Chapter 26

Young Do spotted Kim Won down the hallway from Yeong In's room.

"Choi Young Do-ssi." He grabbed his arm as Young Do walked past. "We need to talk."

"Let's not have this conversation in public."

"Come to my office."

~.~

Young Do sat back in his chair, trying to hide his nervousness.

"Myo Insurance has stopped investigating Monday's events, and with the sudden news coverage of your so-called lovers' tragedy, I assume you are working with Chairwoman Myo to dismiss the current CEO of Zeus Hotel Group."

"I don't see how it's any of your business."

"Don't burn bridges with me, I don't intend to stand in your way."

"What do you intend to do, Kim Won-ssi?"

"Frankly, these articles paint me in an uncomfortable position and are not good for the Jeguk image. Unless you want to damage the longstanding partnership between Zeus and Jeguk, I'm going to need some information." Young Do weighed his options and decided it might not be such a bad idea to include him as a witness.

"What would you like to know?"

"What are your plans after the dismissal of your abonim? His reputation is causing a slow decline in the value of my stocks, but I'm worried that replacing him with someone inexperienced won't cause a more rapid decline."

"I will not be replacing Abonim, if that's what you asking. I intend to continue to work through the company, but I won't join the board of directors until I have a bit more experience. The Vice President will take up the CEO position until such time. I am also being careful to not publicize anything that could hurt the company, such as his ties to the gangsters who caused the traffic accident and kidnapped my omma and Yeong In." He shifted in his seat, more comfortable now that he knew Kim Won's objective. "There will be a press conference following Yeong In's discharge. If you made a statement, it could legitify our situation and help the Jeguk image. Plus, such an appearance would likely solidify public relations between Jeguk, Zeus, and Myo Insurance."

Kim Won scratched his chin. "That could work."

"Since you are Kim Tan's hyung and on good terms with Chairwoman Myo, it wouldn't seem odd for us to be acquainted."

OooO

Yeong In stepped stood in the bathroom, her fingers hesitating on the end of her shirt. So far, she'd successfully avoided looking at the wound on her stomach, but after a week of hospital food and sponge baths, Doctor Oh had removed the last of her stitches and replaced them with medical tape. He'd then finally given her permission to take a shower. A nurse had offered to help, but she'd refused. This was something she couldn't hide from anymore, but as she lifted the hem, she felt like throwing up again.

She didn't see the other two pieces of white tape from broken glass. She didn't see the rest of her smooth, pale skin or the new flatness her stomach now had.

Past the bits of white tape, all she could see was the angry red line stretching from her lower rib to hip bone. Dots from her stitches followed the line of raised skin and she stared at herself in the mirror, half believing she was still dreaming. The nurses had said she was healing really quickly and that it looked better than most. Perhaps it had been a mistake not to look until now. She had no proof it was "better". She dropped the hem of her shirt, ready to accept that help.

~.~

That evening, Young Do entered her room and handed her discharge papers.

"Already? But Doctor Oh said I had another week still."

"I set up for someone to make a few home-visits to check your wound, but as long as you don't lift anything Doctor Oh said you would be better off at home." He smiled what he must have thought was a polite smile, but to Yeong In it looked bitter. What he really meant was that her hospitalization was bad for business. That was what he likely thought of her now. She could have handled that look on Kim Won-ssi, but on Young Do, broke her heart all over again.

"I'll gather your things while you change in the bathroom." He pulled a large bag from behind the chair and started setting the few gifts and cards she'd received into it. All except for the flowers, she noticed. After a while, she sighed and took a set of clean clothes into the bathroom. She changed facing away from the mirror.

"Brush your hair; there are going to be reporters outside the hospital." She frowned at his order, but was sort of grateful for the warning. She came out of the bathroom again and he handed her a pair of sunglasses. "And you might want to wear these." She imagined her eyes would have been fairly puffy.

She huffed, but put them on anyway. As they approached the basement floor in the elevator, Young Do reached for her hand. She yanked it out of his reach and gasped in pain. "I know it's not ideal, but we need to act like we're deeply in love in order to pull this off. If we walk out of here without even touching, we'll lose the scrutiny of the media - which may be the only thing keeping your family safe from mine."

She held her breath and tried for all the world to not feel the warmth of his hand as she pressed their palms together. He interlocked their fingers and she bit her lip to distract herself from the butterflies exploding in her stomach. She only hoped it would get easier to repress her feelings every time he was near.

"Smile," he said under his breath and they stepped out of the elevator, into a throng of reporters and flashing cameras. Young Do pulled her carefully through the crowd and deposited her into the backseat of a car she'd never seen and then faced the reporters. "There will be a press conference tomorrow where we will answer all of your questions. Right now, I would like to get her home and resting. It's been a trying time for everyone."

He got in the seat beside her and a gave her address to a uniformed man at the wheel. Once they pulled out onto the road, he motioned to the driver. "This is Driver Yoon, he's Chairwoman Myo's personal driver; we can talk freely."

She relaxed slightly, letting her smile disappear. "Press conference?"

"Yes, you don't have to worry about anything. We've got it all handled."

"I'd still like to know about things. Particularly things involving me . . . before everyone else does." Yeong In allowed a little of the hostility she'd felt since he'd proposed seep into her words.

He shifted to face sideways toward her. "Things have been hard enough, I didn't think you would want to deal with it."

She sighed. "There are certain things in a woman's life which she always wants to deal with. Getting married is one of them!" Her stomach throbbed and she shifted in her seat.

He took a deep breath. ". . . Alright, everything else I'll pass by you beforehand, I promise. There's a bunch of stuff you can go through." He pulled a black binder from the floorboards.

She opened it to find a stack of papers nearly an inch thick. These people and their packets were really starting to annoy her! The first group of papers were pictures of three different wedding dresses. All of them were chik western white dresses. "You even picked out my wedding dress?"

"Chairwo- your Halmeonim picked them. We thought you wouldn't want to try on a lot of dresses. She said Secretary Kim still had your measurements, so if you pick one of the three, they'll have it in time for the wedding pictures."

"How nice of them," she said flatly. They were right of course, she really didn't feel like doing anything but sleeping away the next two weeks. Well, week and a half. No matter the circumstance, this wasn't what she'd pictured as her wedding. At least if it had been Kim Won, she could be bitter without guilt.

She flipped to the next packet of paper which showed an array of different colored tables and napkins and table decorations. "You don't have to look through all of those, I just wanted you to have them in case you were curious. Everything's being prepared-"

"I don't like these colors."

"Really? None of them?"

"No."

"But there are several."

She looked down again at the napkins. "This one is too light, too french, too purple, too bland, too bright. None of them will work."

He clenched his teeth. "I'll let the wedding planner know and we'll change the colors."

She flipped past the wedding packets to a list of interview questions. They all had answers.

"Those are the list of questions the reporters are supposed to ask. You don't have to answer any of them, but you should know what I'm going to answer." She silently skimmed through them, her body feeling colder than it had in that abandoned warehouse. Hadn't she decided to take control of the situation? "These are questions for Kim Won-ssi."

"Yes, he's agreed to join the press conference along with Byung Ho. Their questions are toward the back. Oh. There's one packet at the very end I'd like you to look over while it's just us in the car."

"Contract?"

"Byung Ho told me you hadn't intended to stay married to Kim Won, so I'm not going to force you to stay married to me either. It says we'd be married for four years, but considering your reaction earlier, I'd be willing to cut it down to two. When I drew it up, I didn't think you'd hate it so much."

It wasn't that she hated it, no matter how much she wanted to.

"Just endure the spotlight for three months until I turn eighteen. Then we'll have to power to strip Abonim of his position and your Halmeonim has promised to gather criminal evidence against him until then. After that, we can live our lives separately if you wish."

". . . Alright, but I have several edits for this contract." She reached for the pen in the center console, but her stomach erupted in pain. Young Do quickly handed it to her.

"Like what?"

"Well, here, you have that we will need to engage in skinship while in the company of others to keep up our image, I'd like to set some limits."

"What limits would you need for PDA? You think I'm going to molest you in front of your family? I do not have a death wish."

She cleared her throat, embarrassment coloring her face. "No skinship that's not absolutely necessary. Also, kissing. I assume it's implied, but I'd rather not kiss you unless the situation is dire."

"I can agree to that. Anything else?"

"Yes. No where in here do you have any mention of our sleeping arrangements."

"Number three says we'll live together-"

"Living together and sleeping in the same room are not the same." The rise in her voice hurt her stomach.

"I assume Baek Abonim will want his only daughter to live with him since my Abonim is getting married soon. After a few months, I was going to try to move us into our own apartment where we'd have two separate rooms."

"But until then?"

"Until then, I'm not sleeping on the floor, and neither are you. You're just going to have to put up with it."

She glared at him while he drove, but finally huffed her compliance.

"Anything else?" he asked through his teeth.

"There's no need for the last provision about the handling of any possible heirs," she said, crossing it out.

"What? What if we mess up during a night of drunkenness? It happens in the movies. Besides, I am devilishly handsome." He winked at her.

She tried not to stutter. "I don't drink. Plus, you have down here that we'd stay together until they became an adult. I'm not signing something that could affect the next two decades of my life."

"If you're so sure it would never happen, what's the harm?"

"Why have it in there in the first place?"

"Why is this such a big deal?"

"Because it will never happen." She'd make sure of it. If he came onto her while he was drunk, she'd never let him make that mistake.

". . . I see. Well, go ahead and cross it off." His intonation was low and she immediately felt bad for pushing the subject.

~.~

The press conference felt more like an exam than a Q and A. The few times a reporter had directed a question at her, Young Do had stepped in to answer before she could say anything. She smiled politely and tried to look the picture of love-struck, but it was starting to get on her nerves.

"When did you first find yourselves falling in love?"

Young Do began to answer, but she cut him off. "I have always tried to hold my principles dear to me and so, in the spirit of being a teacher, I found his advances inappropriate at first. But he was so persistent and even arranged to take his exams early so we could be together." She beamed at him, enjoying the tightness in his smile.

"Yes, I couldn't resist her childish charm. It was easy to forget she was briefly my teacher." He squeezed her hand under the table in warning.

"Really? I thought you said I was very mature." His grip tightened and he laughed nervously.

"Probably my favorite thing about her is her sense of humor." He pinched her cheek with his free hand and clenched his teeth through his smile. The reporter hurriedly asked another question which Kim Won answered. Yeong In was rather surprised he'd agreed to sit in on the press conference at all, but once they'd arrived, she thought Kim Won-ssi and Young Do seemed awfully chummy for painting themselves as romantic rivals. When had they gotten so close?

OooO

Young Do stormed ahead of Yeong In and Kim Won, ripped open Byung Ho's car door, and slammed it shut behind him. He seethed to himself as he watched the two happily converse from his rearview mirror. How had his plan gone so horribly awry. He had saved her from marrying someone she didn't know, hadn't he? He'd even taken Eun Sang's advice and tried to think of her needs instead of his own. That was the reason he'd worked so hard the last few days; so she didn't have to do anything. It was all because of his messed up family anyway, so he thought she'd be happy - or at least willing. Instead, he was met with one glare after another. Was the idea of marrying him so horrible?

She opened the passenger door and slowly sank into her seat, holding her stomach as she turned to reach for her seat belt. He made a mental note to buckle it for her next time. Byung Ho climbed into the front seat and soon they'd pulled out onto the street.

"We really can't tell Aboji?" Yeong In asked.

"Tell him what? That I am marrying his only daughter in an attempt to keep my psychopathic abonim from murdering you and my omma? You really think he'll sit still after that?" Young Do knew his tone of voice was a bit harsh, but he didn't like her playing the victim and making him into the bad guy.

"Well, when you say it like that . . . Not even Oppa?"

Byung Ho cut in. "Don't you think Hyung has enough going on at the moment? Besides, if we tell them and they do something stupid, and you know they will, it could tip off Choi Dong Wook-ssi and ruin our plan. It's only for a few more months."

Yeong In was silent the rest of the drive back to Baek gym. It wasn't the comfortable silence Young Do often enjoyed with his friends and family; it was a very uncomfortable silence. She nearly flew out of the car before it'd even shut off and Byung Ho raised his eyebrows at him.

"What exactly did you say to her for her to be so cold?"

"Heck if I know! She's been like that all week. I thought you said she'd be okay with all this."

"Huh." Byung Ho stared after Yeong In thoughtfully. "She should have been. I could have sworn . . . Well, don't worry about it too much. A lot has happened very quickly. Give everything time to settle down and she'll come around."

"She'd better. I don't think I can endure two years of this. I agreed because she is the least horrid woman in the country, but if I'd known-"

"Just give it some time. Pain does a lot to a person too."