GCOW 02

Chapter 2

Seoyeon pressed herself tightly against the elevator wall to avoid the man approaching her.

“I’m uncomfortable.”

With nowhere else to retreat, she reached out and gently pushed against his chest.

“Move away.”

Just then, the security employee watching the elevator CCTV spoke through the speakerphone.

[Secretary Lee, are you okay?]

His sharp jawline tilted crookedly toward her. His face was so sharply defined that it seemed her hand would be cut if she reached out and touched his jaw.

‘This man seems angry. Why is he acting like this toward me?’

Seoyeon did not look away either.

He soon twisted his clearly sculpted lips.

“You must know me. Cha Dogeon. I’m Cha Dogeon.”

‘He’s Chairman Cha’s grandson! The chairman only showed me old photographs, so I didn’t recognize him at all.’

He stretched one arm out and placed his hand against the wall, trapping Seoyeon beneath him. He twitched his eyebrows twice as if saying, ‘You see?’

Seoyeon raised her head as much as possible to meet the gaze of the tall man and put strength into her eyes.

“Hello.”

At Seoyeon’s bold gaze, he rolled his tongue inside his mouth.

The tension between the two of them sharpened in the air.

“What did you do to my grandfather? Did you even sleep with a dying old man?”

The fingers of her hand, still touching his chest, trembled as if having a spasm.

[Secretary Lee?]

The security employee called her again through the elevator speakerphone.

Seoyeon turned her head toward it.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

After the familiar buzzing mechanical voice disappeared, a heavy, suffocating silence filled the elevator.

Naturally, he was the one who broke the silence.

“As expected! You used to serve the legendary Chairman Cha Wooman, so you’ve got some nerve. Even after knowing who I am, you don’t even blink.”

“What do you want?”

His hand came away from the cold elevator wall. He pulled his jacket back into place with a deliberate movement after taking his hand out of his pocket. His footsteps clearly showed that he intended to properly state his business.

Each of his movements looked blurry, like the footage on an old camcorder.

‘…What’s wrong with my eyes?’

As she looked at him, her eyes kept filling with moisture. Startled, Seoyeon quickly turned her face away.

Following the twisted line of her neck, he finally tilted his chin to the side and continued.

“You and I urgently need to talk.”

“As you can see, I’m working.”

He let out a small laugh.

“You’re good at this, too. You have to work right now? Then should we meet tonight? Drinks first, or how about a suite?”

“……”

Since it was obvious that he would follow her, Seoyeon skipped asking where he was going and pressed the button for the eleventh floor.

“If you want, I don’t mind a suite. I often hold secret meetings in suites.”

“Hah—really?”

His gaze fell on Seoyeon’s exposed white nape. But Seoyeon did not care about the gaze of such an arrogant man.

“Here is my phone number.”

Seoyeon took out her business card and held it out to him. The card between his fingers was suddenly crumpled.

“So you mean you’ll come anywhere I tell you to?”

Instead of answering, Seoyeon gave a small nod and walked out of the elevator.

“This is unbelievable. Why is she so confident?”

The one wearing the expression of someone who had just been punched was none other than Dogeon himself.

One hour earlier, Dogeon had lost his reason.

The reason he had howled like a wolf that had gone a hundred days without food in the winter mountains was because of a special condition in the will.

The final condition for inheriting his grandfather’s fortune was that woman, Lee Seoyeon.

“What? What am I supposed to do?”

When Dogeon failed to understand, Lawyer Park personally opened Chairman Cha Wooman’s handwritten will.

—The final condition for inheriting all of my property is marriage to Lee Seoyeon.

“What kind of situation is this? You said I had to take care of my grandfather’s live-in companion to receive the inheritance? Attorney Park, you know how much I hate that Moon mother and daughter, right? And now I have to marry his secretary, too? Did Grandpa have dementia?”

“He was perfectly fine.”

“Then why?!”

“He cherished her very much.”

“Ha, this is driving me crazy.”

As he recalled his conversation with Lawyer Park, he crossed the lobby with his hands in his pockets.

‘If he cherished her twice as much, he probably would have told me to bring my entire extended family and live with her.’

Just then, a pompous-looking group was walking toward him.

It was a procession large enough to make anyone think that Cha Jihwan was the heir who would swallow the entire company.

Why were department heads following behind an executive director like him, bowing and scraping at this hour?

‘Looks like he’s started gathering his people around him.’

Jihwan casually beckoned Dogeon with his finger.

“Dogeon. You still haven’t left? This is a company. It’s not your playground.”

Ignoring his disgusting attitude, Dogeon raised his voice slightly so the department heads could hear.

“Do your work. Work.”

The department heads, who had been standing with both hands politely clasped together, flinched.

Dogeon checked his watch.

“It’s two-thirty? Don’t tell me you ate lunch outside with the company card, spent all this time talking, and have just been messing around until now?”

Jihwan let out a snort.

“Hey, hey. Your wording is pretty harsh. People will say it’s because you grew up without parents. Watch what you say.”

Cha Min-ah, Chairman Cha Wooman’s only daughter, had become pregnant at nineteen and given birth to Dogeon at twenty.

Jihwan had pointed fingers at his cousin, calling her a single mother, and he continued to speak sarcastically to her son, Dogeon, in the same manner.

But just like his mother Min-ah, who had never lost her spirit even after giving birth to a child as a single mother, Dogeon had also become an expert at handling Cha Jihwan.

“If you don’t want to hear that from an uneducated guy like me, then fix the company discipline.”

“What do you know about the company?”

‘I know the company very well. I even know what my great-uncle has been doing.’

But Dogeon put on a friendly expression and slightly leaned his upper body toward Jihwan.

“Great-Uncle, when a lion leaves its home for a while and a jackal starts acting like the owner, things will get ugly later.”

Dogeon flicked some dust off the collar of Jihwan’s purple jacket.

“You think the lion won’t know? It knows everything. And once it bites the back of your neck, you’ll be finished in one blow.”

Perhaps trying to figure out what Dogeon was thinking, Jihwan remained relaxed.

“The question is, who is the lion?”

“Well, what if I’m the lion?”

Dogeon slowly straightened his back and put his hands into his pockets. At 194 centimeters tall, he cast a shadow over Jihwan.

“I think I’d just cut down all those people who spend working hours kissing the wrong people’s asses because they want to cling to the wrong side.”

At those words, Jihwan clenched his jaw as he watched the backs of the department heads rushing toward the elevator like the wind.

“When you were playing with money in America, my father and I built this company up.”

He calls the top five investment companies in America ‘playing with money.’

“Ah. So it sounds like you’re saying the two of you ate it all up yourselves.”

As blood vessels popped out in Jihwan’s eyes, Dogeon exaggeratedly scratched between his eyebrows.

“Oh, I’m scared. I’ll finish the inheritance in a few days and come back holding the knife. We can talk then.”

Dogeon waved his hand.

“Watch your back. Don’t trust anyone. If Great-Uncle cries, it’ll hurt me as your nephew, you know?”

Leaving Jihwan trembling so hard that the corners of his mouth twitched, Dogeon calmly walked out of the lobby.

On her way home from work, Seoyeon checked the text Dogeon had sent her once again.

—RS Gangnam Hotel, Suite No. 1, 7 p.m.

After pressing the button for the thirteenth floor, where the suites were located, Seoyeon’s expression became perfectly composed.

‘I have to make sure to tell him that Chairman Cha wanted to see him until the very end.’

In truth, that was the purpose of today’s meeting.

After the doorbell rang, the suite door opened. Wearing a loose purple silk shirt and black pants, he felt like a completely different person from the man in the suit she had seen earlier that day.

His cold, sharp eyes swept over her.

“You really came without any fear.”

“You asked me to come. I also have something to tell you.”

She followed him into the conference area of the suite. A single sheet of paper was lying on the table.

“I’ll start with my business—”

He tilted his chin toward the paper, telling her to read it.

Seoyeon sat down and pulled the paper toward her. It was a copy of Chairman Cha Wooman’s will.

‘What did you do to make that dying old man change his will the day before he died?’

He simply watched Seoyeon while sitting comfortably with his legs crossed.

‘Her face is turning pale. Does that mean she didn’t know about this?’

For a moment, Dogeon’s heart wavered, but he quickly pulled himself together.

‘This woman is extremely cunning. Isn’t she the woman who managed to win over my grandfather, who didn’t easily trust people? With that innocent face, she must have calculated everything, revised her plans a million times, and then put them into action. I absolutely cannot trust her.’

“Ridiculous, isn’t it? It says I have to marry you.”

Seoyeon put the paper down.

For a woman who had just read her own name linked to the word marriage in a will, she was far too calm.

‘Her acting is excellent.’

Seoyeon’s neat eyes, with their subtle double eyelids, quietly stared at Dogeon.

“I have a question.”

‘Right. The act ends here. She’ll start talking about money soon. Finally, she’s showing her true colors.’

As if telling her to go ahead, he casually beckoned with his hand and picked up his teacup.

“Anything. Go ahead. I’ll answer everything quickly and directly.”

His gaze moved toward her pale pink lips, which did not even have the usual lipstick on them.

Dogeon soon took a sip of tea, trying to maintain his relaxed attitude.

‘Come on, Lee Seoyeon. Ask me. Go ahead and ask.’