TMPW Ch 4 part 1

Is this how it feels when the blood completely leaves your body?

Yuan paled as she looked at JoonHun. The cellphone in his hand looked like a dead piece of plastic. Yuan’s cold eyes slowly calmed down.

“It’s just my personal cellphone.”

“Was there a need to use it so secretively like this? Putting it in your bra? Whose name is this under?”

“Am I being interrogated right now?”

“Answer the questions.”

His face leaned closer to hers. His eyes looked indifferent and cold. Because of his gaze, Yuan felt as if the air around her had completely frozen over. Yuan calmly looked back into those eyes.

It had been a stupid mistake to suddenly come here after receiving President Min’s call. She would have found out Seo JoonHun’s objective and what kind of deal had been struck if she had only waited a few more hours.

However, the whirling thoughts in her head had caused her to move around dangerously. All thanks to her ridiculous emotions. If I trip up now, it’ll be the end. If I tell him, it’ll also be the end. So…

“It was Lee TaeKyung.”

She had to go all out.

“What?”

“The person you’re curious about, the man I’ve been talking to, and the owner of this cellphone. It’s Lee TaeKyung.”

In that moment, the air around her turned into daggers.

JoonHun didn’t move. He just glared at her with a terrifying coldness in his eyes. Yuan didn’t avoid his gaze. This was because 6 months ago, at 3 AM, Yuan had felt the same way outside of his bedroom.

That night, nobody knew she was there. She couldn’t even tell anyone that she was there. Therefore, she couldn’t tell anyone what she had seen. That day, Yuan had hacked into their security systems and completely blocked it all.

The security guard in the room with all the surveillance monitors would drowse off at around 3 or 4 AM. Additionally, whenever Yuan planned on entering the data room, she always put a weak sleeping tablet in the cup of coffee she gave him late in the evenings. Therefore, he would definitely succumb to sleep.

Carefully, Yuan headed for the server room in the basement. Every night, all of HyunJin’s data would be backed up in those servers. Once every quarter of the year, she would go down and open up this treasure chest of information.

Yuan went up the emergency stairs to the 4th floor. She carefully opened the security door and entered JoonHun’s wing of the house. Right when she opened the door, she heard noises.

Her breath caught in her throat as she hid herself in the shadows. Was JoonHun awake at this time? Her husband was a creature of habit. He went to sleep at 12 and woke up at 6 in the morning. He started the day by going to the gym or swimming. His packed morning was like clockwork.

However, the person exiting his bedroom door wasn’t Seo JoonHun. Yuan silently peeked out of the shadows. The person adjusted their clothes and left the bedroom. It was Yoon HeeSoo. Yuan wanted JoonHun to feel how she felt in that moment.

It was entertaining to see the changes in JoonHun’s expression as she said Lee TaeKyung’s name. Yuan knew very well what kind of thoughts were going through his head right now. Who knew that his face hardening in rage would be so sweet to see?

Either way, what she needed to hide the most right now was what she had really done.

She had hacked into the HyunJin servers and stored information about the Dubai project into her USB. She was the one who stole the 500 billion won. Even though she was well-known as an illustrator, it wasn’t her true identity. She was actually a computer programmer. However, instead of having all this be revealed, it was much more fun to have JoonHun believe that she had a lover.

Yuan already knew that JoonHun had looked into Lee TaeKyung. She found that information in the data servers. She didn’t know why he was interested in TaeKyung-oppa, but it didn’t matter. It was enough to make her nervous.

The information Secretary Kang had collected on Lee TaeKyung was merely the superficial facts. His true identity was still perfectly hidden thanks to Yuan. No matter how much he dug around, JoonHun would never find out what Yuan and TaeKyung had truly done.

If she had been caught contacting TaeKyung like this… wouldn’t it be better to just give the most logical explanation that everybody was thinking?

Additionally, if she was able to have JoonHun feel how she felt that night, it was just icing on the cake.

“Lee TaeKyung?”

JoonHun seemed shocked by the fact that the name had left her lips.

“Yes, Lee TaeKyung.”

She tried to push him away and get further away from him. He blocked her. Her back slammed back onto the wall with a thud. Yuan started to get annoyed. Why was this man so riled up? It was so unlike him…

He was the one fooling around with her secretary. Was there a law saying that Yuan wasn’t allowed to have a lover as well?

They were a contract couple, after all.

“And why are you contacting Lee TaeKyung like this?”

JoonHun grit his teeth as he asked.

Oh my, are you being jealous right now? How cute.

Yuan folded her arms and glared at JoonHun. She had to rein in her impulses, but after seeing his expression, she couldn’t help herself. Seo JoonHun was absolutely boiling with rage.

“Well…”

Yuan’s smile dangerously widened.

“I’ll leave that to your imagination.”

Crash! Suddenly, a deafening noise rippled throughout the room. Yuan became frozen stiff. Right next to her, Seo JoonHun had smashed her cellphone against the marble walls of the VIP lounge.

What the hell… What in the world…

“What did you say?”

JoonHun asked again. Yuan was scared stiff by his murderous gaze. She was so shocked that she couldn’t move. She knew he’d be angry, but she didn’t think he’d become this violent. Was he even thinking about his hand…?

“Director, what was that noise just now…?”

Yoon HeeSoo’s voice rang from the door.

What excellent timing to make her grand entrance. Yoon HeeSoo’s eyes widened when she saw Yuan and JoonHun. When she saw his fist against the wall, she let out a shocked gasp.

“Gasp! Director!”

Why don’t you start letting out some tears while you’re at it? Yoon HeeSoo ran over, seemingly more shocked than JoonHun’s own wife who was standing right there. Seeing this, Yuan’s heart wrenched. Even after seeing the couple’s body language, Yoon HeeSoo unabashedly came towards them and moved to take JoonHun’s hand.

“Director, your hand…”

Before she could touch his hand, JoonHun shrugged her off. His eyes were still glued to Yuan, glaring at her as if he’d kill her.

“Ah… Um…”

Yoon HeeSoo finally noticed their expressions and looked dumbfounded. Yuan looked back at JoonHun in confusion. Look, your lover is shocked, so why are you still looking at me? Was he this angry because she told him to leave it to his imagination when it came to her relationship with Lee TaeKyung?

How hilarious. So it was okay for a man to do it, but not a woman?

Whatever. Whether he was angry or not, as long as he believed Lee TaeKyung to be her lover, that was enough.

Some time passed. After a long span of awkward silence, JoonHun finally returned to his senses and passed the cellphone to Yoon HeeSoo.

“Restore the data. Immediately.”

He then walked away and exited the lounge.

There were times in her life when Yuan didn’t know what was going on. This was one of those times. After all that fuss, the couple was sitting down at a splendidly decorated table. She thought that they would head home after leaving the department store, but the car surprisingly took them to a Japanese restaurant for their 2-year anniversary dinner.

Who would have thought that they would be celebrating their anniversary by staring daggers at each other? Were they shooting some kind of comedy?

However, Yuan calmly sat down and gazed at him. A fancy Japanese meal was splayed out in front of them.

Thick pieces of salmon marbled with white fat was glistening in the light. The beautiful and exquisite dishes were decorated with ornamental flowers, greenery, and small pebbles. The fried food was cooked to perfection, and the luxurious liquor and side dishes were impeccable.

However, Yuan didn’t like these elaborate decorations. She didn’t like how unnatural these decorations looked, how excessively perfect they were.

Just like their marriage.

“Privacy, you say?”

“Yes, privacy.”

Yuan answered back with a blank expression. JoonHun’s right hand had already been treated and wrapped in bandages. It was all thanks to the first-aid kit that Yoon HeeSoo had hurriedly found.

To think that he left such a lover, who cherished him so much, to have an anniversary dinner with his wife whom he did not love. Yuan was beginning to feel a bit sorry.

“I know that the way TaeKyung…ssi and I contact each other may seem a bit laughable to you.”

It was strange calling TaeKyung-oppa ‘TaeKyung-ssi’, but this was a role she had to play. This was an opportunity to clearly define her and Seo JoonHun’s positions in this marriage.

This marriage was rolling into dangerous territory. If she could end it here, that would be for the best. If he declared that he didn’t want to stay married with this kind of wife, she’d be grateful. Because she wanted to separate from him this instant.

Don’t be afraid, Min Yuan. It’s impossible to retrieve data from a phone without a SIM card. No matter what they did, they wouldn’t be able to obtain the text messages between her and TaeKyung.

“But that’s my private life, isn’t it? You also have your own private life. Have we ever showed interest in the other’s personal life before?”

His eyes coldly looked back at her.

“So you’re telling me to stop being concerned over your supposed other man because it’s your privacy, is that right?”

“Isn’t… that obvious?”

Yuan smiled brightly. Behind the graceful smile, she hid her rage, her bitterness.

“Don’t you have other women you meet as well? Was there a clause in this contract marriage stating that we had to stay devoted to each other? I was under the assumption that we were to respect each other’s privacy…”

I’m talking about Secretary Yoon. She swallowed those words back and merely smiled coldly.

Their marriage was a contract. No matter how one looked at it, it would always be that way.

No matter how… strong their physical chemistry was.

When they returned from their honeymoon, Yuan realized how draining her husband’s schedule was. The director’s role wasn’t one he could pull off easily. As the leader of the international branch in charge of the global businesses, he couldn’t take his eyes off it for one second.

His business trips were a week long if they were short. They could go up to a few months at a time if they were long. So it was surprising that he would always come find her when he returned from them.

He would visit her bedroom. Without any notice or warning, he would come find her as if it was routine.

Those sudden nights never failed to surprise Yuan. She had lost count of the number of times she had welcomed Seo JoonHun into her room in the middle of the night.

The problem was Yuan herself. She could have always pushed him away. However, she wasn’t able to. Whenever she felt his touch, she would be paralyzed in pleasure, her body bursting into flames and melting into a puddle. She was unable to block it.

When it came to sex, he was persistent and unforgiving. Thankfully, he didn’t have any perverse tastes. After he left her, she would be too exhausted to move a finger for a few days.

However, after seeing Yoon HeeSoo leave his room, Yuan couldn’t accept him anymore. She didn’t expect him to be faithful, but she couldn’t stand being touched by the hands that had also touched Yoon HeeSoo.

Yuan closed her bedroom door on JoonHun using all kinds of excuses. He took her rejections in stride and respected her decision like a gentleman. If they ever needed to attend an event together, Yuan barely managed to fulfill her role as JoonHun’s perfect wife. However, when they were alone she was extremely cold to him.

She didn’t want to waver anymore because of him. She wanted to stick to the purpose of this marriage. She was merely the most convenient woman for him to embrace under the law as his wife. Additionally, Yuan was definitely deceiving him. What she actually did might even be worse than having an affair.

Therefore, they needed to end things here. Before everything came to light, she needed to block everything. The stolen 500 billion won… Wouldn’t it be better to have a cheating wife than a wife who threw away his life’s work?

“JoonHun-ssi.”

Her smile was polite, but her eyes were colder than ever.

“You know what the purpose of our marriage is, right? I performed my role as your wife perfectly. But this is business, and our private lives are separate. Whether it’s another man or not, you shouldn’t be concerned.”

“So that’s why you began this covert operation to contact that man?”

“Yes…”

Yuan’s smile widened.

“I know that my every move is watched and recorded. Of course I’d be careful. It wouldn’t be too much of an issue if you or your family found out, but if it got out to the public, the problem would be catastrophic.”

Aha, she wanted to keep her outward image intact, did she?

JoonHun laughed.

The cellphone in her bra didn’t have a chip. Judging from the sound of the flushing toilet coming out of the bathroom, JoonHun guessed that the chip would be at the bottom of the filthy sewage by now.

Actually, he didn’t need it to begin with. When her father called her, JoonHun had been waiting to see what her reaction would be. Because she wasn’t the only one being watched…

The more his wife explained herself to him, the more he lost his appetite. The food didn’t look as pleasant as it first did.

The perfectly cooked food and the impeccably decorated dishes began to annoy him. This tatami room that reminded him of their honeymoon, the large window across the room that showed the charming garden outside, and the blooming purple wisteria flowers… He didn’t like any of it.

No, that wasn’t it. He wasn’t annoyed. He was enraged. An unexpectedly violent rage was boiling inside of him. Should he just close down this damn Japanese restaurant? Now that he looked closer, he didn’t like the interior decorations at all. Should he just get a bulldozer and run this building down into pieces?

His wife returned to her normal calm expression. The same expression he had seen her wear for 2 years like a mask.

“How fun.”

As he said those words, his jaw clenched. JoonHun now realized that he was angrier than he had ever been in his life. He knew that he was more dangerous than he ever was before. The problem was that no one, least of all his wife, knew that he had become this angry.

He felt as if there was a fuse in his heart, the string going deeper into his chest before reaching the hidden powder keg. What would happen from here on? How explosive would this become?

How far along the fuse was the spark traveling?

Yuan stupidly stared back at him shamelessly, not knowing the damage she had done.

“You know what the purpose of our marriage is, right? I performed my role as your wife perfectly. But this is business, and our private lives are separate. Whether it’s another man or not, you shouldn’t be concerned.”

Foolish Min Yuan.

It would have been better for you to say that you stabbed your father in the back instead.

It would have been more enjoyable than hearing that she had another man.