Episode 4
“My grandfather has a deep admiration for self-made people. In that sense, Mr. Dong Ji-won, you’re quite an attractive candidate.”
“So you’re saying I’m exactly the type the chairman of Sunil Group would like?”
“Exactly.”
Tae-jung nodded and continued.
“My grandfather publicly announced that he’ll give me a large portion of shares as soon as I get married.”
“So you’re saying that through marriage, you get to secure that stake?”
“Correct.”
“You don’t want to date women, but you have to get married. And you figured I’m the kind of woman your grandfather would approve of…?”
“Precisely.”
“Don’t you think there’s something weird about all this?”
Even if it was a contract marriage, it would’ve been enough to agree on a divorce at the right time. Why go so far as to voluntarily become a scumbag who cheats on his wife?
Ji-won couldn’t understand Tae-jung’s logic based on her common sense.
“It’s because of how the divorce needs to be handled, right?”
“Yes.”
“If we just get divorced, rumors and speculation will swirl. I might be fine, but in the worst-case scenario, it could make life very difficult for you here in Korea.”
Ji-won recalled people who had gone through divorces with chaebol families.
As Tae-jung said, unpleasant rumors often followed them. Gossip forums regularly posted about such breakups with titles featuring words like adultery, overspending, exclusion, mistreatment, neglect, or shopping addiction.
“If the story is that I cheated and caused the divorce, no one will point fingers at you.”
“Instead, you’ll be the one getting blamed, Mr. Moon Tae-jung.”
“I don’t care. My image might take a temporary hit, but it’s not like my stock shares will turn into toilet paper.”
“…”
“If my stock drops, I can just buy up more shares at a low price. So really, it works out for me.”
An heir to a conglomerate, pressured to get married in order to inherit massive shares… who ends up entering a contract marriage with a woman he randomly met, intending to divorce her later.
This plot felt… strangely familiar.
A drama, maybe?
Ji-won tapped her temple with her fingers, deep in thought.
It wasn’t a bad offer for her. All she had to do was get married and divorced, and she could become a star lawyer.
Should she just go crazy and accept it?
Her heart was already leaning toward accepting Tae-jung’s proposal. But the words still wouldn’t come out.
Why me?
The question kept circling in her mind.
He was clearly hiding something.
But what?
Something in the strange look in Tae-jung’s eyes kept snagging on her conscience.
As Ji-won’s brow furrowed with mounting worry, the office door suddenly slammed open.
“Hey! Lawyer lady!”
Startled by the loud voice, Ji-won looked up.
The man walking into the office was Mr. Park, the building owner.
Last winter, when the water pipes burst, she had asked him for repairs, but he just told her to “let the building dry out by opening the windows on sunny days,” claiming that buildings needed water too.
Yet he still collected rent without fail…
Oh right, she was behind on rent.
Coming to her senses, Ji-won quickly bowed her head.
“I’ll pay it next week.”
“This keeps happening. That’s not gonna fly.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“I didn’t even ask for a big deposit, you know. Why do you think that is? Because you’re a lawyer—I figured you wouldn’t scam people and that you’d at least pay your rent on time. I took you in as a tenant on that trust.”
“I understand.”
Ji-won kept her head bowed.
Just the casual legal consultations he had milked from her over time were worth more than a year’s rent. She should’ve brought up a consultation fee the first time he said he was “just asking out of curiosity.”
“You didn’t even finish paying last month’s rent, right?”
“I’ll pay that too next week.”
“Next Friday. During bank hours. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of lawyer doesn’t follow the law, huh?”
Ji-won had been about to say she’d take a warehouse part-time job to make ends meet, but then she closed her mouth.
If she said that, how pathetic would Tae-jung think she was?
Trying to maintain some dignity, Ji-won addressed the annoyed landlord.
“I’m with a client right now.”
“A client?”
“Yes, so I’ll definitely keep my promise. But could you please leave for today?”
“Client, huh? Doesn’t really look like someone who’d come to this kind of place.”
“That’s a secret.”
“What secrets? We’re all just getting by here. Hey, young man—whatever it is, this lady lawyer’s got a fierce personality. But that means she’ll bite down and never let go. Just trust her.”
With those ambiguous words—neither compliment nor insult—the landlord finally left the office.
Resigned, Ji-won looked at Tae-jung and confessed.
“You saw that, right? This is where I am right now. So don’t even think about getting involved with me.”
“But I want to get more involved.”
The unrelenting man smiled, lips curled into a crescent moon.
So this is what it means to be stubborn as a mule.
There was no reasoning with him. Ji-won gave up trying to talk and picked up her bag and the teddy bear she always carried.
“I have another appointment, so let’s wrap this consultation up.”
She never thought she’d be so happy to have a prison visitation appointment.
The moment she left her office, Ji-won jumped into her car like she was fleeing.
As she glanced into the rearview mirror, she saw Tae-jung standing by the roadside, watching her drive off.
“…Why does he look so familiar?”
There was a strange sense of déjà vu. She was certain she had seen that face somewhere before.
“No way. There’s no chance. I’d never cross paths with someone like that.”
They lived in completely different worlds.
Tae-jung and herself—like the sun and the moon—could never belong in the same place.
Ji-won had been discovered on a snowy winter day, left in a baby box outside a church.
The nun who found her said she looked like an angel, smiling while still gripping her uncut umbilical cord.
When Ji-won turned five, she was adopted by a couple in the United States who had been married for over ten years but hadn’t been able to conceive.
That was the first time she learned the words “mom” and “dad.” She thought she’d finally be happy forever.
Though adjusting to life in a strange land like America was hard, young Ji-won tried her best.
Because if she didn’t, they might send her back to Korea.
Years passed, and she thought she had truly become part of the family.
Then came what seemed like a perfectly ordinary happy morning—until her mom suddenly complained of nausea and began dry heaving.
She went to the hospital with her husband.
“Ji-won, guess what? You’re going to have a little sibling!”
Her mother’s glowing face that day—Ji-won could never forget it. She clapped her hands in joy at the news.
“Finally, our own child…”
Her father looked relieved, as if he had just checked off an item on a long to-do list. The house that day was filled with laughter—at least in Ji-won’s memory.
She eagerly awaited the birth of her sibling, unaware that this marked the beginning of the end of her happiness.
“Now that we’ll have our own child, we’re not seriously going to keep raising some kid of unknown origin, are we?”
“Mother, I got pregnant because of that child.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If she wasn’t blood-related to us, maybe. But what if she has evil intentions and does something terrible to our grandchild?”
The atmosphere in the house turned cold overnight.
Ji-won was no longer allowed in the living room she once shared with her parents. Like a criminal, she was confined to her room on the second floor, watched over by her grandmother.
Eventually, she was left alone and sent back to Korea.
Perhaps the shock of being disowned erased most of her childhood memories. She remembered her mom, dad, and grandmother’s faces clearly—but the faces of friends and neighbors had become vague and blurry.
“…Could we have known each other as kids?”
But if that were the case, Tae-jung would’ve recognized her first.
Ji-won shook her head.
To be continued.
