Chapter 44
“This way, Seungwon.”
Seungwon walked toward the table where Jiyoon was sitting, smiling.
“A young person’s kind of place?”
It was a café frequented mostly by younger people—somewhere that didn’t quite suit Seungwon, dressed in his dignified suit.
“It’s a place I used to come to often. The coffee here is good.”
After saying that, Jiyoon added a little awkwardly,
“Of course, it’s probably different in quality from the coffee you usually drink.”
“What difference could there be? I drink the same coffee as everyone else. Shall we order, then?”
“You have to order at the counter here. I’ll go get it.”
“No need. Let’s go together.”
Seungwon and Jiyoon walked side by side to the counter. And watching the two of them, a man wearing a pulled-down bucket hat sat nearby.
So the woman he’s seeing is Kwon Jia?
Juseok, who had been tailing Seungwon to find a weakness, clicked his tongue at this unexpected discovery.
Of course, it was a misunderstanding caused by the fact that Jia and Jiyoon were identical twins with the same face.
“Two iced Americanos, please. Yes.”
After placing the order, Jiyoon turned around—unfortunately, in Juseok’s direction. Startled, Juseok pulled his hat down even further.
Seeing a man she’d never met suddenly lower his hat the moment he noticed her, Jiyoon tilted her head. Wondering if he might be someone she knew, she leaned forward slightly to get a better look—at which point he abruptly jumped up from his seat.
As Jiyoon watched him hurriedly leave, Seungwon lightly tapped her arm.
“Let’s go.”
“Oh—yes.”
Jiyoon followed Seungwon back to their table.
She thought he might be someone Jia knew. Since they were identical twins, people often mistook them for each other.
It’s probably nothing.
Brushing off the incident, Jiyoon sat back down.
“You must be very busy these days. How have you been?”
“I’m always the same. What about you, Jiyoon?”
“I recently started reading. Every morning, I read exactly ten pages and hand-copy one page from it. When I do that, the passage really sinks into my heart.”
“You’re nourishing your mind instead of your body. That’s so like you, Jiyoon. What’s money, really? A person’s heart matters much more.”
Jiyoon’s eyes widened at the unexpected praise.
She had grown up constantly being told she was lacking compared to Jia. Same face, but why was she so out of touch with reality, why didn’t she think about working—her parents still nagged her about it even now.
“That’s surprising. My family always says I’m wasting my time.”
“How is that a waste? If I had the time, I’d like to do things like that too.”
As he spoke, Seungwon looked at Jiyoon with eyes full of trust.
Jiyoon met his gaze, wondering if this was a dream. How could someone be this perfect?
Of all the men she’d met, Seungwon was the most gentle and considerate. From what she could tell, he had more money than she could even imagine. She wondered if all her past failed relationships had simply been hardships meant to lead her to this man.
“In my eyes, Jiyoon is someone who knows how to invest her time properly. I have a good eye for people.”
“Really? Thank you. You should try it too, if you ever have the time.”
“I really wish I had that time.”
It wasn’t that Seungwon lacked free time. His subordinates handled all the work, so he could afford to be leisurely—but he was too busy indulging in drinking, gambling, and golf.
Most of the time he called “working” was spent on one of those three.
“You’re always busy, Seungwon. But that’s what makes you impressive. Of course, my younger sibling is busy too, but not impressive at all.”
“You have a sibling?”
“Yes. A sibling who looks just like me, but is nothing like me otherwise. The nagging started when we were kids and never stopped. Even now, it’s the same. No matter how useless I tell them it is, they’re always scrambling. Just seeing them makes me feel suffocated.”
As Jiyoon shrugged, Seungwon suddenly thought of a sibling who wasn’t really a sibling.
He had never treated him like one. Mixed blood, different from his own—just a lowly bastard in his eyes. Whenever that boy brought home a report card showing he was ranked first in the entire school, it only made Seungwon scoff.
He believed his father thought the same way. They hadn’t left him on the streets, but once he became an adult, they would give him something appropriate to his station and send him away.
That belief was why he’d stayed silent, even feeling uneasy about his father giving Seungwoo an entire hotel—trusting that one day, he’d be cast out anyway.
That silence turned out to be a mistake.
You have to give him something, or it’ll cause trouble later anyway. We were planning to sell it off eventually—might as well make a show of it.
That was what Seungwon’s mother, Misuk, had said to calm him down. Seungwon believed she was right.
What could Seungwoo even do with a hotel?
But when that hotel miraculously rose to prominence in just five years, Chairman Jung’s gaze toward Seungwoo seemed to change.
He started inviting him to family gatherings he’d never attended before. Then there were even times when Chairman Jung met Seungwoo alone, behind Seungwon’s back.
When Seungwon’s own misdeeds were finally discovered and he was sent abroad for a while, his sense of crisis only grew stronger.
I can’t let this continue.
He felt that Seungwoo would eventually grab him by the ankle and drag him down.
If Seungwoo hadn’t inherited the hotel, if he hadn’t achieved what he had, Seungwon wouldn’t have been sent overseas over something so trivial.
Gambling a little, switching drivers to avoid a DUI—does it make sense for the son of a conglomerate family to be exiled abroad over that?
Especially when his father-in-law, the Prosecutor General, had already taken care of everything.
“I know what it feels like to be suffocated.”
“You do too, Seungwon? Then we really seem to be on the same wavelength.”
Seeing Jiyoon smile broadly, Seungwon smiled back.
He didn’t expect anything serious from her. A woman like this, with no money and nothing but youth, was someone to enjoy casually. If he coaxed her gently with money, she’d eventually come around.
He and his wife—married through a strategic arrangement—had been living separately for a long time already.
Of course, he didn’t plan to see Jiyoon for long either. Once he got bored, he’d say work required a long business trip and cut off contact.
“So you’re saying our connection can overcome the age gap?”
“Age is just a number. You didn’t know that?”
While watching Jiyoon smile, Seungwon leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. Her eyes widened in surprise, and he looked at her as if she were adorable.
“Shall we go to a hotel?”
“A hotel?”
Seeing Jiyoon’s round eyes, Seungwon let out a low sigh.
Am I really being this generous, and she still doesn’t get it?
The thought irritated him, but he didn’t show it.
Still, if this continued, it felt like the relationship would become endlessly dull—something Seungwon didn’t want.
He hoped that today would be the last time they sat face to face in a café, chatting about trivial things.
To make that happen, he needed to be forceful.
“You don’t think I’m the kind of man who only cares about that, do you?”
“Of course not. Not at all.”
Jiyoon shook her head quickly.
“Next time, I’d rather you not be so surprised when I suggest a hotel. It hurts my pride a little.”
At his words, Jiyoon frowned.
“I’m sorry.”
“Let’s just finish our coffee and go today. I’m a bit busy this afternoon.”
Watching Seungwon stand up without hesitation, Jiyoon bit down on her lower lip. It wasn’t something to be that shocked over. Too-late regret struck her hard.
“Jia.”
On a dull Monday afternoon, Juseok approached Jia, who was standing at the front desk, wearing a friendly smile. Jia looked at him, visibly tense.
Haijin and Yoonseo’s warnings flashed through her mind one after another. They hadn’t explained everything, but Jia wasn’t clueless—she knew Juseok wasn’t the same person she’d known before.
Telling herself to stay calm, Jia pressed her lips together and looked at the area around Juseok’s tie.
“Kwon Jia.”
Juseok walked straight up to her and spoke.
“What time do you get off today?”
“Yes? Is there something you need?”
“See me after work.”
As he spoke, tapping the desk lightly, Jia replied without meeting his eyes.
“I’m sorry, but I already have plans today.”
Lowering his gaze, Juseok took something out of his pocket. Jia’s eyes widened when she saw the photo on his phone.
“I didn’t want to see it, but I ended up seeing it.”
It was a photo of Jiyoon buying coffee with Seungwon at a café. Jia immediately recognized that the woman in the photo was Jiyoon—but to Juseok, who didn’t know the circumstances, it would look like Jia.
Jia still didn’t know Seungwon. To her, the man in the photo looked quite old at a glance. She understood why Jiyoon had said he was fine except for his age—his clothes were neat and refined, and clearly luxury brands anyone could recognize.
Thinking that he somehow felt similar to Seungwoo, yet different, Jia lifted her head.
“Do you know who this person is before meeting him?”
At Juseok’s question, Jia’s lips parted slightly.
She almost said it wasn’t her but her older sister. But she felt she needed to know who the man was first, so she asked,
“Who is he?”
“CEO Jung Seungwon. Our boss’s older brother.”
Jia’s mouth fell open.
She knew Jung Seungwon was married.
This is insane. Completely insane. She was seeing a married man.
“Looks like you didn’t know. Make some time. It’ll be better that way.”
Without giving her a chance to say anything else, Juseok brushed past her and walked away. Jia let out a quiet sigh.
If she avoided this now, she felt the anger would eventually fall on her sister as well.
