Impossible Romance - Chapter 3

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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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3.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. I’m not that helpless child anymore.”
My voice carried a quiet resolve. I absolutely could not fall back under Kwon Seok-ha’s control.
“Jun-hee, look at me.”
“….”
“Now.”
At his repeated command, I lifted my head to meet his gaze. Even as he sat on the sofa, he loomed impossibly tall and vast in my eyes.
“Did you forget already? When I speak, you answer yes—nothing more.”
My pupils trembled almost imperceptibly.
“I’ve earned recognition at Daegwang. I’m trying not to burden you, sir. This situation was simply unavoidable.”
I mustered what little strength I could to convince him, even as resentment burned in my chest. Why did I need his permission for anything? The question gnawed at me.
Kwon Seok-ha rose slowly from the sofa and approached. The tall man commanded the room in mere steps, radiating an overwhelming presence that made it seem as though he could crush me in his palm.
He leaned close, bowing his head toward me. When the cool fragrance of his cologne mingled with his warm scent at the tip of my nose, he whispered against my ear.
“If you defy me, you get punished. You’ve forgotten that too?”
Kwon Seok-ha slowly lifted his head from me. His sharp eyes, set in that commanding height, bore down as though ready to devour me.
As always, his word was law to me. I had fled from him because I despised that law, believing it freedom. But to him, it had been nothing but recklessness. That’s why I hated him.
“This was simply part of my job.”
“Your job is to shower some bastard in a hotel room?”
Kwon Seok-ha’s expression twisted. Anger that rarely surfaced became blatantly visible. The reddened skin of his neck and the taut tendons beneath showed he was barely restraining his fury.
“It was only for today….”
I tried to offer some small excuse, but the words died in my throat.
“You expect me to just watch the girl I kept around clean up after some other bastard? You think that’s going to work on me? Really?”
Kwon Seok-ha turned his head slightly, looking down at me from above, and I could feel the emotions he was forcibly suppressing from within.
“We’re already over….”
“Who said we’re dating?”
My attempt to correct the facts crumbled before him once again.
“No.”
As I lowered my head, my mouth turned bitter.
Had we ever even dated in the first place?
The realization that I had laid bare those hollow days without filter made my cheeks burn with shame and humiliation.
“I said you were the girl I kept around. Or was it that you kept me around? Throughout our entire acquaintance, you ate, wore, and lived off my money—and at the end, you made one last big score and disappeared. That’s what happened.”
“….”
“You stabbed me in the back and vanished, and now you’re calmly looking after that bastard. If I’m not furious, am I even human? Are you doing this on purpose? Do you think I’m some kind of fool?”
Kwon Seok-ha bared his teeth for a moment, then slowly released them.
I felt that brief instant fully, tensing beneath the weight of shame. There was nothing wrong with what he said.
Of course, I had never kept him around—but perhaps he saw it that way. I had offered no explanation then, and I could offer none now.
“…Nothing happened with him. And nothing will happen in the future either.”
I had no obligation to clarify my relationship with Kim Sung-woo, yet I spoke in a small voice.
“My decision is final. Don’t back down.”
Kwon Seok-ha tilted his head as if he understood everything in her heart. Having regained his composure, his expression softened and a faint smile played at the corners of his lips.
“Please reconsider. The Madam won’t approve of this.”
Jun-hee raised her final shield like a cow being dragged to slaughter. She reminded him that Kwon Seok-ha’s mother, Han Seon-young, did not favor her.
“Are you trying to turn me into a mama’s boy now? How bold of you. Better than being labeled a problem child, a tyrant, or whatever image Seon-jin has. It’s actually quite endearing.”
Kwon Seok-ha, who had been scoffing, now laughed with his eyes wide open. Yet beneath his crescent-shaped eyes, a sharp glint still gleamed.
All strength drained from Jun-hee’s body. She remembered just how willful this man truly was.
Knock, knock.
Right on cue, a hotel staff member entered with the knock and set down coffee and refreshments. Kwon Seok-ha’s secretary, stationed somewhere, must have given the order. The staff member departed as quietly as they had arrived, offering a polite greeting.
Kwon Seok-ha lifted his coffee with an indifferent gesture and took a sip. To any observer, it would have looked like he was on a leisurely date.
Jun-hee thought this was the perfect moment to escape. If she missed this window, she might be led away by him like a bull with a ring through its nose.
“I understand what you’re saying, Executive Director. However, I need time to prepare as well. I’ve arranged to meet the Secretary’s Office Director at the book launch event. I should leave now.”
“Fine.”
He nodded and readily granted permission. Though he was a willful Chaebol Family heir, his demeanor when at ease was always elegant.
“And this.”
Jun-hee pulled out a 50,000 won note from her wallet and placed it before Kwon Seok-ha.
“What’s this?”
Kwon Seok-ha’s brow furrowed immediately.
“It’s for the hotel coffee. I can’t owe you even this much. Keep the change.”
“Ha. Why don’t you just say it’s payment for me saving you?”
“That works too. I have things to take care of, so I’ll leave first.”
Jun-hee glanced at her portion of coffee and turned away before he could say anything more.
She wondered if he understood that she didn’t want to be indebted to him, not even for a single cup of coffee.
Fearing he might try to stop her, she moved faster than usual.
“Ha.”
Kwon Seok-ha stared at the 50,000 won note before him and let out an exasperated breath.
‘Give her an inch and she takes a mile?’
He didn’t realize that this only strengthened his resolve to bring her to him.
He erased the smile lingering at his lips and watched Jun-hee’s retreating figure disappear from the room.
She still had that reckless streak. No, she was a woman now. But that audacious spirit from childhood surfaced so unexpectedly and abruptly.
She stirred his heart.
Kwon Seok-ha raised one eyebrow slightly, then scratched it. He barely managed to suppress the laughter threatening to burst forth, his lips twitching.
That little girl who had defied him so fiercely at the Villa during his adolescence was a new source of amusement for him. A delicacy he had never tasted in the City.
When he discovered that the Villa he had guarded like his life was his own property, little Ahn Joon-hee’s bewildered expression had been almost too precious to witness alone.

“Call me Young Master.”
“I don’t want to….”
“You have to.”
“…Young Master. Is that enough?”

He set down his coffee, and a crooked smile played at the corner of his mouth. Even that twisted expression was so captivating that a single glance could ensnare you. Standing in his ash-gray suit, he resembled a living work of art.
Just then, the door opened and Hwang Gang-jik, the Secretary’s Office director, entered.
“Executive Director, I’ve completed the task you instructed.”
“Good.”
“Has something fortunate happened?”
Hwang Gang-jik asked casually while observing Kwon Seok-ha’s expression.
“Does it look that way?”
“Yes.”
Finally, one corner of Kwon Seok-ha’s mouth escaped his control and curved upward in a full smile. For the first time in ages, a surge of dopamine flooded through his entire body.
“Four years was far too long, wasn’t it?”
At the question posed without any preceding context, Hwang Gang-jik’s eyes widened before he nodded in understanding.
“Yes.”
It was his way of confirming he fully grasped Kwon Seok-ha’s meaning.

***

“Sigh… Did I really need to do that?”
As I arrived at the venue for the book launch event, having left the Business Room far behind, a small wave of regret washed over me.
Handing Kwon Seok-ha fifty thousand won might have been nothing more than a reckless impulse. The memory of living off his money since childhood kept surfacing in my mind.
I was the daughter of a villa caretaker. The grand and beautiful villa was our family’s livelihood, and we all clung to it as if our lives depended on it. So when I discovered that the villa’s owner was Kwon Seok-ha, someone my own age, the shock was overwhelming.
That’s why I never wanted to owe him anything. My family had already spent enough years depending on him and his family.
But today, there was something else gnawing at my heart beyond that.
Frustrated, I closed my eyes and then opened them again.
‘Should I just run away?’

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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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