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Chapter 13
The moment Jaehyun entered Daewoong Hotel, his pace quickened.
He had loosened his tie long ago, unable to bear the constriction around his neck.
Even the elevators at Daewoong Hotel, famous for their speed, seemed unbearably slow.
Stepping out into the lounge connected to the private suite, Jaehyun turned and headed in the opposite direction.
His gaze settled on the back of a woman standing by the window, looking out at the glittering nightscape.
Seong Haeri.
She was the eldest daughter of Seong Gu-eun, chairman of IR Bank. Although her relationship with Jaehyun had begun as an arranged marriage, the two had once promised each other a future together.
Sensing his presence, Haeri turned around to face him.
Her glossy hair swayed softly with the movement.
“Jaehyun? I thought you said you were busy today. Ah—”
Jaehyun strode toward her and abruptly seized her wrist.
Haeri lifted her head, studying his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Open the door. Quickly.”
Without giving her a moment to react, Jaehyun pulled her toward the suite and whispered urgently into her ear.
He seemed to have no time to spare.
Standing behind her, he wrapped both arms around her waist. When Haeri tried to remove his hands, looking flustered, he pressed himself even closer to her.
“Just a moment.”
Click.
The door swung open, and Jaehyun immediately swept Haeri into his arms.
“Jaehyun! Mmph—”
He silenced her with a kiss and carried her straight toward the bed.
His jacket and tie fell to the immaculate floor one after the other.
Reflected in the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the dazzling city, the two figures clung to each other, hurriedly stripping away one another’s clothes.
“It’s too… too sudden.”
Haeri caught his hand as it impatiently ventured farther.
She could hear Jaehyun’s ragged breathing beside her ear.
“Open your legs a little more.”
Jaehyun drew her legs around his waist.
Beneath the crimson lighting, Haeri’s slender, supple figure was laid bare.
Jaehyun removed the last scraps of fabric covering her body, then parted her lips and kissed her deeply.
Their saliva mingled until it was impossible to tell whose was whose.
Haeri threaded her fingers through his hair, accepting him without resistance.
Before long, the intimate sounds of their entwined bodies mingled with sharp, breathless cries.
“Haah…”
After indulging himself with Haeri for what seemed like an eternity, Jaehyun shuddered and released a ragged breath, almost as though he were expelling it from his very depths.
His body had flushed red, as if scorched by the heat coursing through him.
When Jaehyun finally lifted himself away, Haeri’s chest rose and fell in deep, uneven breaths.
Even as she lay still, she felt as though the ceiling were spinning above her.
“What’s going on? Why are you suddenly like this?”
Haeri looked at him with concern.
Jaehyun pulled her toward him and held her in his arms.
In the end, things had come to this between them.
If he wanted to get Haeri out of this situation, he needed to bring the lawsuit to an end as quickly as possible. But he wasn’t in a position to do that.
The longer the proceedings dragged on, the longer Yujin and Yeonha would remain apart. And the longer the father and child stayed together, the more it would serve as evidence that he and Yeonha were living well together.
“Doesn’t it feel suffocating?”
Jaehyun’s deeply subdued voice came from behind her.
“I’m fine. You’ll get me out of here soon, won’t you?”
Haeri placed her hand over the back of his.
She answered casually, but a heavy darkness had settled over her own heart as well.
She knew perfectly well that her decision would wound someone deeply.
And she, too, would not escape the arrows of suffering.
Haeri thought that perhaps she was only now paying the price for having tried to defy fate.
“Why… did you come back to see me then? You were the one who said you didn’t want me and ran all the way to Germany.”
At Jaehyun’s words, Haeri let out a small laugh.
“I never said I didn’t want you. Five years ago… you were the one who didn’t want me, Jaehyun. If I hadn’t had feelings for you, I might actually have married you.”
She hadn’t wanted to marry a man whose heart belonged to someone else.
Not even if she loved him.
The time she’d spent away from him, trying to forget him, had only made her realize just how deeply she loved him.
Turning toward Jaehyun, Haeri nestled into his broad chest.
He stroked her back and kissed her forehead.
“Then, when I called you out of the blue, after all that time, you accepted me because…”
“Because that woman was no longer in your heart. You wanted me instead. And you wanted me desperately.”
Haeri met his gaze as she spoke.
“People will label us lovers who carried on an affair for the rest of our lives.”
“I can’t back out now. I have you by my side, and our child, too.”
Looking into her deep eyes, Jaehyun remembered the day he’d first met Haeri.
Back when their families had been actively discussing a marriage between the two of them, it was Haeri who had first thrown cold water on the arrangement.
During a meal with Chairman Jeong, she’d abruptly announced that she intended to become a nun. Then she’d left for Germany without another word.
Jaehyun could still vividly recall the icy atmosphere that had descended upon the room, as though someone had doused everyone with cold water.
He had been the only one who supported Haeri’s unexpected decision.
After all, he’d been in love with Yujin at the time.
It was five years later that he and Haeri crossed paths again.
Jaehyun had just successfully launched a new product for the first time since becoming vice chairman of Daewoong Electronics.
The company’s stock price, which had been steadily falling amid persistent losses, had finally begun to stabilize.
And yet, there was no one willing to acknowledge his abilities.
All the praise and acclaim for the successful launch had gone to Yujin.
Jaehyun was left with the stigma of having exploited Yujin’s connections to boost his business.
The panic attacks he’d suffered after selling off a core business division of Daewoong Life to cover Electronics’ losses seemed to be returning.
If only he’d been given a little more time, he could have achieved success without Yujin’s help.
He remembered Chairman Jeong’s words.
Emotions are fleeting, but wealth and honor last forever.
Jaehyun had loved Yujin so deeply that he’d defied fierce opposition and insisted on marrying her anyway.
But Chairman Jeong had been right.
Jaehyun was not someone who could withstand even the smallest failure. He lived in constant fear of losing Chairman Jeong’s trust.
Would things have turned out better if he’d followed the chairman’s wishes and married the woman his family had chosen for him?
His repeated failures gradually wore down his mind.
Eventually, he began to blame Yujin for everything.
It was only natural that the distance between them continued to grow.
Even afterward, Jaehyun’s obsession with success grew stronger and stronger.
More than love, he needed an inexhaustible supply of money—someone who could keep funding him while he waited for success to come.
Only then did he finally understand Chairman Jeong’s intentions.
He understood why the chairman had been so determined to establish an in-law relationship with a banking family.
Jaehyun began to consider who he needed most at that moment.
After a long deliberation, he searched for Haeri’s name in his phone’s contact list.
Her number, which he’d saved years ago, appeared on the screen.
“Jaehyun?”
The moment he heard Haeri’s voice, fear washed over him—the fear that he’d crossed a river he could never return from.
“Jaehyun?”
Haeri gently shook him awake.
She desperately wanted to spend the entire night with him, but she had to send him home before it got any later.
His child would be waiting for him at the Daewoong residence.
After checking the time, Jaehyun slowly sat up.
He hadn’t even left yet, but Haeri already felt an emptiness settling inside her.
Still, she watched him put on his clothes one piece at a time, pretending to be unaffected.
Once he had pulled on his trousers, Jaehyun took his phone out of his pocket.
This is the Hanseon Daily article scheduled for an exclusive report tomorrow morning.
It was a message from Chief Kim.
He’d even thoughtfully included a link, but Jaehyun slipped his phone back into his trouser pocket without opening it.
Would Yujin be able to endure this, too?
Please, just hear me out.
The conversation he’d had with Yujin in the car the other day resurfaced in his mind.
He’d blurted out those words in a desperate attempt to delay their lawsuit for as long as possible, hoping to avoid jeopardizing the merger and acquisition deal with the American company Tenz.
Even if Yujin had accepted the existence of his child born outside their marriage back then, their divorce would still have been inevitable.
After all, Yujin was nothing more than a part of his past now—a past that could no longer offer him any help.
