Chapter 1
After hearing about his maternal grandfather’s death, Dogeon returned from the United States and entered the hallway of the funeral home.
His tall height gave off such an overwhelming presence that anyone who came face-to-face with him avoided his eyes and immediately stepped aside.
His sharp, monolid eyes landed on the condolence wreaths filling the hallway.
‘What a damn joke.’
The condolence ribbons bearing the names of people trying to get on the good side of RS Group fluttered in the warm air from the heater.
Only a brief look of disgust passed over Dogeon’s face. There was not even a trace of sadness at the loss of his grandfather.
“Dogeon!”
His grandfather’s mistress, Moon Shinyoung, who was thirty years younger than him and only fifty-eight years old, suddenly stood up.
Perhaps she wanted to show everyone that she had been Cha Wooman Chairman’s wife. Her black hanbok and makeup-free, haggard face looked so sorrowful that it could easily bring tears to the eyes of the mourners.
Dogeon’s eyes moved to the person sitting crookedly beside her.
It was Shinyoung’s daughter, Moon Yuri, who was like his aunt.
Yuri was twenty-eight, seven years younger than Dogeon. As soon as their eyes met, she stuck out her lips frivolously.
“Wow, your return after twenty years. Look at you, only coming back after Dad died.”
Yuri poured out her words without holding back her anger, like a water purifier with a broken filter.
“Dad didn’t leave you even a penny!”
Dogeon skipped the greeting.
He had already cut ties with them while his grandfather was alive, so there was even less reason to talk to them now.
When she saw him reach for the incense without answering, Yuri clenched her jaw and abruptly stood up.
“You should greet your aunt when you see her! Is that how you were raised?”
The flames attached to the two incense sticks trembled in the air, spreading pale white smoke.
Dogeon calmly placed the incense into the burner and then took one step back.
‘You finally left this world, Grandfather.’
His lowered eyes only showed that he wished the deceased a peaceful journey. Nothing more, nothing less.
‘What will you say when you see the mother who died because of you? Ah, you won’t be able to see her. Mother is in heaven.’
After bowing twice, he turned around and met Yuri’s eyes.
She was standing with her fists tightly clenched.
“You ignore me and my mother? You rude bastard!”
A vulgar woman who cursed so freely just because she was younger yet higher in rank.
In truth, she had never even been registered on her grandfather’s family registry and was still a Moon because she had taken her mother’s surname.
“Ms. Moon Yuri.”
“Call me Aunt!”
Yuri shouted loudly, her eyes swollen and her nose bright red.
‘She must be sad. Her source of money is gone.’
Her grandfather had even created an entertainment company just to turn someone as ridiculous as her into an actress.
Shinyoung approached him.
Perhaps she had not dyed her hair because she wanted to hide the age difference between herself and his grandfather. There were strands of gray scattered through her hair.
“You’ve been well, Dogeon. Your grandfather passed away peacefully.”
Yuri grumbled.
“Fuck… You should say, ‘Hello, Grandmother.’ He doesn’t even greet her. What a bastard.”
The mother and daughter were doing things they had never done before.
If they heard the words grandmother and aunt, would the grandfather who died today somehow become their husband and father?
“Who is your aunt, and who is your grandmother? Let’s just pretend we don’t know each other.”
Dogeon put on the chief mourner’s armband handed to him by his secretary and stood in the chief mourner’s position.
“You shouldn’t do that. Where do you think you are? This is your grandfather’s funeral.”
Shinyoung spoke in a soothing tone like an adult trying to calm a child, but Dogeon’s temper rose.
When his mother was a single mother in her youth, Shinyoung had treated her horribly. And now she was pretending to be a refined lady.
“If you don’t want to see me turn this place upside down, shut your mouth. Just do what you were always good at—acting. Before I tear everything apart.”
The twenty-year reunion ended quickly as mourners began arriving.
“Ha, fuck.”
Dogeon held a curse on the tip of his tongue.
Once.
Twice.
The curses kept escaping from his mouth.
‘Why on earth, Grandfather!’
Cha Wooman’s relatives and his younger brother’s family, who were sitting in the group headquarters’ conference room, screamed and caused a commotion in their excitement.
The senior lawyer had just revealed the will.
The anger toward the dead Cha Wooman exploded all at once, so fierce that fists nearly flew through the air.
Shinyoung’s face was flushed all the way to her neck from excitement. Her voice was even cracking, and she looked completely bewildered.
“M-must be some kind of mistake. How could he leave me nothing?”
Yuri glared at Dogeon and tapped the table repeatedly.
“Mom! How does this make any sense? Why would I have to get spending money from that bastard?”
“As you have heard, all of Chairman Cha Wooman’s property will be inherited by his maternal grandson, Mr. Cha Dogeon. The condition is that he must live in the same house as Ms. Moon Shinyoung and her daughter and take care of them as family.”
Dogeon was just as dumbfounded.
‘He really created a kingdom of animals and left it behind.’
Why should he live with his grandfather’s mistress and her daughter when he did not even want to speak to them?
“What if I refuse?”
“In that case, the inheritance rights will go to Mr. Cha Jihwan, the son of Chairman Cha’s younger brother, Cha Hyukjae. The condition is the same.”
Cha Jihwan.
An executive director of RS Group and a rotten-minded man who always wanted to take everything for himself.
By family relation, he was Dogeon’s maternal uncle, but he was only five years older than him.
Jihwan interlocked his fingers and sneered as if it were all or nothing.
“Dogeon. Go back to America and keep running the investment company you’re good at. Why come to Korea and put yourself through this mess? Give everything to me. I’ll take good care of my aunt’s family.”
Perhaps Yuri thought her cousin Jihwan was the better choice, because she let out a sweet laugh.
“Oppa, you won’t treat us badly, right?”
“Yuri, why would I treat you badly?”
A thin and sinister gaze like that of a snake drifted through the air.
‘This is exactly why I went to America.’
The thirty relatives gathered there cursed and condemned Chairman Cha Wooman, spitting as they complained that he had not left even a single drop of the inheritance for them.
It was an ugly sight as they screamed that the inheritance was invalid and that they would even take the matter to court.
“Everyone, get out.”
Dogeon finally spoke, his eyes cold.
The relatives who had been holding their ground as if they might somehow get something froze in place.
“I said get the fuck out!”
After all, the person with the money was the one who held the authority.
They were wary of his harsh words, but no one dared to say anything.
After everyone was driven out, only Lawyer Park remained in the huge conference room.
“Young Master, there is one more condition from Chairman Cha.”
Dogeon let out a laugh through his teeth.
He had never been an easy man to deal with, but he wondered what else his grandfather had added to the will.
“What is it? Another condition from my grandfather, who has given me such a huge fucking gift?”
As she left the memorial hall, Seoyeon looked up at the pale winter sky where rain was falling.
“Chairman, I’ll come again.”
Tap, tap.
Every time the rain struck her umbrella, droplets splashed outside it.
“You’re a bad-luck bitch. Die!”
Her stepmother, Jinhee, had called Seoyeon a “child who brings misfortune.”
Her mother had died from excessive bleeding when Seoyeon was born, and Seoyeon had been unable to see until she was seven.
On Seoyeon’s eighth birthday, her father died in a traffic accident.
After that, her stepmother became more vicious than any stepmother in a fairy tale.
“Somi got accepted into a university in America.”
Seoyeon had been happy about the proud news of her younger stepsister.
But after borrowing living expenses and education costs from loan sharks, her stepmother took her daughter and fled to America in the middle of the night.
Seoyeon was the one who had been dragged by the hair into an office and forced to sign a written agreement with the loan sharks.
Five hundred million won was an overwhelming amount for a mere twenty-year-old Seoyeon to handle.
She gave up university and worked fifteen hours a day at various part-time jobs.
That was when Chairman Cha Wooman appeared.
“My dear, I finally found you.”
He paid off her debt, gave her living expenses, and supported her until she finished university.
More than anyone else, he had been like family to her.
“My dear, I want to see my grandson.”
Chairman Cha had tens of trillions of won in assets, yet his final wish was so simple.
In the end, he passed away in an empty hospital room, with Seoyeon’s tears beside him.
“Chairman…”
As the sound of the rain brought back memories of him when he was alive, Seoyeon’s eyes became red.
Because she had stopped by the memorial hall, Seoyeon arrived at work late and hurried into the company lobby.
She was a beautiful woman with clear skin like transparent porcelain, a round forehead, and a sharp nose. There was a small beauty mark beside her nose. Her lips were neatly closed.
Anyone could tell at a glance that she was a secretary.
With her hair tied up to reveal her forehead, she wore a black pencil skirt and black jacket as she stood in front of the elevator.
At that moment, a man approached and stood beside her.
He was so tall that he instantly made the 165-centimeter Seoyeon look short.
Their gazes suddenly became tangled in the glass-like reflection of the elevator doors.
Beneath his thick eyebrows were long, sharp eyes that stared directly at her as if drawn with a brush.
‘Why is he staring at me like that?’
When the doors opened, Seoyeon stepped into the elevator.
The man followed her.
“Ms. Lee Seoyeon?”
When the doors closed, she was surprised that he knew her name and turned toward him.
“Why… are you asking?”
The incredibly handsome man leaned his upper body toward her, causing her body to lean backward from the momentum.
“Ms. Lee Seoyeon, Chairman Cha Wooman’s second woman?”
