In particular, the expression of sheer terror on her face, trembling all over, stirred something cruel in him.

Haein was trying to turn her body away from his blatant stare when her legs locked up and she froze in place. Then a warm hand landed on her shoulder.

“Hic.”

“Good grief.”

Jiho let out a hollow laugh as he watched the woman clap both hands over her mouth and hiccup one after another. What did I even do to deserve this? His dark brows furrowed, broadcasting his displeasure.

The eyes looking up at him were strikingly black and clear. Watching them slowly grow wet, he found he had no need to work himself up any further.

His gaze darkening, Jiho looked down at Haein, then grabbed her slender wrist and headed for the door. Startled, Haein’s eyes went wide as she looked desperately back and forth between the wrist he held and her dress, growing farther away by the second.

Dressed in a way that would have been better off removed entirely, she was dragged to the sofa in an instant.

Jiho sat Haein down on the sofa, then settled across from her and picked up the whiskey bottle.

Catching the light with a soft gleam, the crystal glass filled as the amber liquid swelled and rose inside it. The rich scent of alcohol, aged long inside oak barrels, drifted out in a slow, deep wave.

He poured until the liquid nearly spilled over the rim, then gave the glass a light tap with the back of his hand. It slid toward Haein, trailing a thin streak of amber.

Jiho leaned back against the sofa, crossed one leg over his thigh, and tilted his chin at her.

“Drink. I’m not in the habit of holding people who shake like a leaf.”

The sight of the woman hiccuping with her whole body made his exhaustion recede like a tide going out. The face he kept carefully neutral betrayed nothing, but his mouth was bone dry, a stark contrast to how desperately he had wanted to throw himself into bed and sleep the moment the wedding night began.

“Hic.”

Another hiccup escaped, and Haein’s face crumpled as she reached out with a trembling arm and wrapped her fingers around the glass. The cold condensation soaked her palm and ran between her fingers.

The sharp smell of the alcohol made her hiccups worse. She already knew what happened when she drank this. She hesitated, unable to bring the glass to her lips, and Jiho raised an eyebrow.

A face as striking and refined as something out of a painting wore a look of clear displeasure. It reminded her, somehow, of her father, whose expression had always turned cold whenever he looked at her. She shut her eyes and swallowed a mouthful of the liquor.

“Cough, ugh, cough…”

A burning pain scorched down her esophagus and dropped into her stomach, and a fit of coughing burst out of her all at once. The glass slipped from her weakened hand and fell to the floor.

A dark stain spread across the beige carpet. She had no presence of mind to deal with the mess. The sharp smell stinging her nose brought tears to the corners of her eyes.

As she clutched her throat and coughed, the hiccups gradually stopped. In their place, the liquor caught in her throat even worse as she started to choke.

Her head spun and her upper body lurched forward. The breath tickling her philtrum was hot. The pain was sharp enough to make her forget, for a moment, that Jiho was right in front of her.

Jiho, who had taken a sip of his own drink in step with her, furrowed his brow. She had been sleeping while reeking of alcohol, so he had assumed she could hold her liquor. Apparently not.

Looking at Haein’s face right now, the drink he had given her might as well have been poison. She looked ready to faint if left alone, so he got up, fetched a water bottle, and handed it to her.

“Th, thank you…”

Haein thanked him in a tear-soaked voice and soothed her burning throat with the cold water. She had broken into a cold sweat. As her ragged breathing steadied, the alcohol spread through her body in a strong wave.

Through her tear-blurred vision, she saw the man watching her with a look of weary disbelief.

‘Go there and live like a mouse. Never fall out of favor with Director Kang. That is how you save me and the company.’

The cold voice surfaced in her mind. He was about to become her husband, but in Haein’s eyes, he was nothing more than a replacement for her father, a man who had always felt distant and frightening.

If she made a bad impression on him, it would reflect poorly on her father too. That single thought circled endlessly in her alcohol-hazed mind.

“This outfit…”

She had meant to say, should I take it off? If only the weight of sleep hadn’t come crashing down on her so hard she could barely fight it.

Her consciousness slipped away along with her falling eyelids. Her head pitched forward, and Jiho barely caught it in time. A short, disbelieving laugh escaped from between his lips.

‘What is with this girl?’

He pressed his palm against her and her slight body went limp across the sofa. Her thin arms and legs flopped about like a broken ball-jointed doll, and a dull ache started behind his eyes.

Surely she hadn’t passed out from a single sip earlier too? The thought came to him without much intention behind it, but it seemed entirely plausible.

“Hey. Ms. Lee Haein.”

He called her name on the off chance she might respond. When her body didn’t so much as twitch, his breathing grew rough.

Jiho lifted his glass and drank in long, deep gulps. He drained it in one go, yet the thirst only climbed higher. An unresolved heat simmered and churned inside him.

All of it had started after he saw Haein’s bare body. With alcohol added on top of it, the warm temperature of the room felt stifling enough to irritate him.

His gaze drifted to her body, drawn there against his will. Her narrow, rounded shoulders and the clean line of her collarbone were beautiful. Her skin was white as poured milk, as though she had never once stood in sunlight, and though she was short, her outstretched legs were long and smooth.

What drew his eye most of all was the fullness of her chest. Her br*asts spilled over the top of the corset, threatening to overflow, and they were large enough to fill his hands perfectly.

Jiho tilted his head back and exhaled a long breath.

‘I should have told her upfront that I have no habit of holding people who tremble, and no habit of watching people who’ve lost consciousness either.’

No habit, and yet he kept stealing glances. Like a boy burning with adolescent fever, even when he looked away, the body that would clearly be soft to the touch lingered before his eyes.

Irritated breaths came out one after another from between his liquor-wet lips. Jiho scrubbed his face roughly with both hands and got to his feet.

The breathing that rose and fell without any awareness of his state was guileless, like a child who knew nothing of the world.

He bent down and slid his arms under her shoulder blades and behind her knees. Her soft body settled into his arms.

“Mmm…”

Haein let out a faint m*an, shifted in his hold, and draped her arm around his neck. The scent he had caught a hint of earlier reached him now, a little stronger.

He had only thought it sweet and warm before, but there was a faint trace of soap mixed in as well. It was noticeably different from the women he had known until now, and strangely, the blood rushed south fast.

His gaze dropped and moved over her features like a brushstroke. Her slightly parted red lips were sensual in a way that didn’t match her youthful face.

“Tsk.”

Jiho clicked his tongue, lifted Haein into his arms, and carried her toward the bed. One wrong move and he felt certain he would throw himself at her unconscious body like a dog in heat.

He set her down on the bed, dropping her the last small distance. He moved to step back immediately, but Haein suddenly scrunched her brow and began to whimper.

“Ugh, I, I can’t breathe…”

Her pale fingers fumbled uselessly over the corset. She seemed to be trying to undo the laces, but her hands had no strength in them, and instead of the corset, they only stroked the chest rising above it.

“You’re not pretending to be asleep, are you?”

Jiho muttered, his neck flushing red, as the scene unfolded right in front of him. He flicked her small round nostril with his index finger just to be sure.

Her eyelids flinched but didn’t open, and a sigh rose from somewhere deep inside him.

He couldn’t just ignore it and walk away when she looked ready to stop breathing at any moment. With no other choice, Jiho reached out. His fingertips threatened to tremble in a way that was entirely unlike him, and his sharp brow creased hard.