Contract Marriage with a Male Friend - Chapter 37

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#37

Not long after Pyo Yeon-su and Oh Sang-chul left the Cafe, Beom-jin and Sui also stepped outside.
Beom-jin glanced at his phone screen and took her hand, leading her toward his car.
“I should probably get back now.”
“Did you forget what the chairman said? He told you to see your husband off properly—nice and slow, so he wouldn’t feel neglected.”
“He didn’t put it quite that way.”
“Stay a little longer with me. I want to.”
He tilted his head, a question forming on his face.
He looked exactly like a large puppy begging for affection.
Before she could stop herself, Sui had thought him adorable—and now her eyes went wide, her head shaking vigorously.
No, cancel that thought.
No one could read her mind, yet somehow Sui felt embarrassed. She cleared her throat and spoke with studied indifference.
“Fine. Do as you like.”
Beom-jin laughed aloud at her pouty expression.
Sui had always been weak to that look—and only he knew it.
Why was she so endearing? Enough to make a person lose his mind.
The moment he settled into the car, Beom-jin pulled her close and kissed her everywhere his lips could reach.
Sui started to push him away with a protest, but then the word “surveillance” flickered through her mind, and she swallowed her racing heartbeat, deciding instead to let herself be held.
They’d been like this every moment they were together anyway, so somehow this position had become comfortable.
‘I shouldn’t get too used to this.’
At that dim, pressing thought—like dark clouds gathering—Sui forced her gaze away.
“What should I wear to a party like that?”
“Whatever. Just something formal.”
Your idea of “whatever” and mine are probably worlds apart.
……
Beom-jin touched her cheek thoughtfully and murmured, “Let’s pick out your dress on Friday.”
“I’ll have to go to the department store, won’t I?”
“No. Just come straight from work.”
“What are you talking about?”

He only smiled, mysterious and knowing.
“What is it? Tell me.”
“You’ll find out on Friday.”
“Seriously.”
“If you really want to know.”
He tapped his cheek with one finger.
“Nothing in this world is free.”
So that’s what the rich do—they extract a price for everything.
With that thought, Sui hesitated only briefly before leaning in and kissing his cheek with a soft peck.
“There. Now tell me.”
“I’m not even sure what grazed me.”
She gave him a sharp look, then pressed her lips against his cheek longer this time.
“That better count?”
“Could go either way.”
Her cheeks flushed slightly, Sui shot him another glare, and as she brought her lips to his cheek once more—
He turned his head, and their lips met.
The moment the gap opened, he thrust his tongue inside, as if he’d been waiting for exactly this moment, and began to unravel her.
He wound around her startled tongue as it tried to flee, drawing it hard into his mouth, then sharpened the point of his tongue and scraped the tender inside of her cheek and the roof of her mouth.
He traced the inside of her cheek until it bulged outward, then softened and tangled his tongue with hers, soothing the raw flesh.
Each time his large hand gripped her jaw and pulled deeper, Sui held tight to his shoulders, bracing herself.
As if she might be swept away somewhere.
Haah, ha……
Sui exhaled in shallow breaths, her face flushed crimson.
Along with the sticky thread still connecting them, Beom-jin softly claimed her lower lip once more.
“So it was our lips that touched,” he murmured playfully, voice low.
He laughed.
“N-now tell me.”
“Why should I?”
“What?”
“You should have kissed me back properly.”
Her mouth open in disbelief, frozen, she was so endearing that Beom-jin pulled her tight against him, laughing.
“Seriously.”
“It’s a preview.”
“A preview of what?”
“The world you’re about to enter.”
He twirled her soft hair around his fingers, speaking as if reciting poetry. “The kind where you always have to watch your back.”

***

“Damn it!”
Bang!
The moment he returned to the Office, Dok-go Seung-jin hurled his Crystal Name Plate across the room.
It fell to the floor with a dull crack, fracturing along the surface.
Right across the character for “Executive,” crisp and clear.
“After all that careful vetting, there’s still a rat in the works? How the hell did that bastard find out I changed my schedule?”
“I apologize, Executive.”
“Listen here, you incompetent fool. If you’re a director, you should do your damn job right!”
The secretary director lowered his head deeply.
But Dok-go Seung-jin’s fury was far from spent. He spat crude oaths and breathed hard through gritted teeth.
This made no sense.
Deciding to go see the woman Beom-jin was supposed to marry had been pure impulse.
On the way to inspect a site in Guri, he’d learned that her Office was in the same area, and since a subcontractor’s office was in the same building, he’d thought it convenient and rerouted his schedule.
But before he could even glimpse Beom-jin or the woman, his ankle had been cut out from under him.

“Executive, the A-Audit Team is on the line. They’re saying parts of the inspection report don’t match the actual site conditions……”
“What? I thought the director Kim handled that cleanly?”
“They’re s-specifically asking for clarification on how minor defects were downgraded, and…… they’re saying some construction payments were dispersed across multiple accounts, and they want to trace the cash flow……”

These were things that had slipped through without issue for years—almost standard practice.
But now they were surfacing.
On the very day he’d decided to go see Beom-jin’s fiancée, no less.
Then Dok-go Seung-jin’s eyes snapped open, gleaming.
“Tear apart the entire Office. The hallways too.”
“Sir? I don’t understand……”
“Find the Surveillance Devices! Tear the car apart! Check underneath the chassis, between the wheel spokes, every corner of the trunk!”
“Y-yes, sir!”
Unable to contain his rage, Dok-go Seung-jin screamed. His breathing came hard and fast, the whites of his eyes crisscrossed with red veins like scratches.
“You’re listening right now, aren’t you, you son of a bitch! You’ve been holed up somewhere since you left home, and now you crawl back in—why?!”
Crash, bang—smash!
Dok-go Seung-jin grabbed whatever he could reach—a flowerpot, a chair, an ashtray from the sofa—and hurled it all.
Several employees who’d come in to search for the devices were struck or cut by the flying objects, but he paid them no mind.
His head was so full of rage toward Beom-jin that nothing else registered.
“Do you think everything will go your way? It won’t. Not anymore. Especially not with that despicable woman you’re bringing in. She will never be part of this family. No, she’ll never belong in this world at all. What could a creature like her possibly be fit for?”
These days, Grandfather’s affection was fixed on Beom-jin, and he himself was falling behind in performance.
Once the reins had loosened, Dok-go Seung-jin’s restraint crumbled fast.
No matter how much Beom-jin railed and pushed, he was the First-born Son.
Grandfather was only being patient because of guilt over his dead Uncle; there was no doubt he’d already marked himself as the Successor in his heart.
That’s why he’d been forgiven for his mistakes, again and again.
Beom-jin was nothing but a tool to provoke him.
‘But if he keeps stumbling like this, things could get truly dangerous.’
Hadn’t Father himself said so?
Beom-jin’s recent movements were not normal.
Even Grandfather was watching him closely.
But this marriage to that woman would bring Beom-jin crashing down.

“So if we put pressure on the woman, Beom-jin will naturally back off, is that right?”
“Exactly. How can he win a pillow-talk war? Once the woman starts whining that she can’t take it, that bastard will fold. The man who came back from America, ran away, even laundered his Identity just to have that woman—he’ll cave.”

In this world, how hard could it be to brush off some worthless insect of a woman who doesn’t even match my station?
‘The woman you chose will drag your life down into the abyss, Beom-jin.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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