Chapter 04
Through his parted shirt, his solid pectoral muscles and sharply defined abs were revealed.
“O-oppa! What are you doing?”
Harry gasped and covered her eyes with her hands.
“I’ll be right back.”
Tae-min roughly swept back his disheveled hair and chuckled.
“Go wait on the bed.”
There was a strange decadence and danger in the languid ease that emanated from his relaxed back.
As Tae-min left the living room, Harry looked around before fleeing into the bedroom.
She closed the door and slumped down right there.
Her heart was pounding like crazy.
The warmth of his touch remaining on her back,
and the image of Tae-min’s sculpted bare body were swirling chaotically through her mind, leaving her flustered.
*
Bang.
As Tae-min opened the door, Seo Young-joon stood there with a deeply furrowed brow.
“What took you so long to open the door?”
Young-joon snapped in an irritated voice, but stopped short when he saw Tae-min’s state.
His disheveled shirt revealing his solid chest, his tousled hair.
And the strange heat emanating from inside the room.
Anyone could see he looked like a man who’d just been vigorously entangled with someone.
Tae-min leaned crookedly against the doorframe and spoke languidly.
“If you have no tact, at least have some manners.”
Young-joon’s gaze swept over Tae-min’s chest with displeasure and turned toward the inside of the room.
His anxiety was palpable.
“Father told me to come check on her. To see if Hee-sunāI mean, my sister-in-lawāis okay.”
Young-joon shoved past Tae-min and entered.
His eyes darted around the living room like a hyena searching for prey.
“Did you come to visit a patient, or to spy?”
“I came because I’m worried about family.”
Young-joon’s gaze fixed on the firmly closed bedroom door.
He walked toward it without hesitation.
“Sister-in-law. Are you feeling alright?”
Young-joon roughly grabbed and turned the bedroom doorknob.
The first thing visible as the door opened was the white wedding dress strewn across the floor.
The layered lace was disheveled, and beyond it, the bed was a mess, as if proving its intensity.
Swooshā
The sound of vigorous water came from the bathroom.
Young-joon’s face twisted instantly.
That woman had been panting beneath him just hours ago in the bride’s waiting room.
Had that woman been with another bastard on this bed?
And with Seo Tae-min of all people?
A grinding sound came from his clenched teeth.
Just then, Tae-min approached from behind and placed his arm on Young-joon’s shoulder.
“As you can see, she’s perfectly fine now.”
In a low voice meant only for Young-joon, he whispered languidly.
“She liked it when I touched her gently.”
“…What?”
“Especially right here.”
Tae-min’s finger poked Young-joon’s chest.
It was the spot where Hee-sun had been particularly sensitive whenever Young-joon held her.
Savoring Young-joon’s reaction, Tae-min twisted the corner of his mouth into a smirk.
“So let me finish what I was doing, and get lost.”
Disgust flickered in Tae-min’s eyes, as if looking at a bug that had trespassed into his territory.
Young-joon’s cheek muscles twitched.
He wanted to drag Hee-sun out right then and there, but the overwhelming killing intent radiating from Tae-min pinned Young-joon in place.
After gasping with rage, Young-joon turned around.
“…See you at the house.”
With a thunderous slam, the door closed.
*
“He’s gone.”
At Tae-min’s brief announcement, the tightly shut bathroom door cautiously opened.
Harry peeked her head out.
Whether from the tension or the heat inside the bathroom,
her forehead was beaded with sweat.
“Hah… He’s really gone, right?”
Her eyes, visible through her damp hair, blinked anxiously as they scanned the room.
After confirming no one was there, Harry stepped out of the bathroom.
Relying on a single bathrobe, she walked barefoot across the carpet, and a wave of moist warmth radiated from her.
Tae-min’s gaze landed on Harry.
His eyes slowly traced down from her damp hair to the smooth calves revealed beneath the robe,
and all the way to her bare white feet.
‘She’s grown a lot.’
Ten years was long enough to turn a girl into a woman.
At fifteen, a fragile child with a loose-fitting school uniform had become a woman of twenty-five.
“He… won’t come back, right?”
Those eyes, looking at him with round eyes.
It was the same as ten years ago.
When everyone else in the world looked at Tae-min with contempt or fear and turned away, only this child was different.
A child who met his eyes without flinching, with transparently pure eyes.
That unwavering gaze had been a strange stimulation to Tae-min then, and it still was now.
“He won’t. I made the bedroom a mess so no one could interrupt.”
Tae-min pointed with his chin toward the bed.
Harry’s gaze slowly followed.
The dress sprawled on the floor, the roughly disturbed bedding.
Actually, she had simply been frightened by Young-joon’s footsteps, thrown off the dress, and hidden in the bathroom.
But to anyone else, it would have looked like traces of passionate heat.
“That’s not it… I was just so surprised…”
Still flustered by Tae-min’s unbuttoned shirt, Harry stammered, not knowing where to look.
Just then, a large hand wrapped around Harry’s slender neck, and his thumb slowly rubbed below her ear as he spoke.
“It’s making me want to make it real.”
Harry looked up at Tae-min with startled eyes.
“Want to act out what Seo Young-joon imagined?”
Tae-min’s hand gently lifted her chin, and Harry’s eyes trembled.
When she was young, Tae-min had never been warm, but at least he’d given her a small opening.
But the man before her now was different.
The thick scent of his body emanating through his shirt, the overwhelming heat.
The gaze that drove her into a corner without a shred of mercy was intensely lewd.
Hiding her trembling hands, Harry stepped back, avoiding his touch.
“I’ll be going now.”
Her role was done here.
Just as she was about to escape this suffocating space, a strong force seized her wrist.
“Not yet.”
“Let go! The wedding is over.”
“Jung Hee-sun is gone.”
Harry froze in shock.
On the phone screen Tae-min held out, a short message appeared.
[I’m sorry. I can’t go through with this wedding. Don’t look for me.]
Harry’s face turned pale as a sheet.
Hee-sun, whom she had driven out, had truly abandoned everything and run away.
“Hah.”
Tae-min leaned over Harry, murmuring coolly.
“Thanks to you, my bride really did run away.”
His massive shadow loomed over her as if to completely devour her.
“You have to take responsibility, Harry.”
“What… You don’t mean you want me to act as her substitute?”
“Three months.”
Tae-min roughly grabbed Harry’s chin and lifted it.
A possessive desire so fierce it seemed to snatch even her fleeing soul glazed his eyes.
“For three months, you’ll be my wife.”
*
The night grew deep.
Harry collapsed onto the bed, exhausted, and fell asleep.
Only her steady breathing filled the room.
Tae-min leaned against the bedroom doorframe, gazing down at her lying there.
Ban Harry. The child once called Seo Harry.
She was also the only light in his world.
‘Oppa… couldn’t possibly be like that.’
Ten years ago, on the day he’d been driven out to America.
Harry had grabbed the hem of his clothes and asked.
Those eyes, staring straight into his without fear.
Not for a single moment had he forgotten those eyes.
No, he couldn’t forget.
That gaze had been the strength that kept Tae-min going for the past ten years, and the reason he’d returned to this hellish place.
“In the end, you took my hand. Harry.”
Tae-min murmured lowly, a bitter smile on his lips.
Buzzā
A vibration sounded in his palm.
His brow furrowed slightly as he checked the screen, then the corner of his mouth curled up.
“She didn’t run away after all.”
[file content end]
