Chapter 1

[Disclaimer: This story contains numerous flashbacks and abrupt transitions, which might make certain events seem disjointed at first glance. To address this, we’ve rephrased some transitions and used three consecutive periods (.) marks as lone paragraphs to distinguish these instances on certain text. Please keep this in mind.]

****

Compared with the accolades his peers had amassed, Lee Jaeha’s life was hardly anything worth boasting about.

The proof was simple.

He was sitting in the very hotel dining room where he had once proposed, preparing to ask for a divorce. Since their wedding, they had reserved this exact table every year for their anniversary. They were not the sort of couple who celebrated birthdays, but they had always shared dinner on this particular date. The fact that Jaeha now found himself requesting the dissolution of their marriage on their anniversary only reinforced how painfully unremarkable his life had become.

Four years had passed since they tied the knot, and throughout that entire time, Jaeha had lived under the assumption that he knew absolutely nothing about the man he had married.

“Who the hell benefits from this divorce?”

The question settled heavily between them. Jaeha genuinely could not understand why his husband was reacting this way. He had prepared the divorce papers entirely for the man’s sake, yet Taegeon was asking who stood to gain from it.

The question left him utterly speechless.

Across the table sat his husband, an Alpha whose unsettling presence made him resemble an apex predator forced to use a dinner knife in place of its fangs. Holding the silver-plated utensil between only his index and middle fingers, the man lifted it with effortless ease.

The immaculate blade plunged into the lamb chop with a vicious stab.

At the aggressive movement, Jaeha instinctively pressed a finger to his brow, stopping it from arching in surprise. He could not begin to fathom what the Alpha opposite him was thinking.

Apparently indifferent to Jaeha’s internal turmoil, the man parted his strikingly soft lips. The corners of his mouth curved faintly upward, but nothing about his expression suggested amusement.

“If I had ever intended to let this marriage end in divorce…” Taegeon fell silent, allowing the suffocating quiet to stretch between them. Then a low growl scraped from his throat. “I wouldn’t have married you in the first place.”

Jaeha summoned the calmest, clearest voice he could manage, desperate to conceal his fluster. “You must understand it too, Division Director Jang. There is no longer any reason to maintain this marriage, and…”

At Jaeha’s words, Jang Taegeon leaned back in his chair and tilted his head, as though the statement had genuinely piqued his curiosity. Despite his loose, relaxed posture, the atmosphere in the room grew oppressively heavy. Even as a fellow Alpha, Jaeha knew that this man had been born fundamentally different from him.

The sudden pressure of Alpha pheromones seeping into the air made Taegeon’s displeasure unmistakable. When calm, his scent carried the faint brininess of sea salt mingled with wild roses blooming along a coastal cliff. Now, however, it resembled an ocean wave thrashing through the heart of a violent storm.

Jaeha had to brace his entire mind against it just to avoid being swept away by the pressure.

Taegeon did not smile when he spoke. “Am I your ‘Division Director,’ Lee Jaeha? Do we work for the same company?”

“The title isn’t the point.”

“Then what the fuck does matter? Because I don’t understand a goddamn thing you’re saying.”

Jaeha froze.

Not once since their wedding had Taegeon spoken so coarsely in front of him. Although his family business dealt in rough, unsavory affairs that frequently skirted the boundaries of social convention, Taegeon had never shown Jaeha that side of himself. He maintained a flawless veneer of civility, one that had never once slipped.

Unless, of course, one counted the dense, encroaching pheromones he used to dominate every space he entered.

Even after four years at his side, three of them formally recognized on paper, Jaeha had never grown accustomed to that raw tension. Every time it surfaced, the same familiar chill crawled down his spine.

For the past several years, the two of them had shared a bed only during Jaeha’s rut.

The act was cold and mechanical, scarcely different from a medical procedure.

The other Alpha’s body was far too large for Jaeha to take easily, which meant he had to prepare himself with deliberate, almost clinical care. Once he was ready, waiting in the darkness and already numb to what would follow, Jang Taegeon would silently take him from behind.

That overwhelming physical dominance alone had always been enough to subdue Jaeha’s rut fever.

The fever did not recede because he felt emotionally fulfilled. Rather, the raw physical contact with Jang Taegeon forced his body chemistry back into balance.

Outside those compulsory encounters, they never touched. They slept in separate bedrooms, avoided one another except at formal functions, and lived like strangers beneath the same roof.

Even their sex life existed solely as an obligation, leaving no space for affection to take root between them. Perhaps Taegeon’s displeasure at the mention of divorce was nothing more than wounded pride, the instinctive resentment of an Alpha who despised losing control.

A sudden wave of futility washed over Jaeha at the thought of having to explain the obvious, but he forced himself to speak.

“I know what you’re thinking, Division Director Jang. But I don’t believe I have anything left to offer you. Yooshin Group is unstable, and I’ve already lost the last of the political connections I once had.”

Taegeon stared at him for a long, expressionless moment.

Jaeha forced himself not to look away.

Entering into this marriage contract had been the product of Lee Jaeha’s own reckless arrogance.

As another Alpha, he could not provide the Jang family with an heir, and the assets he had brought as a dowry had long since been converted into shares in Taegeon’s company. His family’s empire, Yooshin, had once been a formidable conglomerate with numerous affiliates, but it had followed a steady path of decline ever since the wedding.

There was no longer any corporate advantage for Jang Taegeon in remaining married to him.

Jaeha had fought relentlessly for this marriage despite every obstacle, and because of that, he had always carried a profound sense of debt toward Taegeon. This was why he was now letting him go. He had exhausted every bargaining chip he possessed, so the least he could do was return the man’s freedom.

That was the tragic, flickering shape Lee Jaeha’s affection had taken.

Taegeon, however, saw things differently.

“Lee Jaeha-ssi.”

“……”

“I always assumed you were simply a man of few words,” Taegeon said softly. “I didn’t realize you had a talent for making unfunny jokes as well.”

“Division Director Jang.”

“I’m the one who’s been fucking you for four years, yet you’re out there offering your ass to some other bastard of a director? Is that why you refuse to drop the formal title?” Taegeon’s voice hardened. “Tell me. Is your spouse me, or is it one of those dime-a-dozen ‘division directors’ wandering the streets?”

How could there possibly be division directors wandering the streets? The absurd thought crossed Jaeha’s mind with blank sincerity. Someone needs a conglomerate before they can hold that title, and the country is hardly overflowing with massive corporations.

The literal ridiculousness of Taegeon’s accusation registered before the crude insult itself had time to sink in.

As though he had followed the precise path of Jaeha’s thoughts, Jang Taegeon rose from his chair. He fastened the lower button of his suit jacket, planted both hands against the edge of the table, and leaned his massive frame forward. His dark eyes rippled with erratic light.

Jaeha suddenly realized that, in all four years of their marriage, this was the first time he had ever seen Taegeon look at him with such undisguised fury.

“I enjoy living with you as your ‘Honey’ or your ‘Dear.’ Don’t get any strange ideas,” Taegeon warned, his voice dropping into something dangerously quiet. “I have business to attend to. Finish your meal and come out.”

When have we ever lived as ‘Honey’ or ‘Dear’?

Jaeha wanted to shout the question after him, but Taegeon had already turned away, crossed the room in several long strides, and flung open the door.

A server waiting outside with a fresh tray startled and retreated half a step before bowing deeply.

Taegeon looked down at the crown of the employee’s head, his voice slicing through the quiet hallway like a blade of ice.

“Do not disturb him. Leave him alone until he has finished eating.”

With that final command, Taegeon strode away, leaving Jaeha alone before a cooling plate of lamb. His sharp voice continued to reverberate through the corridor as he added, “If he leaves any food behind, tell the head chef to call me personally. I want to hear the voice of the bastard with enough nerve to serve pig slop at these prices.”

Without another word, he stormed out of the private dining area.

Jaeha clenched his jaw and forced his expression into a mask of polite indifference as his gaze met the terrified server’s.

He gave a slight shake of his head. “It isn’t pig slop. The food is fine.”

“Y-yes, sir. Thank you,” the employee stammered.

Jaeha returned home that evening with an empty, sour stomach and absolutely no clarity about the divorce.

Three days later, Jang Taegeon’s grandfather, Chairman Jang Changsik, passed away.

***