Chapter 05
A CCTV feed was playing on the phone screen.
In a corner of the underground parking lot, a blurry image showed someone forcibly shoving Hee-sun into a car.
It was a kidnapping.
“This might actually work out for the best.”
A cold mutter escaped between Tae-min’s lips.
She was a woman he’d planned to divorce after three months anyway.
When he’d received the message telling him not to look for her, he’d thought it was one less annoyance to deal with.
If she disappeared on her own, it saved him the trouble of getting rid of her.
But she’d been dragged away by someone?
Without a trace of worry, Tae-min typed a message with a dry hand.
[Just confirm who’s behind it.]
All he needed was to know the kidnapper’s identity.
If Jung Hee-sun still had any remaining value, he could just pick her up again later.
There wasn’t a shred of guilt in Tae-min’s dark eyes.
Only a cold rationality calculating gains and losses.
And a fierce thirst directed at Harry, lying defenseless on the bed.
*
Harry woke to sunlight falling on her eyelids.
What came into view wasn’t a familiar ceiling.
In an instant, the memories of last night came flooding back.
The frantic fake wedding, the dizzying commotion in the suite.
And Seo Tae-min’s chilling threat that she would have to play the wife for three months in place of the runaway Jung Hee-sun.
Caught in his grip, Harry had ended up spending the night here.
“You’re awake?”
At the low, dry voice, Harry shot upright.
Turning her head, she met eyes with Tae-min, who was sitting sideways at a table by the window, drinking coffee.
His shirt was immaculate, his hair perfectly swept back.
The dangerous face from last night was gone, replaced by a cool, solid statue.
Tae-min lowered his coffee cup, and his gaze slowly drifted down past Harry’s face.
Following his gaze, Harry looked down and flinched, hunching her shoulders.
Her bathrobe had slipped precariously below her shoulder, blatantly revealing her white skin.
“…Could you give me some clothes?”
Harry quickly pulled the robe’s collar tight and asked.
The corner of Tae-min’s lips twisted faintly.
“Over there.”
He pointed with his chin toward the door.
There, dozens of high-end brand shopping bags were lined up in a row.
Getting off the bed and checking inside the bags, Harry’s brow furrowed.
They were filled with flashy, colorful clothes.
The kind of style Harry would never wear.
“These are the ones Jung Hee-sun used to wear. The sizes have been altered to fit you.”
Tae-min approached, pulled the most flamboyant dress from a bag, and held it up against Harry’s body.
The vivid colors and bold patterns created a strange harmony with Harry’s pale face.
“Even if you don’t want to, wear it. From today on, you must thoroughly become Jung Hee-sun. You’ll be entering Seo Chang-soo’s house soon.”
“Th-that house?”
Harry’s voice trembled.
The ‘house’ Tae-min spoke of wasn’t just any house.
Five years ago, on a day when rain poured down in sheets.
Harry, dragged out by Seo Chang-soo’s hand and abandoned on the street, had clung to him, crying.
‘It’s not me! Please… just once…’
She pounded on the cold, closed gate until her hands were bruised, but all that came back was a cruel turning away.
The sensation of that painful, cold day came alive at her fingertips.
Harry’s shoulders trembled slightly.
Just then, Tae-min grasped Harry’s cold hand tightly, as if he might crush it.
His hand was searingly hot.
“Do you want to run away?”
Harry’s wet eyes turned to Tae-min.
He wore a cold smile at the corner of his lips as he pressed down on Harry’s hand as if to grind it.
“Don’t run away. You need to go to Seo Chang-soo’s side.”
Tae-min’s low voice scraped against her ear like a sweet devil’s whisper.
“That way, you might catch a chance to cut off his air supply.”
Harry snapped back to her senses at the hot grip crushing her hand.
If she cowered and backed down here, Seo Chang-soo would mock her again with that disgusting smile.
Harry gripped the flamboyant dress Tae-min had handed her tightly.
“Take me there. To Seo Chang-soo’s side.”
Her eyes, once trembling with fear, turned venomous and flashed blue.
Seo Chang-soo’s slush funds, and the inheritance stolen from her.
Harry was ready to leap into the flames of hell to reclaim it all.
*
The black sedan slid through the heavy iron gates into the garden.
The scenery outside the window was exactly as it had been five years ago.
The garden that changed its clothes gorgeously with each season, and the century-old pine tree standing majestically at its center.
Beyond it, the sprawling mansion had been a perfect paradise for a ten-year-old orphan.
‘Harry, this is your home now. Make yourself comfortable.’
But Seo Chang-soo’s kind smile was only an elaborate mask.
On the day she came of age, Harry signed the documents Seo Chang-soo presented.
‘It’s just a document temporarily entrusting it due to tax issues. All you need to do is sign here.’
Because she trusted him.
She never imagined that a single document would allow him to steal all the vast inheritance her father had left behind.
And not content with that, he had branded her a filial impiety criminal.
‘She tried to kill me! Arrest her right now!’
The memory of being dragged out like a dog, along with the false accusation, choked her throat.
Harry’s fingertips, resting on her knees, trembled.
“We’re here.”
Tae-min’s voice pulled her back from the vision of hell.
The car door was already open.
With the garden’s dazzling sunlight at his back, Tae-min extended his large hand toward Harry.
Taking his hand and stepping out, she saw the employees lined up in front of the mansion.
Harry wore a wide-brimmed hat pulled down low, with a mask covering more than half her face.
To anyone, she looked like a sensitive bride exhausted right after a lavish wedding.
“Welcome.”
As they bowed in unison, familiar faces passed by.
The people who used to fuss over her and make her porridge if she so much as coughed when she lived here.
But on the day she was driven out under the false accusation of trying to kill Seo Chang-soo,
they had looked at her with contempt, as if she were a bug, as if they’d made a pact.
Not a single person had stepped forward for the wrongly accused Harry.
And now those same people were bowing to Harry, who was pretending to be Jung Hee-sun.
Beneath her mask, Harry’s hardened lips twisted coldly.
“Let’s go in.”
Tae-min’s large arm wrapped around Harry’s shoulder.
His heavy warmth mercilessly erased the miserable memories of the past.
Leaning against Tae-min’s solid arm, Harry lifted her chin arrogantly.
There was no longer a weak girl who cried and clung to others.
The two entered the mansion.
As soon as she passed through the front door, a familiar scent washed over her along with the warm air.
It was the smell of ‘home’ she’d known since childhood.
For a moment, a hot surge rose in her throat.
It was such a cozy, comfortable smell that it was even more horrifying.
Harry’s body trembled faintly.
“You’re here.”
Seo Chang-soo, who had been sitting on the living room sofa, folded his newspaper and stood up.
Beside him stood his biological mother, Son Eun-mi, wearing an elegant smile.
“We were so rushed at the wedding hall that we couldn’t properly greet you. Are you feeling alright?”
Seo Chang-soo’s voice was still gentle and dignified.
The moment Harry heard that voice, her stomach twisted with an unbearable nausea.
With that detestable mouth, he had called her his daughter, and with that same mouth, he had branded her an attempted murderer.
Behind her mask, Harry bit her lip hard and trembled.
She wanted to rip off her mask right there and grab him by the throat.
“…”
As Harry remained silent with her head bowed, one of Seo Chang-soo’s eyebrows twitched.
“No matter how unwell you are, when an elder asks a question, you should answer.”
Just as a cold voice was about to fall upon Harry, Tae-min stepped in front of her and spoke coldly.
“That’s enough.”
His broad shoulders and massive back completely erased Seo Chang-soo from Harry’s view.
[file content end]
