JIAH POV
"This is my resignation."
My voice doesn't shake.
He doesn't speak. He simply nods once and picks it up, opening it with slow precision like it's just another document in a stack of hundreds.
He starts reading.
The silence stretches, thick but not awkward. I stand there in front of him, chin lifted, hands relaxed at my sides.
He finishes.
Then he looks up at me.
"Where's the money?"
I blink. "Money?"
He leans back in his chair, one corner of his mouth lifting slightly as his fingers tap against the paper.
"The compensation."
I stare at him for a second before the words come out of my mouth. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
His smirk deepens slowly, the kind that doesn't reach his eyes at all. "The compensation money, Ms. Seo. I really hope you read your contract."
My eyebrows pull together. "I don't know what you're talking about."
He studies me like he's watching something mildly interesting, not like I threw papers at his face yesterday and hit him with an ID card.
Then he says calmly, "According to the contract you signed before the coronation ceremony, there's a clause. If the employee resigns before the end of the contract term, the employee must compensate the company three billion won."
The number sits in the air like a gunshot.
I let out a short laugh before I can stop myself. "You're joking."
His eyebrow lifts slightly and that smirk stays exactly where it is. "Am I?"
My stomach tightens because he doesn't look like a man joking. He looks like a man who set something up months ago and has been waiting patiently for this exact moment.
"I never read a clause like that in my contract," I say, my voice sharper now. "You can't just make that up now."
"Is that so?" he says quietly.
He opens the drawer of his desk and pulls out a folder, then stands up and walks around the table like this conversation is just another business meeting.
He leans against the edge of the desk in front of me and flips open the contract, his finger sliding across the page until it stops at a paragraph halfway down.
"Clause 7.4," he reads slowly. "If the employee voluntarily terminates employment before completion of the contractual service term, the employee agrees to compensate the company for operational losses, recruitment costs, and executive confidentiality risk, totaling three billion Korean won."
My ears start ringing.
He continues without hurry, his voice calm and precise like he's presenting a report in a boardroom. "The clause also states the employee waives dispute rights if the contract was signed voluntarily in the presence of company legal counsel and HR."
My heartbeat is loud enough I can hear it inside my skull.
He closes the folder and looks at me again. "Are we clear now?"
The words barely come out of my mouth. "I don't have that much money."
His smirk returns instantly. "Then you will do what I say and continue serving as my secretary until the contract term ends."
The anger hits so hard my hands start shaking again. "You are a monster."
He tilts his head slightly, almost amused. "I'm a businessman, Ms. Seo. What exactly did you expect?"
"I'm not paying you that money and I'm not staying here," I snap.
He shrugs lightly. "Then we proceed legally."
The calmness in his tone makes my chest tighten.
"If the company files a contractual breach case," he continues, "the court can enforce debt recovery, asset seizure, and criminal liability for executive information exposure. In simple terms, Ms. Seo, prison becomes a possibility."
The word hits me like cold water.
"How can you be like this?" I ask before I even realize I said it.
The smirk disappears from his face completely. His eyes go flat and dark in a way that feels worse than the smile.
"Do you think I'm going to show you empathy?" he says quietly. "Or sympathy?"
My vision blurs and I hate it instantly. I hate that my body reacts like this in front of him, like my eyes betray me no matter how hard I try to hold it together.
He watches the tears forming like he's observing weather.
"Welcome to Daeyeon Holdings, Secretary Ms. Seo."
My throat burns. "I hope you never sleep peacefully."
Something shifts in his eyes for a fraction of a second.
Then he reaches for something on the table and holds it up between his fingers.
My ID card.
The same one I threw at his face yesterday.
He walks toward me slowly, stopping right in front of me until I can feel the heat from his body.
His eyes scan my face for a moment, taking in the red around my eyes and the way I'm barely holding myself together.
Then he lifts the lanyard and places it back around my neck.
His fingers brush the back of my collar as he fastens it, and his face moves closer until his breath touches my ear.
"I hope you will wish for hell more than this job," he whispers quietly.
My head snaps toward him in shock.
He pulls back with a slow smile that looks almost pleasant.
"Welcome back," he says lightly. "Now please do your job properly."
He walks away from me like nothing happened and sits behind his desk again, already opening another file.
For a few seconds I just stand there, staring at him like I'm looking at someone I've never met before in my life.
How the hell does someone become this person in ten years?
My heart feels like it's cracking open inside my chest.
I bow anyway. My body moves automatically even though my hands are shaking and tears are sliding down my face.
"Understood, sir."
My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.
I turn and walk out of the office before my legs give out.
The moment the door closes behind me, I head straight for the restroom and lock myself inside the nearest stall.
The second the latch clicks, the tears finally break loose and I press my hand against my mouth to stop the sound.
Three billion won.
My fingers clutch the ID card hanging from my neck like it's a chain.
And the worst part isn't the money.
The worst part is that he planned this long before I ever walked back into his life.
The restroom mirror shows a woman I barely recognize. My makeup is ruined, my eyes swollen red, and the ID card still hangs from my neck like a leash I can't cut off.
I grip the sink harder than necessary and stare at my own reflection like it might explain how the hell my life just collapsed in one morning.
It wasn't an accident.
The thought sits heavy and ugly in my chest while the fluorescent lights buzz above me and someone laughs somewhere outside the door like the world didn't just shift under my feet.
Out of thousands of employees in this company, out of every qualified secretary they could have assigned to the new CEO, they handed the position to me.
He handpicked me.
A cold laugh escapes my mouth before I can stop it. Of course he did, because nothing about this situation is coincidence anymore and that contract clause proves it better than anything else.
Three billion won sitting neatly inside the document like a trap waiting for the exact moment I tried to run.
He knew.
The bastard knew I would try to quit.
Anger burns through my chest so fast my hands start shaking again, and I press them flat against the counter to steady myself.
He stands there looking at me like I'm some stranger who walked into his office yesterday, like he doesn't remember a single thing from ten years ago.
Bullshit.
He remembers everything.
I push away from the sink and wipe my face roughly with paper towels before leaving the restroom, ignoring the curious looks from two employees standing near the hallway.
The elevator ride back down to the lobby feels like it takes an hour even though the numbers change normally.
The doors open and I walk out like a machine.
The rest of the day passes in pieces I can't even put together properly. Phone calls blur into meetings, meetings blur into documents, and people keep talking to me like nothing is wrong while my head feels like it's filled with broken glass.
At some point someone hands me coffee requests for the executive floor and I almost laugh.
Three billion won.
The number keeps repeating in my head like a broken recording while I type emails and organize schedules with hands that don't feel like mine.
If I pay the money I'm free, if I walk away the nightmare ends, and that's exactly why he chose that number.
Because he knows I don't have it.
The office lights are already dimming by the time I finally leave the building.
My shoulders ache from tension and my heels feel like knives against the pavement while I walk toward the bus stop without even checking the time.
Traffic noise fills the evening air and people pass me on the sidewalk like I'm invisible.
I let out a dry breath while staring straight ahead. Who the hell has three billion won sitting around like spare change unless they're born into the kind of money he swims in.
Is he insane?
The bus ride home passes in a blur of city lights and reflections sliding across the window glass.
My head leans against the cold surface while my fingers twist the plastic edge of the ID card around my neck.
He knows I don't have money like that.
Which means this was never about compensation.
This was about control.
By the time I reach my apartment building the sky is already dark, and the quiet street feels strangely heavy as I walk through the gate.
The familiar entrance looks exactly the same as it did yesterday, but everything inside me feels like it's been dragged through a storm.
I push my hands into my coat pockets and start toward the door.
"Jiah."
The voice stops me mid-step.
Deep. Familiar. Calm in a way that instantly pulls me back ten years whether I want it or not.
I turn slowly.
He's standing near the concrete pillar beside the entrance lights, one shoulder leaning against it like he's been there long enough to get comfortable.
The shadow cuts across half his face, but I'd recognize that posture anywhere.
Jeonhwa.