Chapter 17

Yaein’s sharp glare was beautiful even in defiance—so much so that it was impossible not to be drawn in.  

Anyone would be.  

Anyone who saw Lee Yaein would find her beautiful. Anyone would want to have her.  

“You have no right to treat me like this.”  

Lee Yaein does not belong to Kwon Taeheon. 

Then, to whom does she belong?  

The moment Taeheon loosened his grip, Yaein immediately struggled to escape.  

Easily, he caught her again as she tried to slide off the bed, wrapping his arms around her waist, caging her against him.  

Letting go, then pulling her back in—effortless.

Like a mouse caught in a cat’s jaws, she squirmed and fought.  

Taeheon pressed his lips against the delicate skin of her neck, sucking hard.  

“Ah…!”  

A deep red mark bloomed on the pristine skin. He bit down again, leaving a harsher imprint.  

As her clothes slipped down, hickeys and bite marks covered her from her shoulder to her collarbone, marring the once-flawless skin in an instant.  

But it still wasn’t enough.  

Taeheon pulled Yaein upright, lifting her sweater to sink his teeth into the soft valley of her chest.  

He laid her back down, trailing down her stomach, biting at the slight indent of her waist. He peeled off her skirt, leaving small marks along her thighs.  

It felt like feasting on tender, sweet flesh.  

Like savoring prey brought back to his den.  

If only he could devour her.  

“Stop… ah… Taeheon.”  

When his mouth closed around her br*ast, lifting her bra, Yaein gasped his name.  

She had no one left to cling to but him. Her fingers gripped his shoulders, desperate.  

He liked that.  

This moment, stifling and humid, where they were utterly alone in their own world.  

With no other options, Yaein had no one to plead to, no one to turn to—only Taeheon.  

A frail sound escaped her parted lips.  

“Why are you doing this…?”  

Because you’re hiding something from me.  

Or someone.  

Outside, lightning tore across the sky. A flash illuminated the room, casting sharp shadows that split Taeheon’s face into stark contrasts—light against darkness, a carving in stone.  

“Because you’re trying to escape me.”  

He refused to lose her.  

As he kissed Yaein, the thought surfaced—  

From the reeking gutters of a one-room apartment to a mansion with a private pool, from the elite halls of New York back to the glass towers of Seoul, Taeheon had been surrounded by filth his entire life.  

Yaein’s wide eyes reflected him, trembling with fear.  

If he wanted, he could break her.  

That was who Kwon Taeheon was.  

Breaking people was what he did—ruthlessly, habitually.  

Yaein knew it now. She had learned.  

The scent of fear clinging to her was familiar. Everyone who faced him ended up the same way.  

He had torn through the world like rusted steel, like a saw blade, cutting people apart as naturally as breathing.  

Just like his father.  

“Don’t throw me away.”  

Thunder rumbled violently. The sky churned, thick clouds writhing above them.  

Taeheon loomed over Yaein, pinning her beneath his feverish gaze—eyes alight like a beast prowling in the dark.  

“Don’t throw me away.”

A request teetering between warning and plea melded into the sound of rain.  

Though untouched by the downpour, the man seemed to be darkening, dampening, as if soaked through.  

Yaein reached out and brushed her fingers against the shadow-drenched contours of Taeheon’s cheek.  

Fingers that seemed more suited to plucking a rose from a bramble or dancing over piano keys touched him with an unfamiliar gentleness. Taeheon, as always, relished it.  

No one in his memory had ever stroked him like this. Even in his earliest recollections, he was always being kicked, rolling through dust, thrown aside.  

“I don’t understand what you’re thinking.”  

“…….”  

“You don’t even love me.”  

Yaein’s arm slackened, her fingers slipping away.  

Before she could pull away completely, Taeheon caught her hand, enclosing it within his own, pressing it firmly against his cheek.  

‘The only beautiful thing I have is this woman.’

The only thing untouched by the filth coursing through his veins. His wife.  

“Still, stay by my side.”  

Taeheon rested his forehead against Yaein’s shoulder.  

The difference in size between them made it seem as if he were curling into her embrace, but all it did was emphasize his presence—his weight, his form, his inescapable being.  

Yaein did not push him away. Instead, she held him.  

Taeheon sank his teeth into the sweet flesh of her skin, leaving another mark.  

Scars, faint imprints of teeth, bruised traces of him. He wanted them to announce to the world that this woman belonged to a cruel husband.  

With his head buried against the impossibly soft curve of her chest, Taeheon contemplated how he could make this moment last forever.  

By his own judgment, growing up wretched had been a gift.  

When there was nothing left to break, nothing left to lose, no one could hurt him anymore.  

Life was a simple transaction.  

You either take or have something taken.  

You either wound or are wounded.   

That was the way the world worked. That was its natural order.  

And so, he figured, it wouldn’t be so wrong if he ruined her a little, too.  

If one of them had to surrender what they wanted, Taeheon knew—  

It would never be him. 

***

Memories of her mother were scarce.  

What little remained existed only as tiny, scattered fragments.  

Her mother, deftly braiding her shoulder-length hair. The small box filled with seashells collected from the distant shoreline, the shimmer of sand lingering in her palms even after shaking them clean. Her grandmother’s voice, calling out that they needed to come back before the tide rolled in.  

The troubled look on her mother’s face as she turned to glance at Yaein, her arms full of luggage.  

“Mom, Mom,” the frail hands that pushed away the small child clinging to her skirt…  

The memories shone like sunlight glinting off ocean waves—dazzling, but distant.  

During her freshman year of college, watching her classmates pose for photos with their parents, Yaein secretly unearthed those childhood recollections. A thought crossed her mind.  

‘Where did my mother go?’

The woman who had fled—from her young daughter, from their impoverished hometown, from the wretched and exhausting life she had been born into.  

As she grew older, Yaein came to understand her mother.  

Loneliness makes people desperate. And desperation led to poor choices.  

People who had abundant options could never make the same choices as those who had none. Those born into lacking, into incomplete love, lived lonely lives. Wandering, searching for a way to escape the solitude they inherited.  

Some people couldn’t even digest love properly. Unable to receive it wholly, unable to give it correctly—so the little love they had trickled away through the cracks.  

She would confess something.  

She had loved her grandmother dearly. But her grandmother had also been a burden.  

Watching her endure humiliation just to stay by her granddaughter’s side had shattered her. It hurt more than being belittled herself.  

‘Because of me, my grandmother…’

‘If only I hadn’t been born…’

She had to find a way to repay her grandmother’s enormous love. She had to become someone useful. She had to prove that her grandmother’s sacrifices had not been in vain, that she had been a granddaughter worthy of love.  

But as she wasted time thinking about such things, her grandmother disappeared.  

Before the framed portrait of the deceased, she had begged, 

‘Couldn’t I just disappear instead?’ 

‘Couldn’t I vanish?’

‘For my mother, for my grandmother—what if I had never existed in the first place?’

“Have you cried enough?”

Taeheon had whispered, holding her slumped shoulders.  

The funeral hall had been empty except for her.  

Only Yaein and Taeheon.  

The hired mourners and fake attendees arranged by Taeheon were gone.  

He was the only one who truly understood what she had lost.  

“I told them not to contact you today.”

He was a cold man, yet as her husband, he had stood beside her at the funeral. Even though he was the kind of person who considered meal breaks a waste of time.  

Yaein had felt almost undeserving of his presence.  

She had lost the only person in the world who truly mattered to her, but even then, she trembled at the realization that there was still someone there to support her.  

“Can you hold me?”

She had asked him on the drive back from the columbarium.  

Taeheon had pulled her into his arms inside the car, the scent of incense still clinging to her.  

His body was so warm.  

So intensely, unmistakably *alive.*  

He made her feel alive, too. And that had been enough.  

She had wanted to hold on. To be held so tightly it hurt.

Anyone would have sufficed. She had just needed warmth. A single handful of warmth.  

And only Taeheon was there.  

She didn’t care if love never came in return. That was something too great for her to hope for, anyway.  

She had only wished that, at the very least, they could go on like this.  

In that small grasp of warmth—perhaps a little warmer than before.  

Just as she had begun to hope for it, it happened.  

Blood dripped at her feet.  

Staring at her blackened skirt, she fumbled with trembling fingers.  

‘Why?’ 

Taeheon stared down at Yaein, his face devoid of expression.  

“Help me, please. Save our baby.”

She sobbed, pleading, but Taeheon simply fixed his indifferent gaze on her.  

Yaein flinched as her eyelids fluttered open. A sharp sliver of light sliced into her vision like the edge of a razor blade.  

The heat pooled in her lower abdomen hadn’t dissipated. A dull ache tugged at her belly, an unpleasant discomfort pulling her out of sleep. 

A chill ran up the nape of her neck. Instinctively, she reached between her legs, the way she had grown accustomed to doing lately, fearing she might feel something warm and sticky.  

Fortunately, there was nothing.  

“If you need something like that first thing in the morning, I could help you out.”  

A whisper.  

Right next to her.  

Yaein jolted, whipping her head toward the source of the voice.  

Taeheon was lying beside her.  

The blanket coiled around them both, his bare body partially covered. His disheveled hair spilled carelessly across his forehead, framing his striking features.  

It was an unfamiliar sight.  

So unfamiliar that Yaein couldn’t even find the words to respond.  

A heavy arm draped over her waist. Their legs, just shy of tangling.  

Even when they shared the same bed, they rarely slept like this. They might lose themselves in each other’s bodies, entangled in passion, but once the heat dissipated, they would drift apart, falling asleep at a distance.  

“You should’ve woken me if you were already up.”  

He had left without waking her plenty of times before. But staying beside her, watching her until she stirred—this was new.  

“You looked good sleeping.” 

His words dripped with an unfamiliar sweetness. Unnerved, Yaein grasped for a response, choosing instead to shift the subject.  

“You’re leaving late today?” 

“Decided to indulge in a little laziness.”  

“Laziness doesn’t suit you at all.”

As Yaein shifted away, Taeheon closed the distance just as easily.  

Their shoulders brushed. The lingering soreness made Yaein inhale sharply.  

They hadn’t even gone all the way, yet her skin ached in places. As if there wasn’t a single spot left untouched, his lips had marked her relentlessly—biting, sucking, staining her body with the evidence of his possessiveness. Heat rushed up her neck at the memory.  

“Does it hurt?”  

His voice was low as his fingers traced over her skin.  

He followed the marks he had left, mapping them out with the lightest touch. The sensation was both ticklish and faintly painful. Yaein swallowed dryly.  

“Were you… drunk last night?”