II - 11

She firmly believed that the only way to escape from home was through marriage. 

But now, I-ryeong was utterly sick of herself for only starting to think about this now. After indulging in everything with him, here she was, fretting at the last moment. 

I-ryeong fidgeted with her fingers, sinking deeper and deeper into a dark, bottomless pit of her own making. 

Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of suffocation washed over her. 

“I-ryeong.” 

He called her name calmly. 

“I’m not going to be a perfect husband.” 

Had he noticed her inner turmoil? 

I-ryeong focused intently on I-jun’s matter-of-fact confession. 

“But no matter what happens, I’ll always stand by your side. I’ll be the one person you can rely on.” 

His voice, stripped of any levity, carried a weight that couldn’t be ignored. 

The charismatic aura he exuded while leading his team at the office wasn’t present here, but somehow, his words felt even more powerful. 

They made her want to lean on him. 

“I’ll be there for you, so you can depend on me.” 

His ability to read her thoughts brought an unexpected lump to her throat. 

“I’ll always keep this space open just for you, so you can lean on me whenever you need to.” 

I-jun tapped his chest lightly, drawing her attention as her wavering eyes met his. 

Was this the magic he had created? 

I-ryeong wanted to fall into his warm embrace. 

Even if it was a fake marriage built on deception, she wanted to make his broad arms her refuge. 

She wanted to sleep more peacefully in his arms—where he promised to be entirely on her side—than in the discomfort of her own home. 

“So, trust me and come to me.” 

At his reassuring words, her eyes grew hot with unshed tears. 

The man who had extended his hand to her to help her avoid a blind date—was he someone worth shedding tears over? 

I-ryeong bombarded herself with endless questions. 

The answer, of course, was “No.” She still knew so little about I-jun. 

And yet, she was drawn to him. She had come to like him. 

Every flutter of her heart right now was directed at him. 

To expect his love too would be pure greed. She felt she could live without love, as long as she had his support. 

“Director.” 

Having finished her internal struggle, she called out to him plainly. 

“This is the first time I’ve been to such a wonderful place.” 

“It’s an honor,” he replied with a slight smirk as he poured the wine, raising one neatly groomed eyebrow mischievously. 

“But, I-ryeong… when it’s just the two of us like this, don’t you think we can stop with the ‘Director’ nonsense?” 

For a moment, I-ryeong gaped like a fool, her lips moving soundlessly as her eyes darted around in confusion. 

So he didn’t like being called “Director.” 

She had been calling him that without much thought, assuming he didn’t mind since he never showed any reaction. 

Now unsure of what to call him instead, she furrowed her brow in contemplation. 

“You can call me ‘you,’ or ‘dear.’ Or even my name, if you’d like.”

He rattled off the words as if he had been waiting to say them all along. 

“I certainly don’t expect you to call me ‘honey’ or anything like that.” 

“H-Honey?” 

The sudden mention of such an intimate term left I-ryeong dizzy. She had never even entertained the thought before, and now her head was spinning. 

“At least in front of our parents, shouldn’t we appear affectionate?” 

This man, who planned to introduce her to his parents after the proposal, continued with his reasoning. 

“We’re only three years apart, right? Fine, you can call me ‘oppa.’ That works too.” 

It sounded suspiciously like a string of excuses, but she couldn’t help feeling flustered. 

“…O-Oppa?” 

I-ryeong’s face flushed hot as if scorched by fire, turning beet red. Overwhelmed, she could only fidget nervously with the ring box in her hands. 

“Relax around me. Don’t be so tense.” 

Just as she opened her mouth to protest—thinking they weren’t quite close enough yet to use such familiar terms—he cut her off. 

“My mother is no ordinary person. We’ll need to deceive her, so we have to at least pretend to be affectionate. Whether it’s ‘honey’ or ‘oppa,’ we need to put on a convincing act, don’t we?” 

For a fleeting moment, she had misunderstood. 

She had misinterpreted his suggestion to change their manner of address for the sake of acting in front of their parents, attaching a meaning far too sweet and hopeful to it. 

She should have remembered that their marriage had a purpose—a business arrangement—but she had let herself overlook that fact. 

In an instant, I-ryeong’s eyes cooled, and she opened the box. 

“Alright. Let’s get married.” 

Slipping the platinum ring onto her finger, she fired the starting signal for their business-driven marriage. 

The long-standing tradition of AE Cosmetics vanished overnight. Thanks to this, I-ryeong was transferred to an office-based position and remained stationed at the company headquarters. 

As days passed without any sign of the tradition returning, rumors began to spread among employees from other departments. 

The gist of the gossip was that a non-regular employee in the marketing strategy team had secured a high-profile sponsor. 

I-ryeong was well aware of these rumors. After all, she was the only non-regular employee in the entire company. 

“She must have seduced more than one or two people with that decent face of hers.” 

“She’s the first employee to secure a permanent position using her looks and charm, isn’t she?” 

She heard whispers like these in the cafeteria and restroom often enough. Though she wanted to refute them, she held her tongue. 

It was true that her transfer to an office-based role coincided with her involvement with Senior Managing Director Seo I-jun, so she accepted it as something she had to endure. 

Moreover, since no one on her marketing team mentioned the rumors, she saw no reason to step forward either. Silence became her default response. 

If even the Senior Managing Director isn’t addressing this, why should I say anything? 

She consoled herself, repeating that rumors were just rumors, and resolved to endure. 

Today, as always, I-ryeong sat alone in the company cafeteria, quietly eating her meal. 

On her first day as an office-based worker, everything had felt good—the food, her mood, all of it. But that feeling hadn’t lasted long. 

The constant murmurs around her forced her to listen closely, and soon she realized the subject of the gossip was none other than herself. 

Every seat felt uncomfortable, but she didn’t avoid them. Avoidance would have been tantamount to admitting the rumors were true, so she endured silently. 

“Let’s get married.” 

Her impulsive proposal had been accepted by the Senior Managing Director.

I-ryeong endured the situation, knowing that if the meeting between their parents and the subsequent marriage announcement were to follow soon, she would have to brace herself for an even bigger storm. 

She rolled the grains of rice around in her mouth, chewing listlessly as though they were grains of sand. Feeling like she might choke, she decided to call it quits for the day and get up. 

“Why are you eating alone? Why didn’t you ask me to join you?” 

Her senior colleague, Hyun-wook, who had returned from a business trip last week, casually slid into the seat next to her. 

“You seem to like fruit? Have some of this too. I brought plenty.” 

His kindness only seemed to amplify the whispers around them, drawing even more attention to I-ryeong. 

“It’s okay, Team Leader Hyun.” 

“I didn’t touch any of it. I don’t eat fruit, so you should have it.” 

It seemed he hadn’t heard the rumors since he’d been away from his desk for most of the morning. 

“I’m already full. Please, you have it.” 

Forcing a smile, I-ryeong waved him off, trying to avoid adding fuel to the gossip fire. Just as she was about to hastily get up and leave— 

“I heard you’ve switched to an office-based position?” 

Before she could stop him, Hyun-wook began transferring fruits and meat onto her tray. 

“It was still cold in February, but things are looking up for you. At this rate, getting regular employment should be smooth sailing.” 

Seeing Hyun-wook treat her as casually and warmly as always made her feel like she was the one wearing tinted glasses, unnecessarily building walls. 

“…There’s too much. I can’t eat all of this.” 

“Really? Then at least have some more mango. It’d be a waste to buy it with my own money and not eat it.” 

Then, unexpectedly, his joke made her burst into laughter. 

“Thank you.” 

“What’s there to thank me for? I heard Senior Managing Director Seo was the one who pushed to abolish the tradition—it’s all thanks to him.” 

At the mention of “Senior Managing Director,” a sudden heat rushed to I-ryeong’s ears. 

Unconsciously touching her now-warm earlobes, she retracted her smile. 

To think I’d react just to the mention of his title. 

In truth, she had avoided him all week, worried the rumors might reach him. She had deliberately kept her distance. 

“Are you okay? Do you have an allergy or something?” 

“No, I’m fine.” 

“No, you’re not. Your face is red.” 

I-ryeong could feel the heat spreading from her ears down her neck and across her cheeks. 

“It’s just hot in here.” 

“You sure you’re alright?” 

Seeing Hyun-wook sitting beside her, genuinely concerned, made her feel a pang of guilt. 

“Team Leader Hyun… you know about the rumors surrounding me, right?” 

She decided to bring it up first. 

“Yes, I do.” 

He nodded as if it were no big deal. 

“It’s just gossip, after all.” 

His words hit her. The more she shrank back, the more she was turning the rumors into reality. 

“Team Leader Hyun… Thanks to you, the discomfort I’ve been feeling has eased.” 

And with that, she finally faced the emotions she had been avoiding in Hyun-wook’s gaze.

“Because of me? I didn’t do anything, though.” 

Hyun-wook smiled brightly, his expression as fresh and clear as ever. 

Now was the moment she had to respond to that smile. 

“Team Leader Hyun, there’s something I need to tell you.” 

“I-ryeong, let me go first. I know this isn’t the right place for it, but I feel like I need to say it now.” 

Had he sensed the shift in the atmosphere? Hyun-wook’s expression turned serious. 

“I-ryeong, do you have a boyfriend?” 

It was a question she had anticipated, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant. Over the past three months, the person who had been closest to her, who had comforted her the most, was none other than Team Leader Baek Hyun-wook. This made her heart feel heavy. 

“I think I’ve asked you this a few times already.” 

Trying to lighten the suddenly tense mood, Hyun-wook gave a faint smile. 

“And every time, you’d make that same troubled expression… just like you’re doing now.” 

True to his words, I-ryeong avoided answering, wearing the same troubled expression he described. She had learned from her previous job that having a boyfriend didn’t necessarily change anything. 

“Would it be so wrong if I became your boyfriend? I want to protect you from these unpleasant rumors and stand by your side confidently.” 

She didn’t want to deceive Hyun-wook, who was confessing so sincerely. 

And more than anything, she didn’t want to ignore the thought of Senior Managing Director Seo I-jun, who still lingered in her mind even at this moment. 

“I don’t know how to say this… but…” 

It was the exact moment she intended to reveal the truth—that she already had someone she was going to marry. 

TAP. 

A sharp, irritated sound interrupted her, and I-ryeong’s gaze shifted. 

There stood a man glaring down at the two of them with an intense, almost predatory energy. It was none other than Senior Managing Director Seo I-jun, whom she had been avoiding for an entire week.