“Of course. I’ve got a whole chicken simmering away as we speak.”

The middle-aged man smiled his easy smile, his clothes covered in leaves and dog hair.

“Well then. Let’s head inside.”

Jiho said his goodbye to the man and took hold of Haein’s arm, guiding her along. Haein gave a belated bow of her own.

The man quickly took off the cap he had been wearing and bent at the waist to return the greeting. It had been a brief exchange, but Haein was quietly struck by the easy warmth that had passed between Jiho and the man.

As Jiho moved away, the dogs grew restless and let out soft, plaintive whines. Seeing that made Haein feel a little embarrassed for having been frightened of them.

“If you happen to run into the dogs when I’m not around, don’t even think about touching them. They’re well trained, but they’re fierce by nature and they tend to go after strangers.”

Haein kept glancing back at the dogs, who were still holding their sit, and Jiho gave her a quiet warning.

“Yes.”

Haein answered in a gentle voice and nodded. It took some time to walk from the outer gate to the house itself.

Large, smooth-surfaced stones were set into the ground at comfortable intervals, forming a path that wound through the garden and led all the way to the house.

It was winter, so most of the plants had turned shades of brown, save for a few evergreens, but each stone she stepped on brought a slightly different view into sight.

It was a garden that made her curious what it looked like in every season. Unlike her family home, where rare trees had been planted haphazardly for the sake of display, this place had a quiet, refined atmosphere that only years of time could produce.

“Young master, we’ve been waiting for you.”

When she stepped onto the last stone before the staircase, a familiar voice greeted them. A middle-aged woman in a pale pink apron came down the steps with a bright smile.

“You didn’t have to come out. It’s cold.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, that’s why. Everyone else is already here. I’ve really outdone myself in the kitchen today, so you’re in for something good.”

The voice was familiar but the face was not, and Haein was trying to place it when she realized it was the same voice that had come through the intercom when Jiho pressed the bell. The way she addressed Jiho as “young master” was the same too.

Just like the middle-aged man in the garden, Jiho seemed completely at ease with this woman. The feeling was mutual.

Today she kept encountering sides of Jiho she had never seen before. She was watching for a good moment to introduce herself when the woman noticed Haein and let out a small exclamation.

“So this is her. Far more beautiful in person than in the photographs. How do you do. My name is Lee Malsuk. I look after the chairman and his wife.”

“……Hello.”

The warm greeting drew a trembling voice out of Haein in return. The flutter in her chest was different from the one she felt when meeting Jiho’s family.

“I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I made a little of everything I’m confident in. Is there anything you can’t eat, or any allergies I should know about?”

Haein had some difficulty with spicy food, but not enough to count as a restriction, so she gave a small shake of her head.

“That’s a relief. Come on in quickly. It’s terribly cold out.”

Malsuk cast a brief glance at Haein’s reddened cheeks and hurried back up the steps. Haein passed through the door Malsuk held open and stepped inside the grand house alongside Jiho.

“Welcome.”

A woman in a black formal suit stood at the inner entrance as well. When she spotted the two of them, she took a pair of indoor slippers out of the shoe cabinet and set them on the floor.

Haein slipped her feet into the white slippers, and the soft material wrapped warmly around her slightly chilled feet. Her toes curled and uncurled inside them.

After changing into the slippers, Haein walked side by side with Jiho down a long corridor. The murmur of voices drifted toward them from inside. The thought that the moment had finally come made her palms grow damp.

Jiho noticed Haein’s frozen expression and moved his arm to wrap it around her shoulders. The solid warmth made her look up in surprise.

“There’s no need to be nervous. No need to strain yourself trying to make a good impression either.”

Why did he keep drawing that line? To Haein, his family was already as good as her own.

Of course, there was far too much she lacked to fit in among them, but she wanted to be on good terms with his family just as much as she wanted things to go well with Jiho himself.

Yet every time Jiho drew that line, a heaviness settled over her. The contents of the prenuptial agreement, which she had briefly managed to forget, came flooding back.

The clause stating that both parties would maintain strict contraception had been brief, but it had shaken her deeply.

The cold tone in which he had said he didn’t want children. The polished-sounding advice that it would be better to remain unencumbered so they could part at any time.

She had forgotten, in the warmth of Jiho’s recent tenderness. That theirs was a contract marriage, and that unlike what both families wanted, Jiho had been looking toward the end from the very beginning.

The tips of her fingers went cold. The eyes of the man looking down at her were deep and still, unreadable. As though quietly telling her that while she was adrift and wavering, nothing could move him.

Jiho decided the trembling in Haein’s eyes was simply nerves and turned his head, guiding her inside.

As the faint voices grew closer, Haein clenched and unclenched her fist to pull herself together.

“Oh my, Jiho and my new daughter-in-law are here. Come in, come in.”

The first to notice them was Yeok, who had been lifting a teacup with her usual elegant posture. The woman, her jet-black dyed hair pinned up and wearing a long dress with a faint blush of red, looked far younger than her age.

Yeok rose from her seat and crossed to them in a few quick steps. Haein gave a soft smile and bowed her head at the warmth in the eyes that turned toward her.

“This is something my wife prepared. I mentioned you had a fondness for red flowers.”

“Really? It’s so beautiful. Thank you, dear. I absolutely love it.”

Jiho held out the flower basket, and Yeok took it with a delighted smile. She buried her face in the blooms and breathed in deeply, and for a moment she looked just like a young girl.

Haein could only smile back. If she had truly been the one to prepare the basket, the way Jiho had said, she might have felt a flutter of joy.

But Jiho had been the one to prepare it, and she was only meant to stand quietly like a doll and play along. His manner made it feel as though that was all she was there to do, and the cold that had settled into her fingertips showed no sign of leaving.

“Ahem.”

A small, deliberate cough cut through the three of them. The elderly man seated at the head of the room had risen from his chair and was making no effort to conceal his displeasure.

“Father, it’s been a while.”

“You only come when you’re called. You’re not a son, you’re a lord of the manor.”

“Work has been busy. You know how it is, Father. There’s been trouble with the China side lately and I’ve been tied up sorting it out.”

Jiho gave a respectful bow to Hojin, the chairman of HH Group and his father. A practiced smile settled at the corners of Jiho’s mouth.

Haein noticed that Jiho’s expression had been more at ease when he spoke with Malsuk and the man in the garden than it was now, facing his own parents.

His eyes curved with his smile, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was wearing a mask.

“Being the youngest and having the heaviest backside, honestly. Your sister and brother have been here waiting for a full hour. Anyone watching would think you’re the only one doing any work around here, you.”

At Hojin’s words, Jiho’s gaze drifted toward the living room sofa. A woman sitting with her arms crossed and a blank expression, and a man smiling with an open, affable look, both turned to look at Jiho at the same moment.

Both of them took far more after Yeok than Hojin. Of the three siblings, it was Jiho who had inherited Hojin’s blood most strongly.

Their expressions differed, but the look in their eyes as they watched Jiho was the same. It was the look of rivals, not siblings, and Jiho gave a light smile in return.

Jiho was not naive enough to take Hojin’s words at face value. The reason they had come early was obvious. They had gotten here first to fill Hojin’s ears with remarks that sounded like praise on the surface but were anything but, and to frame things in whatever way suited them best.

He had been through it enough times that even without seeing it with his own eyes, he could picture clearly how his brother and sister had been fawning and flattering away.

“Still, I wasn’t late. So please give me that much.”

After returning that practiced smile to his siblings, who were more like strangers than family, Jiho said something that carried just a hint of a pout to Hojin. The rare show of the youngest son’s charm made Hojin let out a gruff cough, and only then did he turn his gaze to Haein, who had been standing rooted to the spot like a stone.