Chapter 3

“Jaeha-ssi, look at this.”

“Is that the one? You said you needed something specific.”

Jaeha glanced down at the luxury watch his fiancé had selected. Although the design and price were certainly exclusive, the piece hardly seemed worthy of a dedicated shopping trip. The watch Kim Sumin already wore looked far more expensive, though Jaeha kept that observation to himself.

They both lived the sort of lives in which personal shoppers routinely brought curated collections directly to their offices. For that reason, Jaeha saw little point in objecting when the Omega requested an in-person excursion.

Despite his wandering attention, Jaeha remained consistently kind to his fiancé.

The problem was that his kindness felt utterly hollow, identical to the polite and bloodless detachment he showed his secretaries or the mansion’s housekeeping staff.

Sumin did not seem to mind. The political scion possessed no romantic affection for Jaeha either.

“Please show me this one.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you think?” Sumin asked.

The white-gloved clerk unlocked the glass case, allowing him to hold the timepiece against his wrist.

“Does it suit me?”

“It’s pretty,” Jaeha answered automatically.

In truth, Sumin appeared entirely indifferent to Jaeha’s private thoughts, rendering his lack of enthusiasm inconsequential.

Kim Sumin was the second son of a formidable political dynasty. His grandfather had been a notorious pro-Japanese collaborator who secured the foundations of the family’s wealth, while his father was a three-term member of the National Assembly who ruled over the golden districts of Gangnam.

Sumin was one year older than Jaeha, and their arrangement was entirely strategic. They had originally planned to study abroad together as a formal prelude to their engagement.

It would have been a quiet, uncomplicated route toward a loveless and perfectly calculated marriage.

Then Kim Ranhee intervened, loudly insisting that they were both too young for such a commitment and effectively delaying the inevitable. Perhaps her objection had less to do with their age and more to do with her belief that Kim Sumin was far too exceptional to be wasted as nothing more than Lee Jaeha’s trophy spouse.

By the time Jaeha had grown thoroughly sick of Kim Ranhee’s endless refrain, Our Jaeho needs to secure a partner exactly like Sumin, he had already packed his bags and gone abroad alone.

The engagement briefly fizzled out after that, only to be resurrected as a strategic talking point ahead of Jaeha’s formal promotion to director of the Yooshin Group.

In truth, Sumin was not so much Jaeha’s fiancé as his pre-fiancé, bound to him through a corporate betrothal that existed primarily on paper.

Even so, they were expected to meet on holidays and exchange dull pleasantries, if only to preserve appearances for their respective elders.

Fortunately, the political scion was not as suffocatingly rigid as Jaeha. He frequently found trivial ways to fill their mandatory time together, including that day’s excursion through the luxury boutiques.

“Do you want to meet a friend of mine after this?” Sumin asked while admiring another display case.

“Sure.”

Which friend?

The question flickered briefly through Jaeha’s mind, but he did not bother asking it aloud. Calling it curiosity would have been an exaggeration. Apathy was far more accurate.

For people born into their echelon, personal connections were virtually interchangeable. Sumin and Jaeha moved through the same exclusive circle of politicians, executives, and old-money families.

There was rarely anyone genuinely new worth introducing.

Assuming the friend was merely a college acquaintance, Jaeha followed Sumin out of the department store and into the adjoining luxury hotel without giving it another thought.

It was a profound mistake.

Until a uniformed waiter knocked and pushed open the heavy mahogany door to the private dining room, Jaeha’s mind had been entirely occupied with a planning meeting scheduled for the next day.

The moment he stepped inside behind Sumin, however, a wave of confusion stopped him in his tracks.

Is the friend already here?

Had this been a formal introduction to someone of genuine importance, Jaeha would have been briefed in advance.

Standing motionless just beyond the threshold, he looked over Sumin’s shoulder at the table’s sole occupant.

It was Jang Taegeon.

“He’s my lover,” Sumin announced.

The moment Jaeha heard those words, one of his eyebrows rose involuntarily.

Lover?

Kim Sumin sat far too rigidly beside the massive Alpha to resemble anyone’s lover.

It was not the nervous flutter of someone hoping to impress a partner. It was the stiff, trembling posture of living prey trapped in a cage with an apex predator.

A sharp flicker of doubt pierced Jaeha’s mind, but he said nothing.

Every other sensory detail in the room faded into static. His entire attention narrowed to the man across the table.

Although Taegeon was the only other person present, his physical presence was as overwhelming as Mount Taesan blotting out the sun.

Indoor smoking had long since been prohibited, yet the Alpha rested an unlit cigarette between his lips. He made no move to reach for a lighter. His dark, heavy gaze remained fixed entirely on Jaeha, revealing nothing.

Jaeha was standing while Taegeon remained seated, so simple physics should have granted Jaeha the advantage of height.

Instead, the suffocating pressure in the room made him feel as though he were the one being looked down upon.

Their gazes locked in a silent, abyssal contest of endurance.

Ultimately, the one who broke the tension was neither Alpha, but the room’s only Omega.

“Jaeha, what’s wrong?” Sumin whispered, shifting uneasily. “It’s rude to stare at someone like that.”

If they were going to discuss rudeness, introducing a secret Alpha lover to one’s prospective fiancé without warning seemed far more egregious.

Jaeha kept that observation to himself.

It was not merely Lee Jaeha who lacked affection for their arrangement. He had never felt even the slightest romantic attachment to the Omega. Yet once the marriage papers were signed, Jaeha had fully intended to remain faithful.

Having spent his childhood watching his biological mother suffer through the humiliation of his father’s affairs, he had made a quiet vow never to deceive his own partner.

The fact that Kim Sumin had brought Jang Taegeon here without even attempting to negotiate an open arrangement beforehand was baffling.

Yes, it was bizarre.

Jaeha had every justification to unleash a cold, corporate fury upon them both, yet somehow, his tongue remained heavy.

“We’ve met before.”

The deep rumble of Taegeon’s voice shattered Jaeha’s racing thoughts.

It was rich and dark, like heavy cream poured over black espresso, yet it carried the relentless force of rain hammering the streets at midnight.

The sound alone struck a rhythmic, physical warning against Jaeha’s ribs.

Met before?

Had Jang Taegeon actually noticed him at that vulgar gathering?

Jaeha had assumed he was the only one who had suffered that visceral shock, but it appeared he had been devastatingly wrong.

Caught in a snare of useless realizations, Jaeha failed to return the greeting. He simply remained standing there, completely frozen.

“…Jaeha, you’re acting strange today,” Sumin murmured, shrinking back slightly. “I only introduced you because I thought we might run into each other from time to time, even after our engagement.”

“…Kim Sumin.”

Jaeha had not known his own voice could sound so hollow.

Setting aside the sheer audacity required to ambush a fiancé with a lover, the casual implication that the affair would continue after the wedding was staggering. It did not make Jaeha gag, exactly, but it was repulsive enough to raise goosebumps along his forearms.

His expression hardened into a mask of ice.

This was not a matter of profound romantic betrayal, but neither was he prepared to swallow the insult. What truly surprised him was the realization that he had apparently held some microscopic fragment of trust in Sumin after all.

Sumin had known him for years.

Just as the Omega knew about Jaeha’s severe crustacean allergy, he also knew of Jaeha’s clinical aversion to messy human entanglements. Given the advanced stage of their prospective merger, Sumin’s family probably knew the precise number of silver spoons stored in the Yooshin main residence.

Yet he had still done something like this.

Jaeha fixed Sumin with a cold and punishing stare.

The Omega flinched. He looked immediately flustered, perhaps genuinely frightened, and faintly aggrieved.

Jaeha did not waste his breath demanding an explanation.

Within their social echelon, a single spoken sentence could disrupt millions in corporate interests. Demanding the truth in that moment would have been inefficient.

Instead, Jaeha weaponized his silence.

Under the pressure of that silent demand, Sumin’s lower lip began to tremble.

“Jaeha, I… I didn’t…”

His voice faded before he could finish.

Although his eyes remained dry, he appeared close to breaking down. He bit his lip while desperately searching for an excuse capable of satisfying the massive man who had just shifted in his seat.

The air inside the private room compressed.

Without a single word being spoken, a crushing pressure descended over them.

Jaeha’s gaze snapped back toward Jang Taegeon.

The other Alpha had not made one overtly aggressive movement. Yet the way he watched them, like a spectator forced to endure an unbearably tedious play, was enough to make Jaeha’s skin crawl with instinctive terror.

Sumin opened his mouth, then shut it again.

Jaeha waited another moment, but the Omega offered nothing more.

Apparently amused by the pathetic display, Taegeon leaned back in his chair and interlaced his large fingers over his solid stomach. He observed the fracturing couple with the empty, detached expression of a perfect outsider.

Or perhaps it was the expression of a predator inspecting the quality of the live animal stored in his larder.

His physical presence was too immense to ignore, short-circuiting Jaeha’s ability to think rationally.

People often mistook Jaeha’s emotional detachment for passivity, forgetting that he had been bred into a form of modern aristocracy. He was a master at maintaining the upper hand during high-stakes negotiations, even under immense pressure.

This situation required the same skill.

Both Sumin and Taegeon clearly believed Jaeha’s frozen panic came from the shock of discovering his fiancé’s infidelity.

In reality, Jaeha could not have cared less about the cheating.

He was panicking because the lover was Jang Taegeon.

That terrifying truth could not be allowed to surface.

Forcing himself into a flawless performance, Jaeha violently restrained his gaze, preventing it from drifting back toward the enormous Alpha. The physical effort required to suppress his instincts flushed the corners of his eyes with a faint, furious red.

To anyone watching, he appeared to be a deeply wounded man struggling to contain a terrible rage.

“Sumin, I never imagined a situation like this,” Jaeha said, his voice dripping with absolute frost.

“J-Jaeha…”

“I assumed that even without romance, we could at least conduct ourselves with sincerity. It appears I was the only one acting in good faith.”

“Jaeha, no, that’s not what I…”

Sumin scrambled to deny the accusation, but a sudden glance toward Taegeon caused the Omega to shrink physically into his chair.

Whatever defense he had intended to offer died in his throat.

What the hell is this dynamic?

Jaeha risked a glance toward the head of the table.

Jang Taegeon was doing nothing more than methodically flicking the cap of his silver Zippo lighter open and closed with his thumb.

Click.

Clack.

His face remained an unreadable void.

Sitting with his long legs crossed, Taegeon toyed with the metal casing against his knee.

If the man before him was a lion, then Jaeha was merely a solitary wolf.

Jaeha felt no particular pride in his Alpha biology, but he had spent his entire life at society’s absolute summit. Having his dominance suppressed so completely was intensely irritating, and he was startled to discover that he possessed such raw competitiveness at all.

Is it because of this absurd situation? Am I seriously competing over an Omega?

Even as his mind rejected the ridiculous premise, he found it impossible to ignore Taegeon.

His gaze was drawn magnetically back toward the man’s body.

Warning sirens screamed through Jaeha’s mind, though he could not explain precisely what danger he faced.

In the corporate world, when one could not secure the most advantageous seat at the table, the only intelligent option was to abandon the game entirely.

Since his biological instincts had apparently mutinied, Jaeha hurriedly armored himself in the corporate persona he knew best. He had worn that role for so long that he could execute a retreat without conscious thought.

The board was lost.

Withdrawal was the only tactical choice.

He might resemble a dog fleeing with its tail tucked between its legs, but even that would be preferable to enduring whatever threat this Alpha posed to his sanity.

The instant the decision solidified, Jaeha acted.

He spun on his heel and strode out of the private room.

“Jaeha-ssi!”

He ignored Sumin’s desperate call.

The carpeted corridor of the luxury hotel was wide and spacious, yet the air felt impossibly thin.

Whose pheromones had filled that room?

The scent had been a potent, suffocating mixture of crushed flowers and sharp sea salt. It was far too wild to belong to the political Omega, yet entirely too sweet to suit a corporate thug like Jang Taegeon.

Jaeha passed the elevators and descended the stairs into the grand lobby.

He kept walking until he pushed through the revolving glass doors and emerged into the open air. By the time his rational mind regained control, he had already traveled several blocks beyond the valet parking area.

His phone suddenly vibrated violently inside his suit jacket.

Releasing a shaky breath, Jaeha pulled the device from his pocket and expected to see Sumin’s name on the screen.

Instead, an unfamiliar eleven-digit number glowed against the display.

Jaeha did not answer.

As he stared at the illuminated screen, he knew exactly who was waiting on the other end of the call.

Had it not been for the devastatingly vivid dreams that began that very night, Jaeha might eventually have managed to forget the unfamiliar number.

But Jang Taegeon invaded his sleep.

In those dreams, the massive Alpha was more than willing to strip a completely naked Lee Jaeha down to the very depths of his soul.

It was the genesis of a terrifying and utterly unrecognizable ecstasy.

***