Chapter 8
Kwon Jae-eon watched Lee-seo leave the private room.
His gaze was so blatantly fixed on her that it was impossible not to notice where he was looking.
Then his companion approached him with a glass of champagne. The man handed him a glass, poured him a drink, and exchanged a few words with him.
“That’s Do Yun-gi.”
Won-i identified the man for her.
Do Yun-gi, thirty-two years old, a former Formula 2-level racing driver.
Apparently, Kwon Jae-eon had scouted Yun-gi and brought him to TS Motors, where he’d given him some sort of team leader position.
“I thought you said they were friends. Turns out they’re lovers?”
Disappointment dripped from Won-i’s voice.
“Wow. So he even brought his lover into the company. I wonder if they fool around together at work, too.”
They say there’s nothing more frightening than a fan who’s turned against you.
Now that Won-i had become one of Kwon Jae-eon’s antis, she openly cursed, “You piece of trash,” while trembling with both fists clenched tight.
Meanwhile, Lee-seo noticed the folding doors closing and several women pressing themselves against them.
In truth, spending private time with someone in a private space was a person’s right.
Whether they kissed, fucked, or had a threesome.
That was Kwon Jae-eon’s private life, after all.
The problem was the people who were prying into it like this.
Without even blinking, Lee-seo watched the footage and noticed a camera in the hands of one of the three suspects.
“I think it’s this woman.”
She replayed the footage, then watched it again.
After checking several times, she even borrowed the manager’s eyes to confirm whether the woman was carrying a camera.
“It’s her. This woman.”
Won-i, who had been watching the screen over their shoulders, tilted her head.
“I don’t recognize her. At the very least, she’s not a guest I personally invited. Could she be a regular at the club?”
At Won-i’s question, the manager shook his head this time.
If she were a regular, he would certainly recognize her. She had probably received a transferred invitation, he said.
“We can match her to the guest list by checking the entrance CCTV. On Friday, we verified everyone’s identity when they entered and collected their phone numbers, too.”
“Really? Then bring me the list.”
At Won-i’s order, the manager left the security room.
Even as the two spoke, Lee-seo couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.
The folding doors in the CCTV footage had opened again.
“That’s…”
My scarf.
Kwon Jae-eon, clutching the scarf Lee-seo had thought she’d lost, hurriedly left the room.
She’d heard that some people had seen him chasing after a woman as he left.
Could that woman have been… me?
No. That couldn’t be right.
He hadn’t chased after her.
Shaking her head, Lee-seo decided she didn’t want to think about it anymore and pushed the footage out of her mind.
An unfamiliar sensation stirred uncomfortably in the center of her chest.
“Won-i.”
Lee-seo pressed a hand firmly against the area just below her sternum, which felt as though she had indigestion, and began gathering her belongings.
“Text me when you identify the uploader. I have one more place to stop by before I return to the office.”
The Legal Team 3 at Taesung Group had been given two tasks.
Identify the person who uploaded the video, as well as the man in it.
What he did for a living, exactly what kind of relationship he had with the youngest prince of the family, when it had started, whether he had any weaknesses—everything.
Thanks to Won-i, Lee-seo had already obtained Do Yun-gi’s name and learned that he held some kind of team leader position at TS Motors. Now it was time to investigate his background and past in detail.
If he’d competed at the Formula 2 level, the Korea Automobile Racing Association should have records related to him.
Since it kept records on racing drivers, she might as well look into a few other things while she was there.
With that in mind, Lee-seo left the club.
After attending the party at Club Ryun and returning to work following the weekend, Yun-gi found himself saddled with an absurd nickname.
Kwon Jae-eon’s Monthly Guy.
Apparently, he was even supposed to fill the remainder of Sienna’s term as the Guy of the Month.
It was ridiculous.
Yun-gi had known Jae-eon for nearly fifteen years. He’d been the one to introduce Jae-eon to the world of racing in the first place.
No matter how hard Yun-gi tried, he could never make it to F1. Watching Jae-eon step onto the F1 stage almost as soon as he started racing, Yun-gi had lamented, So this is what talent looks like.
That had been one of the reasons he’d eventually changed course and become an engineer instead of a racing driver.
Even after Jae-eon quit racing, Yun-gi continued competing for another three years before beginning his career as an engineer in the United States.
Then, three years ago, Jae-eon offered him a position, and Yun-gi returned to Korea.
Ever since, he’d remained at Kwon Jae-eon’s side like a shadow, one of his closest confidants.
And now he was the Monthly Guy?
Some kind of Guy of the Month filling out the remainder of someone else’s term?
It was unbelievable.
Even Director Bang I-jeong, secretary to Chairman Kwon Seok-ho of Taesung Group and head of the Legal Team, was saying the same thing.
“So, you two… are you actually in that kind of relationship?”
Unable to believe what he was hearing, Yun-gi turned to Jae-eon, silently demanding that he say something.
But Jae-eon was sitting comfortably against the back of the sofa, leisurely observing the situation.
His dark eyes, half-hidden beneath his languidly lowered eyelids, sparkled with interest.
Damn it. It’s kind of scary when that bastard looks at people like that.
After checking Jae-eon’s expression, Yun-gi opened his mouth.
“No, Director Bang. There’s been some kind of misunderstanding…”
“It seems Team Leader Do hasn’t seen this yet.”
Director Bang gave a slight nod, and one of the legal team employees standing behind him handed over a tablet.
Setting it upright on the table, Director Bang played a video.
Yun-gi’s eyes widened in surprise as he fixed his gaze on the screen.
“…Why is this…”
Then he finally understood why he’d acquired that ridiculous nickname.
The angle made it look exactly as though they were kissing.
“Judging by your expression, I take it you’re admitting it.”
“No?”
Yun-gi pulled the tablet toward himself and watched the video again. Then again.
“This is because Kwon Jae-eon, that bastard, said he smelled something strange on me for some reason. He shoved his nose against my neck like a drug-sniffing dog and started sniffing me—wait, do I really have to explain something like this?”
“He was smelling you?”
“Yes! He said I smelled sour. Of course, I didn’t actually smell sour.”
“But that scene has been turned into a kissing scene between the two of you and uploaded to TeleXX?”
“That was uploaded to TeleXX? Wow, shit. No wonder everyone I’ve met these past few days keeps calling me the Monthly Guy.”
As Yun-gi continued to look utterly dumbfounded, Director Bang regarded him with an increasingly suspicious expression.
“Then how do you intend to explain the part where the CEO gropes your body?”
That was the problem.
The angle of their heads made it look exactly like they were kissing, and that bastard Kwon Jae-eon even appeared to be touching his chest.
“No, that was…”
He’d simply told Jae-eon to feel it.
If you keep doing that, even my heart will start pounding.
The problem was that Kwon Jae-eon looked so damn sensual that no matter what he did, it seemed as though he was doing something obscene.
“Hey!”
Yun-gi turned toward Jae-eon, who was still sitting there in silence.
“Say something, will you? That’s not what happened between us!”
“It’s not? But you said it yourself that day, hyung. You said I made your heart flutter.”
“What?!”
Yun-gi went pale.
Jae-eon let out a soft laugh and continued in a gentle voice.
“You should consider yourself honored. It’s not every day someone gets involved in a scandal with me.”
“You crazy son of a—!”
“Team Leader.”
Director Bang’s voice dropped to an icy low.
“Regardless of how close you may be personally, please show the CEO the proper respect in a professional setting.”
Only then did Jae-eon straighten up from his leisurely position against the sofa.
“That will be enough.”
As though his period of observation had come to an end, he lifted his languidly lowered eyelids and offered his grandfather’s right-hand man a perfectly courteous smile.
“You can report to the chairman exactly what you’ve seen and heard here…”
The reason Director Bang had come all the way to TS Motors today was probably because the other person in the video happened to be Yun-gi.
Unlike his other scandal partners, Yun-gi wasn’t someone who might disappear after a single encounter.
His old-fashioned, perpetually worried grandfather had probably asked him to look into the matter to make sure there was nothing more to it.
In any case…
“I’m curious.”
There were several things about this incident that he found amusing.
It was a scandal he hadn’t anticipated precisely because he hadn’t intended for anything to happen.
Had he acquired sasaeng fans like an idol? Someone had secretly filmed him.
The video quality was terrible, too. The only things that could be made out were Jae-eon’s face and the fact that the other person was a man.
“Do Team Leader Do’s features even show up in the video? I could only make out his silhouette.”
Which meant the legal team had managed to recruit someone who could identify Do Yun-gi from his silhouette alone.
“Who did you get to do that?”
They must have identified the person who filmed the video as well.
“And they’ve already taken all the videos down.”
The party had taken place on Friday, and the video had been uploaded around midnight on Sunday. By Wednesday morning, it was gone.
They’d tied up the entire matter neatly in just over two days.
“Looks like you’ve hired quite a capable employee, haven’t you?”
Rather than capable, resourceful might have been the better word. It seemed they’d bought off the party’s organizers.
Director Bang looked slightly embarrassed as he put away the tablet and answered.
“She joined Legal Team 3 as a junior attorney just one month ago.”
“Oh, the junior?”
Jae-eon gave a short, amused laugh and rose to his feet.
“She’s talented.”
His rising from his seat was a subtle signal that the conversation was over. He looked down quietly at Director Bang, who was still seated on the sofa.
“Would you introduce me to that junior attorney?”
There’s someone I’m looking for, too.
