Chapter 2
Thick, long fingers rested on the handle of Hyun-ah’s cart.
Thinking they were unusually pretty hands for a man, she looked up in flustered surprise.
She had thought she’d forgotten—but with the swirl of memory, the scent that had soaked into her heart that summer melted into her once more.
“Ah…”
The youthful delinquent-like boy from eight years ago—jeans and a T-shirt—was nowhere to be found.
His shoulders had broadened, his frame sharpened. A navy suit wrapped neatly around his well-balanced body, his shirt buttoned all the way up with a tie secured at the collar.
The atmosphere was completely different.
But Hyun-ah knew.
The sharpness—like a dangerous beast—remained unchanged.
She had thought they would never meet again.
Lee Yoon-gyeom.
He had become far more impressive than anything she had imagined.
“Ms. Baek Hyun-ah, correct?”
When Hyun-ah simply stared at him blankly, he asked again, as if confirming for the first time that she was indeed Baek Hyun-ah.
“Ms. Baek Hyun-ah?”
“Yes! Yes.”
She quickly closed her parted lips and answered.
Doesn’t he remember me?
“I’ve come in place of Executive Director Jung Yi-chan. My name is Jung Yoon-gyeom.”
Jung Yoon-gyeom.
Had she remembered wrong? She was certain she had heard Lee Yoon-gyeom.
She blinked as she accepted the business card he offered. Either he was someone who merely resembled him—or he didn’t remember her at all.
Unless doppelgängers existed, no one could look this similar. The surname was different, but he was unmistakably Lee Yoon-gyeom.
His features had grown more defined, more masculine—but not a single day had she forgotten his face.
Realizing that she might have been forgettable to him made her chest ache.
Especially because he was someone she had longed for enough to appear in her dreams.
“Oppa Yi-chan is…?”
“He had urgent business.”
Yoon-gyeom smiled faintly and pushed her cart instead. The heat brushing dangerously close made Hyun-ah shrink slightly.
She turned her gaze away, trying not to be overly conscious.
“Ah… he must be very busy with work.”
“It is work, in a sense.”
They both knew what that meant. Jung Yi-chan’s “urgent business” was hardly company work.
With her father collapsed, Hyun-ah needed this engagement for the sake of her family’s livelihood.
—Don’t worry, Hyun-ah. Woo-sik has always been like a son to me. Since you’ll be marrying into our family, I’ll take care of yours as well. Once you return, let’s proceed with the wedding to Yi-chan. I won’t let your father feel slighted.
Chairman Jung Young-woong had even called personally to encourage her.
Still, Hyun-ah did not want this engagement.
She wanted independence—on her own terms. That was why she had searched for jobs overseas. She wanted to settle alone in a foreign country.
She believed living separately was what would make her father and his new family happiest.
More than the mother she barely remembered or the aunt who had deceived her until dying in repentance, Woo-sik, Ji-eun, and Soo-ah were precious to her now.
Being engaged to Chairman Jung Young-woong’s only grandson meant everything to her family.
“Shall we go see Executive Director Jung Yi-chan?”
His polite tone felt strangely unfitting for him.
“It would be better to see him later.”
Meeting Yi-chan required mental preparation.
He always looked down on her like she was an emotionless robot.
If Baek Hyun-ah hadn’t been Baek Woo-sik’s daughter—and if Jung Yi-chan hadn’t been Chairman Jung Young-woong’s grandson—they would never have been entangled.
Just thinking about Yi-chan made her temples throb.
Chairman Jung Chan-soo was practically a libertine, but the only child he ever had was with his lawful wife, Hong Se-ra.
Se-ra had suffered multiple miscarriages and finally succeeded through IVF. She had conceived twins—one miscarried naturally during pregnancy, and only Yi-chan was born.
He was a child born after immense difficulty.
When Yi-chan was born, Chairman Jung Young-woong gifted Se-ra, who painted as a hobby, the “Hwamyeong Gallery,” and even established a scholarship foundation in Yi-chan’s name.
Yi-chan was the troublemaker of Hwamyeong Group—but also its glass heirloom. Too fragile to break, too precious to mishandle.
Whatever he did, everyone—including Chairman Jung Young-woong—silently overlooked it.
Still, both the Chairman and Jung Chan-soo knew that entrusting Hwamyeong Group’s future to Yi-chan was risky.
That was why Chairman Jung valued Baek Woo-sik’s presence so much.
Taking Hyun-ah as a daughter-in-law was another way of securing Woo-sik—the right-hand man to his reckless son.
With her father now bedridden, Hyun-ah had no choice but to cling to this engagement for her family’s sake.
Yet the moment she saw Yoon-gyeom again, her heart wavered more than ever.
She bit her lip, as if trying to stop herself from thinking further.
[Hwamyeong Group
Head of Strategic Planning Division, Jung Yoon-gyeom]
The title printed on his business card placed him directly under the Chairman’s office. A right-hand man to Jung Young-woong must be an exceptional talent.
Perhaps—like her father—he was another man arranged for Jung Yi-chan’s sake.
What had happened in his life over the past eight years?
“I want to see my father.”
That was what weighed on her heart the most.
If she didn’t have to meet the Chairman immediately, she wanted to see her father first.
She hadn’t resolved things properly with her aunt before losing her. She had never once spoken her true feelings to her father either.
That made her even more anxious.
The people who stood as her shield always left first.
“Ms. Baek Hyun-ah. Your lips…”
Yoon-gyeom tapped lightly against his own lips. Watching his long fingers brush across his perfectly shaped mouth, Hyun-ah finally felt the sting spreading across her own.
“Ah…”
She had bitten down so hard that red slowly bloomed across her lips.
“It’s… a habit. When I’m thinking, I do it without realizing…”
“A bad habit.”
He frowned slightly and handed her his handkerchief.
“Thank you.”
She didn’t even consider refusing what he offered.
But as she stood there holding it, he sighed and took it back—then gently pressed it against her lips himself.
Startled, she raised her hand and pulled the handkerchief away. Distance returned between them.
“It doesn’t hurt that much.”
She protested awkwardly, but he had already turned and walked toward the exit, indifferent.
Afraid of losing him, she hurried after him, pressing the handkerchief to her mouth. The neutral-toned fabric carried his scent, seeping into her lungs.
When she looked up, he was standing beside a black sedan, watching her.
Had he been observing her just now?
Her face heated. She hid the handkerchief behind her back.
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
“It’s fine. I won’t need it anymore anyway.”
Now she couldn’t return it even if she wanted to.
It had become hers.
Seok, his stern-faced driver and secretary, loaded her luggage into the trunk.
Yoon-gyeom opened the car door and guided her to the back seat.
“Get in.”
“Ah… thank you. Are you riding here too?”
“Would you be uncomfortable if I sat beside you?”
“No. Please, sit.”
She had expected him to take the passenger seat, but when he sat next to her in the back, her tension heightened.
Every accidental brush sent waves crashing inside her chest.
The closeness. The heavy woody scent.
Everything felt overwhelming.
She alone was flustered.
Yoon-gyeom seemed completely calm, which made her feel unfairly embarrassed.
What is wrong with me?
As if she were meeting a celebrity she admired, she couldn’t stop the fluttering in her heart.
“How was studying abroad? I heard you even secured a good job offer there.”
“If I’d known something like this would happen to my father, I would’ve given up my studies and come back…”
“It may be fortunate you weren’t here.”
“Pardon?”
“It means you are nothing but President Baek Woo-sik’s weakness—not his help.”
