Chapter 1
The wavering lights reflected over the surface of the fountain. Each time the water fell, the silhouettes of the man and woman facing each other distorted.
“Make a deal with me.”
“Do you even know what the word ‘deal’ means?”
The courage Hyun-ah had dragged up from the tips of her toes shrank under the man’s mocking gaze. Her slender jaw trembled, but she did not avoid his eyes.
“…Until my father wakes up, please become my fiancé, Mr. Jung Yoon-gyeom.”
No matter how much he might laugh at her, she couldn’t back down anymore.
Jung Yoon-gyeom was her last hope.
“You’d choose me over Jung Yi-chan?”
“It will definitely benefit you too, Mr. Yoon-gyeom.”
No—it had to benefit him.
“Baek Hyun-ah.”
When Yoon-gyeom leaned closer, his breath brushed against her. The heavy scent that tickled her skin made her shrink back, bracing herself.
“You’re talking nonsense about using me…”
Her pupils quivered faintly.
“…and you say it so earnestly.”
“You can use me just as much. It’s not a bad proposal for you, Mr. Jung Yoon-gyeom.”
“And what do you plan to offer as the terms of this deal?”
His low voice felt as though it scraped against the nape of her neck.
“The shares of Hwamyeong Financial that my father plans to inherit to me, and all the shares of Hwamyeong Group’s headquarters that the Chairman promised as part of my marriage… I’ll give them to you. I’ll help you gain Chairman Jung Young-woong’s support and secure your position.”
She had said it.
She laid out every card she had to show him.
“Of course, I’m not asking for a real marriage. I know you wouldn’t want this kind of marriage either. Just until my father wakes up, clears his name, and I regain the right to refuse this marriage.”
“….”
“You only have to pretend in front of the Chairman that you’re going to marry me. I’ll delay the wedding as much as possible. You won’t suffer any loss. Not even with your girlfriend…”
Even as she spoke, she felt more miserable.
The women around Jung Yi-chan had never bothered her. But just imagining a woman beside Jung Yoon-gyeom made her chest tighten painfully.
“Just refrain from seeing her during the act…”
“So you’re suggesting a show-window romance?”
Yoon-gyeom stared intently at her flushed lips as she explained desperately.
She had claimed she hated arranged marriages because she wanted to experience love, yet even her alternative sounded foolish.
“…As long as our stories match.”
Her neck had turned red; she looked as if she would burst at a touch.
Yoon-gyeom clenched and unclenched his fist, as though suppressing the urge to wrap his fingers around her slender throat.
“Baek Hyun-ah.”
She, who had been rambling, widened her eyes in surprise at the sound of her name.
“Before making a deal, shouldn’t we settle our debt first?”
“What?”
“Did you forget our verbal contract?”
Ah… he knew too.
What happened eight years ago hadn’t been a mirage. It was the thread that tied them together.
“I’ve been wondering how to collect that debt.”
His eyes darkened.
Like that day, when he had looked down at her in the abandoned building.
<Are you going to save me?>
<With this, you owe me.>
<I’ll repay you. I promise.>
It was a story only the two of them knew. Just knowing that memory wasn’t hers alone made her heart pound violently.
“How do you want me to repay you?”
She looked ready to do anything he asked.
“As you said, I’d like to see Jung Chan-soo lose you to me and watch Jung Yi-chan cry in his arms.”
“Then… does that mean you accept the deal?”
His long lashes cast shadows like a curtain. Between them, his dark eyes gleamed.
“I’m not interested in money or power.”
“Is there anything I have that would be valuable to you, Mr. Jung Yoon-gyeom?”
Was there anything she possessed that he might covet?
“Baek Hyun-ah.”
Her shoulders trembled at the distant sound of her name.
“Let’s trade for that.”
“….”
Her lips burned with thirst. Her gaze, fixed on his lips, would not fall away.
“You use me—and I’ll have you.”
His fingertips brushed across the back of her hand.
As the sensation slowly tightened around her, an alarm rang in her mind. Perhaps this was not a deal—but a trap.
Her head swayed in rhythm before finally dropping forward.
“Ah!”
A short groan escaped Hyun-ah’s lips as her head hit the airplane window.
She must have dozed off.
Rubbing her face, she looked around. Outside the window, they were still above the clouds. The dark blue sea flickered in between.
That dream again.
A memory from eight years ago.
Eight years earlier, on a sweltering summer day that felt as if it would melt, Hyun-ah had been kidnapped by three men.
A crumbling abandoned building. The hot wind from a rattling fan. The fear of not knowing what those unfamiliar men might do to her.
And the loneliness—the possibility that no one would ever come looking for her.
Everything was the worst.
When she was swallowed by despair and nearly gave up, that man appeared.
<Please save me.>
It was strange how desperately one could want to live, no matter the situation. Knowing she would die if she let go, she clung to him.
<Before you repay the debt you owe me, there’s somewhere I need to take you.>
With his help, she escaped. That was when she made her first deal with him.
She never saw him again after that, but the memory of him remained as a lingering emotion in her heart.
Where was he now? What was he doing?
Every time she visited Korea over the past eight years, she tried to trace him—but never once crossed paths with him.
Lee Yoon-gyeom.
The name of the man who saved her.
After meeting him, her life changed completely.
<You said your name was Hyun-ah? You look exactly like Joo-yeon.>
In Seoul, where she followed Yoon-gyeom, she met a middle-aged man.
<Do you know my mother?>
Surely not…!
In the man who knew the name of her mother—who had died shortly after giving birth—Hyun-ah saw her own face reflected.
<I am your biological father.>
A father—now?
She couldn’t believe it.
People in the neighborhood had called her a cursed girl, saying she was born after killing her mother. And when Aunt Hee-yeon became terminally ill, they whispered even more cruel things.
<I didn’t know she was pregnant with you when we separated. I’m sorry.>
She had been seventeen that summer, still too young to know what to say to a man apologizing like that.
Her aunt, who had hidden her existence, contacted her father Baek Woo-sik only when she realized she didn’t have long left to live.
<I thought your father was responsible for your mother’s death. If I had been healthy, I would have taken your existence to my grave. I can’t close my eyes knowing I’ll leave you alone.>
On the day Hyun-ah went to ask about her father, her aunt passed away, as if her duty had been fulfilled.
With her aunt’s death, Hyun-ah gained a new family.
From “Yoo Hyun-ah,” she became “Baek Hyun-ah,” daughter of Baek Woo-sik, CEO of Hwamyeong Financial.
Her father tried to make up for lost time, but a father-daughter bond couldn’t be built overnight.
And Baek Woo-sik was living with a woman named Kim Ji-eun and her daughter, Soo-ah, whom she had brought with her. They had met at the hospital he frequented for his blood pressure condition and had been together for nearly ten years.
Soo-ah, four years younger, welcomed her warmly. Ji-eun also tried not to be a burden to the high school-aged girl.
It was a loosely stitched family, but to Hyun-ah, it was her first real one.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was the only outsider among the three who had already formed their own bond.
Feeling like a burden, she chose to study abroad. Her father was disappointed, but she felt more at ease that way.
Was this her punishment for being selfish?
Hyun-ah asked a flight attendant for water, adjusted her neck pillow, and leaned back into her seat.
She wasn’t returning for anything good anyway.
“Thank you for flying with Korean Air. We will soon be landing at Incheon International Airport. The current time is 1:35 p.m. The weather in Seoul is clear, and the temperature is…”
The closer the plane descended to the ground, the heavier her heart became.
<Something terrible has happened. We were going to wait until you graduated, but you need to come back immediately.>
The sudden call from Korea had felt like the sky collapsing.
<Your father hasn’t been able to get out of bed for a month. We didn’t want to disrupt your graduation, so we waited until now to tell you.>
After hearing from her stepmother that her father had collapsed, Hyun-ah canceled her job offer from a foreign company and chose to return home for good.
After passing through the arrival gate, she looked around.
Even abroad, she had always had bodyguards. It had been a long time since she moved alone like this.
Her past disappearance and kidnapping eight years ago had been such a shock to Woo-sik that he even hired security for her overseas. The contract ended once she returned to Korea.
With no idea how much her father’s illness would cost or what remained of their fortune, a bodyguard felt like a luxury.
Her fiancé, Jung Yi-chan, who was supposed to pick her up, was nowhere in sight.
“What should I do…? Should I just go straight to the hospital?”
She wanted to rush to her father’s bedside, but sending Yi-chan meant that Chairman Jung Young-woong of Hwamyeong Group likely wanted to see her as well.
Perhaps Yi-chan had once again forgotten their promise, drinking and spending the night with women.
Pulling her suitcase, Hyun-ah glanced around to see if at least Yi-chan’s secretary had come.
“Baek Hyun-ah?”
At the sound of a man’s voice she vaguely recognized, she froze in place.
