“If you had known I was here, would anything have changed?”
Baek Shin-woo’s words poured out as coldly as ice water.
If she had known he was there, she probably wouldn’t have touched the sheets or gotten lost in old memories.
Burying those thoughts deep inside, Ria shook her head.
“No. I’ll go out.”
For a moment, she had forgotten that he was holding her wrist.
When he pulled on her wrist, Ria helplessly stumbled into his chest.
Seeing the broad chest right in front of her, she hurriedly straightened herself, but he didn’t loosen his grip.
Back when they were lovers, she used to throw herself into his arms whenever she pleased and confess her love to him.
‘My love, Baek Gu-woo. I missed you.’
Whenever she greeted him, Baek Shin-woo would invariably lean in for a kiss first.
He was the kind of man who would ask what she had done all day, then tell her everything he had done himself.
Whether he was eating, sitting in a meeting, or even being scolded by his superior, Baek Shin-woo claimed that he thought of her.
He said he was simply happy.
‘My heart needs a transfusion.’
By “transfusion,” he had meant kisses and more.
They hadn’t been dating for long when he first stepped into Ria’s home, where she lived alone.
It was because of another man.
Choi Tae-wook, the son of a pastor at a large church in Seoul, was friends with Baek Shin-woo and had been persistently pursuing Ria.
Ria’s late mother had grown up at Angel’s House, an institution affiliated with Pastor Choi Jung-gil’s church. Her mother had worked as a church pianist and handled administrative duties while raising Ria.
Because of that, Ria had naturally grown up learning to play the piano at the church.
Her mother, who had relied heavily on alcohol, passed away on the day Ria graduated elementary school.
Afterward, Pastor Choi Jung-gil raised Ria almost like his own adopted daughter.
Once she entered university, Choi Tae-wook began pursuing her relentlessly.
Around that time, Baek Shin-woo first set foot inside Pastor Choi’s church.
‘I thought an angel had descended from heaven.’
He said his mother, who was an elder at the church, had practically dragged him there.
The moment he saw Ria, he fell in love with her at first sight.
He had declared that attending that service would be his first and last, but he kept coming every Sunday just to see Ria.
Ria played the piano during the Sunday service, while Baek Shin-woo watched her and waited for a chance to speak to her.
‘I was so grateful to my mother for bringing me to that church.’
She later learned that his mother had actually intended to introduce him to Pastor Choi’s daughter.
She had naturally arranged for them to meet at the church, but instead, he started dating Ria.
Choi Tae-wook was also the one who ultimately brought Baek Shin-woo and Ria together.
After Ria rejected Tae-wook’s confession, he began harassing her in increasingly nasty ways.
Pastor Choi’s residence was enormous, almost like a private villa.
There was even a swimming pool on one side of the yard.
One day, Choi Tae-wook shoved Ria into the pool as if he were trying to torment her.
The person who rescued her was Baek Shin-woo.
‘Hey, you’ve got a dependable church oppa right here. If that bastard ever bothers you again, call me. I’ll come running.’
He confidently claimed that he was safer than 119 and more trustworthy than 112.
The moment Ria realized how sincere he was, her heart opened to him without hesitation.
The man who used to say that even when he was tired or things weren’t going well, simply thinking about her made him feel better, was standing right in front of her now.
Ria closed the door on those old memories.
No matter how much she recalled them, she couldn’t go back to those days, and all they did was hurt.
More than anything, the hand holding her wrist was raised higher.
“You came here to work. Where are you going?”
“…Pardon?”
“Didn’t you come up here after hearing from the manager?”
“Yes, I did. Please let go of my hand so I can work.”
He released her hand indifferently, as though tossing something aside.
Ria approached the bed to change the sheets first.
As she removed the sheets she had once lovingly touched, cigarette smoke drifted through the air.
He had opened the terrace doors wide and was smoking.
She watched his back.
Whenever she had seen him like that before, she would walk up behind him and wrap her arms around him…
‘You’re both my heart and my weakness.’
‘Weakness? Me?’
‘Yeah. Without you, I have no reason to live.’
There hadn’t been a single day when they hadn’t laughed.
Ria forced herself to fold away the memories that were threatening to bloom again and concentrated on her work.
“That’s enough here. Go check the study.”
By the time he came back inside after finishing his cigarette, he gave her another order.
Ria moved to the study.
It looked as though he had been working through the night.
Documents, whiskey, and a heavy glass sat on the desk.
The bottle was empty.
After cleaning his study, Ria moved to the home bar.
Once she had finished everything, her eyes were drawn to the grand piano.
Being in the same space as him made everything she saw bring back another memory.
‘When did you learn to play the piano?’
‘I learned from my mother at church when I was little.’
‘But how can you play this well?’
‘Well, the pastor said I had a talent for it. So I majored in piano.’
‘It’s more than talent. It seems like it’s in your blood.’
He had thought highly of Ria’s abilities and loved listening to her play just as much.
That was why she had been happy to play the piano for him every day.
‘I’ll work hard and buy you a grand piano.’
At that time, Ria had still believed he was an ordinary office worker.
‘A Maria piano. The only one of its kind in the world.’
‘Wow, I feel like I’ve already received a grand piano.’
She had loved both the grand piano and the old piano that was her mother’s only keepsake.
As long as Baek Shin-woo was by her side and she could play the piano whenever and wherever she wanted, she had been satisfied.
Just looking at the piano made her body instinctively react.
She wanted to press the keys.
Then Ria remembered the manager’s warning not to touch the piano.
‘The previous housekeeper cleaned the piano and was fired that very same day. So don’t even look at it.’
Even at a glance, the piano gleamed.
It seemed that someone other than the housekeeper took care of it.
That must have been why there wasn’t even a speck of dust on it.
Ria tore her eyes away from the piano.
Through the large glass window, she could see a sedan waiting in the lobby.
Manager Yoo was already outside waiting.
Baek Shin-woo, dressed in a suit, walked with long, elegant strides like a crane.
When Manager Yoo opened the rear door for him, he briefly glanced upward.
Ria thought their eyes met.
She quickly ducked out of sight.
Her face flushed, and her heart began pounding wildly.
Only after watching his car disappear through the gap did she finally calm down.
“Mom, the egg melted.”
While Ria was washing dishes, Yoon-i approached her carrying a boiled egg.
Ria took off her rubber gloves and looked at him.
The egg in his little hand had been cut in half, and the yolk was running out.
“Why is it so hard for Mom to make a soft-boiled egg?”
She had been told to boil the eggs for ten minutes after the water started boiling, but she always failed.
“Sorry. Should I boil another one?”
“No. I like it when it’s runny.”
Ria was terrible at cooking, but after having Yoon-i, she had at least gotten a little better.
No matter how much she practiced, cooking was one thing she never seemed to improve at.
It wasn’t bad enough to be inedible, but it certainly didn’t have that warm, comforting homemade taste that made you reach for another bite.
Suddenly, she remembered Baek Shin-woo making food for her.
‘You have to be bad at something. If you’re good at everything, you’d be inhuman.’
She had always become discouraged whenever the dishes she had ambitiously prepared ended in failure.
Baek Shin-woo, however, comforted her by saying that he liked the fact that there were things she couldn’t do.
“Mom.”
Yoon-i tugged at her clothes, pulling her out of her thoughts.
Ria looked down at him.
“You got a call.”
The child brought her phone over and handed it to her.
The manager’s name was displayed on the screen.
Thinking it might be urgent, she quickly answered.
“Yes, Manager.”
—Maria, sorry to bother you after work.
“It’s okay. Is something wrong?”
—The CEO is looking for something that was in his study, but I have no idea where it is.
Since Ria was solely responsible for the second floor, it made sense that he would ask her.
Baek Shin-woo hadn’t come to the village for several days.
The study looked exactly the same whether he had been there or not.
The only differences were the dust and the flow of temperature through the room.
“What is he looking for?”
—A fountain pen.
Ria said she hadn’t seen it, but the manager sounded troubled.
—If it’s okay, could you come here and talk to him yourself?
“That’s difficult right now.”
—It’s difficult for me too. Do you know how many people are nervous because of one fountain pen?
Ria sighed, but it seemed she had no choice but to go.
She left Yoon-i with Okja, took a taxi, and headed to the village.
The manager greeted her and showed her where Baek Shin-woo was.
He was drinking with a VIP in the first-floor reception room.
His outfit made the situation somewhat awkward, but Ria calmly approached him.
Baek Shin-woo looked her up and down once before fixing his gaze on her face.
“Did the manager contact you?”
“Yes. He said your fountain pen was missing.”
“It was in the inner pocket of my jacket.”
She had left Yoon-i at someone else’s house and come all the way here despite feeling uneasy about it, only to have him shamelessly pull out the fountain pen and twirl it in front of her.
For the first time, she felt angry with him.
Without saying a word, Ria lowered her head in greeting.
It was her way of saying she was leaving.
But—
“Since you’re here, take this upstairs and put it there.”
He pointed with his eyes toward the whiskey on the table.
It wasn’t just one bottle.
There were quite a few.
