Chapter 02
Harry gaped, as if dumbfounded.
“Are you crazy? Why would I put that on!”
Tae-min slowly reached out his hand.
His long fingers brushed past Harry’s cheek.
Harry unconsciously swallowed a dry gulp.
“Do you think Seo Chang-soo will crumble over a mere 200 billion won?”
Tae-min’s fingers toyed with the ends of her hair.
“You have to cut off his air supply. As much as you suffered.”
Unlike his tender touch, his eyes weren’t smiling at all.
Rather, his ice-cold gaze made her entire body tremble.
“I could help you.”
Harry jerked her head away, shaking off his touch.
“How can I trust you, when you’re Seo Chang-soo’s son!”
Tae-min let out a soft chuckle, then parted his lips again.
“Don’t trust me.”
His large hand cupped the back of Harry’s head, pulling her face close to his.
“Just take what you need and throw it away.”
Harry’s eyes widened as if they would tear.
“What are you saying right now…?”
Harry quickly pulled away from Tae-min’s grasp, her face filled with shock.
But he gave her no room to escape.
“Use me. Of course, you’ll have to pay the price.”
Use him, and discard him when he’s no longer needed.
That was exactly what Seo Chang-soo had done to her.
If she could return the same humiliation through that man’s son.
If she could step over this man and complete her revenge.
Tae-min’s sculpted face drew closer, blocking Harry’s wavering vision.
“Harry.”
His low voice called her name.
It carried the tender warmth of the boy who had silently stood by her side as she cried.
But the end of it, like a devil’s whisper, seemed poised to drag her down to the edge of hell.
“You need to answer.”
Tae-min’s large hand seized Harry’s slender wrist.
His thumb gently stroked the inside of her wrist where her pulse beat.
She couldn’t tell if it was the longing of someone who didn’t want to miss even a single fragile heartbeat, or the instinct of a monster wanting to crush it in one go.
“I…”
The distance was so perilous that even the sound of her heartbeat seemed to mix in.
Harry held her breath at Tae-min’s body heat, transmitted through his touch.
Only 10 minutes remained until the groom’s entrance.
Harry’s gaze darted between the dress sprawled on the floor and Tae-min’s composed face.
*
The emcee’s voice resounded grandly through the wedding hall.
“Groom’s entrance!”
As the doors opened, a single spotlight cut through the darkness, pouring onto one spot.
At the center of that light, Tae-min appeared.
His face, revealed under the dazzling lights, was the very embodiment of a perfect sculpture.
But what pierced through that beauty was a chilling coldness and profound boredom.
His overwhelming 188cm physique, clad in a black tuxedo, crossed the wedding aisle.
Like a beast tearing through the pitch-black night, each step he took mercilessly crushed the air around him.
As Tae-min’s indifferent gaze swept across the entire hall, the guests held their breath and averted their eyes.
Finally, as he stood before the officiant’s podium, the emcee called out again.
“Next, the star of todayāthe bride’s entrance!”
Everyone’s eyes turned back toward the door.
But the door didn’t open.
One second, two seconds, three seconds…
As the silence stretched on, murmurs began to ripple through the guest seats.
“Ah, it seems the bride’s preparations are taking a little longer. Please wait just a moment.”
The emcee tried to smooth things over, hiding his embarrassment, but the commotion in the hall didn’t easily subside.
Amid the bustling movements of the staff, the expressions on the parents’ seats grew heavy.
Eventually unable to bear it, Seo Chang-soo abruptly rose from his seat.
Creakā
The firmly shut door opened.
Tae-min, standing on the dais, turned his indifferent gaze toward the door.
“A-at last, the bride has arrived!”
At the emcee’s urgent announcement, a white silhouette emerged from the darkness.
Layers of veils draped over the voluminous ball-line dress, shrouding her face.
All that could be seen through the thick lace was a faint outline.
No one realized that the bride beneath the veil was Harry.
“Bride’s entrance!”
A majestic orchestral melody filled the hall.
At the same time, the guests’ gazes fixed on Harry.
Their eyes weren’t filled with congratulations but with a desire to confirm the face beneath the veil.
Jung Hee-sun, the only daughter of Gold Finance.
Having spent her life in America, she had never revealed her face in public.
Harry trusted that absolute secrecy and entered the hall with the ill-fitting dress secured only by a few dress pins.
It was madness.
Amid the barrage of flashing lights, her fingertips trembled finely.
‘If I can just get through this wedding…!’
The layered veils obscured her vision, and the world seemed hazy, as if trapped in a white fog.
But beyond that blurry sight, the figure of Seo Chang-soo sitting in the parents’ seat was terrifyingly clear.
He was beaming.
Utterly oblivious to the fact that the bride had been switched.
He was simply satisfied that the 200 billion won strategic marriage had gone according to his plan.
‘I was fooled by that face.’
At age ten, on the day her father suddenly passed away in an accident.
Chang-soo had held Harry in his arms as she wept, dressed in mourning clothes too big for her, and said:
‘I’ll be your father now.’
He clothed her, fed her, and cared for her as if she were his own daughter.
So she believed.
That God had gifted her a second family.
But when Harry turned twenty and was about to inherit her fortune, Seo Chang-soo revealed his true colors.
‘You’re trying to kill me? Repaying kindness with enmity.’
He fabricated documents to steal the vast inheritance and company shares that should have gone to Harry, and instead branded her with the stigma of filial impiety and disowned her.
‘Go ahead and smile all you want. That smile will soon turn into screams.’
Harry bit her lip hard.
The fear receded, replaced by a searing venom.
If she could drag that man to ruin, she didn’t care if her own life was dragged through the mud.
That was when it happened.
At the edge of her vision, she saw black dress shoes.
It was Tae-min, who had come to the bottom of the dais to greet her.
As Harry hesitated, unable to take a step forward, Tae-min abruptly extended his large hand.
“Take it.”
His low voice, seeping through the veil, reached Harry’s ear.
This hand before her eyes.
It was the hand of a man she had once lived with and called ‘oppa.’
The moment she took this hand, they would become husband and wife.
Standing before the title of husband and wife, borrowing someone else’s name.
Even knowing it was absurd, it was the only hand Harry could hold onto right now.
‘If I can use you to bring down Seo Chang-soo, I’ll do it gladly.’
As if spellbound, Harry took his hand.
His skin was searingly hot and irresistibly firm.
He gripped Harry’s hesitant hand tightly and whispered softly.
“Welcome, my bride.”
*
Her mind was so dazed she had no idea how the officiant’s speech had passed.
Time vanished like a broken film reel.
“The marriage has now been declared. Groom, please lift the bride’s veil and kiss her!”
The emcee’s cry rang out.
Harry’s body went rigid like a block of wood.
If he lifted the veil?
Her face would be revealed, and they would discover she wasn’t Jung Hee-sun.
‘What do I do? Should I run away even now?’
Cold sweat trickled down her back.
Her fingertips grew cold.
Just then, Tae-min stepped in front of Harry.
His massive shoulders and back completely blocked the guests’ view.
Tae-min’s hand grasped the edge of the veil.
“O-oppa…!”
Harry instinctively clutched Tae-min’s shirt collar desperately.
It was a plea for him to stop.
But Tae-min’s hand didn’t stop.
The white veil slid upward.
Harry squeezed her eyes shut.
No!
But the veil stopped just short of revealing her entire face, halting right at her lips.
And then Tae-min’s face, tilted, drew closer.
So close their noses almost touched.
Tae-min’s hot breath fell upon Harry’s lips.
At the moment their lips were about to meet, as if for a kiss, a low, hushed voice reached her.
“Faint.”
[file content end]
