like that.”
His answer stabbed straight into her chest.
Because to him, she was already branded as just a woman who’d received bridal training.
The man continued, laying out his ideal of a “sexy woman.”
“A woman with something she wants to do. A dream she wants to achieve—and who runs herself ragged chasing it. A woman who doesn’t stake her life on love or waste effort on marriage. Someone who lives each day fully, pursuing clear values and purpose in life. Is that enough?”
It sounded like an answer given with someone specific in mind.
She, too, had dreams—things she wanted to do, things she wanted to become.
Though all of that had changed now.
She pressed on.
“If I become a woman like that, will that do? Or… do you already like someone?”
“……”
“So that’s why I won’t do?”
Was the question sharp enough to land?
Go Joon’s brow, previously smooth, drew together slightly. His voice, though, remained relaxed as ever.
“Your name was… right. Ma Dosil. Unusual name—I almost forgot it. Why do you think that is? Because I’m not attracted to you at all. If I were to marry someone, I’d have to feel at least enough sex appeal to want to press lips together. I feel nothing. Not even a little.”
This man really knew how to rake at people’s insides.
Did he think she’d retreat on her own once she was hurt enough?
That clinging would only make her look more pathetic?
Most women would swallow their pride and turn tail.
But she had a purpose.
And to achieve it, she had to endure—day by day, desperately.
“You never know. What if we rub lips together and suddenly lust sparks and you decide I’m sexy?”
She had to cling desperately—no matter how.
Because this man was the rope that could pull her to her goal.
And so she had to grip him tightly, with all her strength.
Even if—
Go Joon’s lips curved into a faint, unreadable smile.
“I don’t think that’ll happen.”
It was such a firm, unquestionable answer.
Still—she couldn’t give up.
“Then why’re you still sittin’ here? Ain’t it ’cause you need me too, so you can’t leave?”
“What would I need you for?”
“Ain’t I supposed to dump you? You can’t tell your parents you won’t marry no matter what, so you’re tryin’ to shove it onto me, ain’t ya? Poking at my pride bit by bit till I say it first—‘I can’t marry you.’ That’s what this is, right? Ain’t it?”
“You’re perceptive—but you lack tact. If you figured it out, you should’ve exited on your own.”
But she had a purpose.
And to fulfill it, she had to live each day deliberately.
Crack. Crack.
Go Joon’s long fingers flexed again, joints popping.
His strikingly handsome face looked all the more hopeless with that infuriating boredom etched into it.
And yet—
Was it some kind of handsome-man nausea?
Every time she looked at that face, something stirred noisily beneath her chest.
To the point where she thought—
Hell, I could marry him and live just tearing that face apart.
Her eyes flashed brightly as she declared it, as if making an oath.
“I’m gonna marry you. I will marry you.”
“……”
“So if you don’t wanna marry me, you wreck it. Don’t tell me to do it.”
This was exactly why people in this world disgusted him.
And why bastards disgusted him even more.
He rubbed his finger joints one by one.
Crack. Crack.
It was a habit he’d picked up long ago—after his mother died and a new family appeared.
Ma Dosil.
He’d heard she was an illegitimate child born from the former chairman of Jeonghan Ilbo’s affair.
She resembled that willful younger sister of his.
His half-sister.
After his mother’s death, his father’s mistress and her daughter had entered the house—
A reckless girl who stormed through both home and outside as she pleased.
Ha.
This was why bastards were such a nuisance.
Though—
If there was one difference, it was that this one was reckless in a different direction.
“You learn cooking ’cause your family tells you to. Learn art ’cause they tell you to. Get married ’cause they tell you to. So obedient. Is it ’cause you’re a bastard…? What a shame. I’m someone who finds bastards repulsive.”
“Ah, so you knew I was a bastard too, not just some idiot who took bridal classes. That’s right. So you can’t marry me ’cause I’m disgusting? Or was it ’cause I ain’t sexy. Either way, I don’t mind.”
“Your stepmother must’ve treated you well. Seeing how eagerly you offer yourself up as the family sacrifice. Or did you fall for me at first sight…?”
The failing OTT platform owned by Jeonghan Ilbo was set to be merged into their company.
Employees would be retained—but decision-making authority would be theirs.
This marriage was not, as in the old days, a contractual clause or formal guarantee.
Yet her side had welcomed the proposal enthusiastically—treating it as if it were such a contract.
He had been threatened by his father.
If only this woman refused, the marriage would dissolve smoothly.
He’d come here thinking it would be easy.
But she was an unexpected obstacle.
Ma Dosil—
A bastard with a bizarre name, speaking in a grandmotherly dialect, insisting on marrying him no matter what.
Even venomous words meant to grind down her pride did nothing.
Her wildcat eyes only glittered brighter.
Was Ma Dosil’s birth mother still alive?
Even if the former chairman was dead and she’d been raised under a stepmother, she looked as though she’d been carefully groomed—bridal training and all.
So why was his father so desperate to marry her off to him?
Even if his father had been close to the former chairman—why?
And even if this marriage had been ordered from above—
Why was she so desperate to marry him?
“Guess it really was love at first sight, huh. You’ve probably heard that before. With a face like yours, women must go crazy over you.”
Her calm, almost-confession made him want to laugh in disbelief.
Just who was this woman?
The identity of the oddly named Ma Dosil began to pique his curiosity.
“But even if you lived shut away in the provinces… that dialect is excessive. Who exactly did you live with?”
My grandma.
But her grandmother’s existence couldn’t be revealed to people like him.
She had to maintain the image of a hidden daughter of a chaebol family—
A refined woman who’d received proper bridal training.
Though that image had already cracked thanks to her dialect.
“I went to school, talked with folks in the neighborhood—chatted, I mean. I grew up there, so… ain’t it natural for dialect to stick?”
Even so, it was excessive.
It sounded like something an old villager would say.
But he had no desire to dig further into her background or hardships.
“Be that as it may. So the conclusion is—you fell for my face? That’s hardly reason enough to go as far as marriage. Or do you see this marriage as an M&A contract?”
The chairman firmly believed this marriage was no different from signing off on an acquisition.
“The elders sure think that way. And if I break this marriage and the company goes under—will you take responsibility?”
