TNS 02

Chapter 2

Even when facing Yunseo, Sunjae had been wearing a faint smile, but now all traces of laughter vanished from his face as his eyes opened in a lazy, dangerous slant. Beneath that dark gaze, restrained anger and an obsessive need for control crossed paths.

“Our Manager Ha’s self-sacrificing spirit is so admirable, I ought to hand her a fat bonus.”

Flustered, Yunseo remained frozen, unable to interject a single word.

“By the way, Yunseo.”

“……”

Cold emotion bled into every softly enunciated syllable.

“I’m really not too thrilled about your self-sacrifice.”

Quick-witted as she was, Ha Yunseo must have realized it by now—the fact that he had already seen right through the entire unfolding situation. Like someone looking down from above with complete foresight, Sunjae casually pressed on with his questioning.

“Did you really have enough free time to do things I never asked you to do?”

“…Executive Director, I just…”

Yunseo barely managed to part her lips to offer an explanation, but her next sentence was cut off by Sunjae’s controlled voice.

“With a brain as smart as yours, why didn’t you spend your energy figuring out how to wring more out of me instead?”

On the surface, his words sounded almost like advice from a boss or a senior in life. Yet the underlying tone, the arrangement of his words, and the low resonance of his voice conveyed an entirely different dimension of emotion.

If this were Cha Sunjae—the man who used to give his whole heart to Ha Yunseo—she would have simply interpreted it as a boss’s sincere concern for an employee grinding herself down with work.

However, it somehow felt subtler, as if he had artfully bypassed the core issue with a strangely altered nuance. A microscopic crack appeared in Yunseo’s gaze as her eyes trembled faintly.

“Executive Director, I think you’re misunderstanding my intention. What I mentioned earlier was—”

She had barely managed to open her mouth, but once again, she couldn’t finish her sentence. Sunjae had pressed his lips to her soft, fair nape, noisily sucking at her skin.

Cha Sunjae—a man who had always persistently bitten and sucked at the parts covered by her clothes while ensuring he never left a single visible mark where it could be seen—was now leaving loud, wet marks on Yunseo’s porcelain-white skin.

“Ah…!”

Losing her balance, Yunseo grabbed Sunjae’s arms to steady herself. Running his tongue up her delicate neck in a firm, sweeping stroke, Sunjae pulled her waist close against his chest.

“I appreciate you trying to work behind my back, but from my perspective, it’s a bit unpalatable.”

Yunseo squeezed his shirt fabric tightly, trying to swallow her gasps as she found it difficult to endure his soft, scattering voice and the slowly mounting heat creeping up her body.

“It’s just pathetic to share a single woman with my cousin, no matter how I look at it.”

Overlaying his lips once more on the red bite marks already scattered messily over her fair skin, Sunjae murmured in a chillingly cold voice that carried a clear warning:

“Don’t step in trying to play helper with your clumsy attempts, Yunseo.”

Tearing off the shirt he had painstakingly put on, Sunjae grabbed the front of Yunseo’s rumpled blouse and ripped it open.

In an instant, her chest—gently swelling beneath—was fully exposed. As if proving the sensuously tangled night they had shared, red traces he had left behind still mottled her flesh.

“You told me you wanted to see me for a long time.”

And yet she talks so easily about marrying Cha Junhyung with a body like this. As if she’s forgotten every single vow I uttered while we made love day after day.

Their two overlapping bodies slid and tumbled onto the neatly made bed. As he pressed his body against hers with urgent force, Ha Yunseo let out a slow exhale and whispered softly:

“…Executive Director, it’s almost time for work.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

Even in a situation like this, Ha Yunseo didn’t say she disliked it—she merely worried about being late for work. Disliking everything about her reaction, Sunjae pressed his weight down on her as if punishing her.

“You said you wanted to marry that other bastard. But you sure seem to love doing this with me.”

There was only one moment when Cha Sunjae took off his mask. Normally, he showed even Ha Yunseo a neatly packaged, artificial face, but on the bed, he drove her relentlessly like a beast stripped of reason. It wasn’t some peculiar sexual desire; it was Cha Sunjae’s true nature.

It was a primitive instinct embedded deep within him, serving as a compensatory psychological release for everything he had suppressed his entire life.

“E-Executive Director…”

Ha Yunseo, who appeared reserved and quiet on the surface, also shed her mask on the bed. Whenever they engaged in this act, she never restrained herself, never hid her desires, and never held back her moans. Instead, she would cling to him desperately with an unreservedly honest expression.

“Ah, ngh!”

As the pressure holding her wrists slackened slightly, Yunseo immediately reached out, wrapping her arms around Sunjae’s neck to pull him down, laying bare her deep-seated desire without holding back.

A heightened moan spilled from between Yunseo’s lips.

“Hold your posture right.”

It was a brutal relationship driven purely by instinct. Even though she had brazenly brought up the idea of being held by another man, Sunjae hugged Ha Yunseo close as she lay wrapped in his arms, taking her more violently than usual.

He thought that treating her mercilessly—as if inflicting punishment—would soothe his anger a little, but somehow, the dark, twisting emotion deep inside his chest refused to settle.

“No more… please…”

Sunjae quietly looked down at her long hair swaying softly in the air. Under normal circumstances, this entire scene would have satisfied him beyond measure, but even while crushing her beneath him now, Sunjae ground his teeth, unable to handle the surging disgust within.

Emotions like composure and anger, bewilderment and obsession, lingering attachment and hatred tangled messily, clouding his mind.

Now, everything about Ha Yunseo felt suspicious. Where had it gone wrong? Or rather, since when had she been deceiving him? Was it from the moment she seduced and enticed him with those scandalously sultry eyes? Or was it from the day before her college graduation when he had unexpectedly brought her into his home?

Ever since he received the report revealing that the woman who naturally shared his bed every night was nothing more than an informant who painstakingly gathered every piece of information to hand over to Vice President Cha Ikhyeon, his emotions had been riding a wild roller coaster.

Having learned early in life that the world is a place built on betrayal, he had lived relying solely on himself. And yet, the only person Cha Sunjae had trusted without a single doubt was Ha Yunseo.

Though they had never officially dated, hadn’t they engaged in sweet, ticklish interactions akin to romance, filling in the voids within each other? Without a word of exaggeration, he was ready to reveal even his bank account PIN to Ha Yunseo. He never imagined he would be stabbed in the back like this—by the very woman to whom he had surrendered his entire self.

The crashing wave of betrayal was beyond anything he could describe, driving him to a singular resolve: he had to see it. He wanted to strip away every layer of this woman crying beneath him in utter ignorance, forcing her to crawl in the lowest gutter.

Since he was already an expert at disguising his expressions in front of others, uttering sweet words that Ha Yunseo liked to hear was hardly a challenge for him.

Only after pushing Yunseo to the brink—until she wept and begged him to stop—did Sunjae finally release her from his embrace. Back when they slept together out of mutual affection, her desperate pleading had been endearing. But ever since learning that Ha Yunseo was envisioning a secure future with Cha Junhyung, he felt none of that affection.

If anything, Sunjae intended to push Ha Yunseo to her absolute limits to break her mentally. Given that she had dared to stand by Cha Ikhyeon and Cha Junhyung right in front of him, this level of punishment was mild. Yet, seeing Ha Yunseo pinned beneath him, unable to stop crying, he felt an unnecessary softness creep into his heart.

With no other choice, he headed straight to the Executive Director’s office first, intending to crush Cha Ikhyeon and Cha Junhyung before anything else.