CHAPTER 60 

Rose was scheduled to have a doll play date with her friend Avery, who lived three blocks down, in ten minutes. While the weekend nanny packed up the dolls and snacks, Rose begged Minhee to play hide-and-seek.

“I haven’t hidden yet! Rose, don’t open your eyes! You have to count to 30!”

“Miss Minnie! Hurry up!”

As Taejun and Minhee conversed in Korean, and Rose’s weekend nanny, who was not fluent in English, only spoke Korean, Rose had started to awkwardly speak Korean as well.

Minhee soon realized that Rose understood Korean better than she thought. Once taught, she remembered the words well. It seemed the good memory gene ran in Taejun’s family.

These days, Rose would string together awkward but understandable sentences, mixing broken Korean and English words. Taejun and Minhee had no trouble understanding this ‘Rose language’ which is neither Korean nor English.

With cautious steps, Minhee approached Taejun’s study, where she quietly grabbed the doorknob. It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, the only day off for Minhee in a week. But she stayed at Taejun’s apartment, using the excuse that Miho was in New Haven with her mother, leaving no one at home.

Minhee secretly wanted to spend time with Taejun, but he had been holed up in the study for two hours after lunch.

‘I’ll just peek at his handsome face once under the pretense of hide-and-seek.’

She hesitated for a moment, then lightly knocked with her knuckles and turned the doorknob. Taejun’s study felt more private than his bedroom in this spacious apartment.

This was the first time she was entering his last remaining personal space without being invited, and her heart was pounding in her chest. Minhee knew she was crossing another boundary in her relationship with him.

‘What if he gets upset for disturbing him?’

Minhee peeked through the crack in the door as she heard Rose counting. Taejun was sitting at his desk, shuffling through a stack of papers, and he looked up. When he spotted her, his face lit up in surprise and he opened his mouth as if to say something.

“Shh!”

Minhee grinned, winked, and brought a finger to her lips. Taejun froze in place. She slipped in quietly through the open door and shut it quietly behind her. Taejun’s eyes widened slightly as he watched.

“I’ll just hide here for a bit, so tell Rose you didn’t see me when she comes looking.”

Minhee whispered with her index finger pressed against her lips.

Taejun leaned slowly against the back of his chair and crossed his arms. Minhee’s eyes darted around the room, looking for a place to hide. The huge desk, with its six monitors stacked like a rampart, looked like a fortress.

‘The space under the desk would be perfect…’

Minhee hesitated, glancing at Taejun. He chuckled and slightly nodded, granting permission. Minhee breathed a sigh of relief inwardly.

She crept stealthily to Taejun’s desk and squatted down. Although she wished she could pull Taejun into a tight embrace and breathe in his scent greedily, just seeing his smiling face was enough.

‘Should I sneak another look?’

She peeked over the desk to steal a glance at Taejun and locked eyes with him. Minhee froze and slumped down, holding her breath. It felt like she was playing hide-and-seek with Taejun, not Rose. Her heart pounded, and after a moment of confusion, the door to the study swung open. Rose’s booming voice echoed through the study.

“Santon! Is Miss Minnie hiding in your office?”

As Minhee heard the heavy footsteps nearing the desk, she lowered herself, turning around the edge of the desk. Determined to startle Rose by popping up suddenly from the desk,  but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Taejun’s urgent hand gesture. His long finger pointed under the desk.

‘Hide under the desk?’

Taejun seemed to be trying to help her.

‘I don’t need to go to such lengths against Rose.’

However, Minhee quickly crawled under the desk. Taejun pulled the chair closer to block her, and as Minhee awkwardly huddled between his legs, Rose’s chubby legs appeared next to Taejun’s chair.

[Wow! Santon, who are these people?]

[Rose, say hello. These are the people I work with.]

[Hi!]

Suddenly, from the computer speaker came multiple voices saying, “Hi, Rose!”, “So cute.”, “How old are you?” Minhee, startled to the point her heart sank, swayed and grabbed Taejun’s leg tightly.

[Hi everyone, I’m six years old].

Rose replied in a giggly, excited voice, and another round of merry laughter filled the study.

As hurried footsteps approached, the weekend nanny lowered her voice and scolded Rose, apologizing to Taejun.

“Come here, Rose! Your uncle is working, and we shouldn’t disturb him. I’m sorry, Rose’s uncle, I’m just packing up things for a moment…….”

“It’s okay.”

“Santon! Rose goodbye. Playdate in Avery’s house.”

“Yeah, have a good time.”

The door clicked shut as the weekend nanny led Rose out the door, and Taejun’s voice apologized in a business-like tone.

[Sorry. Let’s get back to the EBITDA analysis of the Due Diligence report. Currently, the cash flow….]

Taejun put his earphones back in, and Minhee didn’t hear any more voices. She let go of Taejun’s leg and plopped down with a sigh.

‘I never imagined he’d be in a video conference!’

From what Minhee observed, Taejun seemed to leave work early during the weekdays, only occasionally checking emails, and she had never seen him work all day on Saturdays, when she was here.

For a Wall Street investment banker who works around the clock, he seemed to have a great work-life balance, so she assumed he must be the boss. So when he holed up in his study, she didn’t expect him to be working so hard.

‘Oh no! What should I do? I’ll apologize later, but let’s just crawl out quietly.’

But she was trapped between Taejun’s widely spread legs and couldn’t move. Hesitantly, she pushed his thigh a little, but he didn’t budge. When she pushed harder, she felt the tension in his thigh beneath her palm. Flustered, she tried to twist her body to escape the other way.

But this time, Taejun dragged the chair with him, blocking her escape.

‘Huh? What’s he doing? Is he playing around with me now? Amidst this situation?’

Come to think of it, Taejun didn’t kick her out despite her transparent excuse of just wanting to see his face. Instead, he seemed interested in what she was doing and left her alone.

Thinking Minhee might move in the opposite direction, Taejun stretched out his leg to block her path completely. With his long legs blocking her, there was no way out.

[Even if there’s a risk of investing $20 million with the founder’s related risks a year before IPO… Our stake in…]

Minhee couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief. Who would have known that Taejun, who spoke in a serious tone and stern voice, was playing this joke below the waist.

Minhee settled comfortably. Since it had come to this, she might as well play along. When she quietly placed her hand on Taejun’s knee, he widened his legs, thinking she was trying to escape, pressing her down. At that moment, Minhee slyly raised her finger and lightly tickled his knee.

[Yes, uh……we’ll have to revise our estimate to be more conservative, that even if we go public, the stock will rise nearly 400 percent from the initial public offering price].

As Taejun stumbled over his words, Minhee chuckled inwardly. She could feel him, who was sitting relaxed with his legs wide open, suddenly tensing up. When Minhee tickled his knee again with her fingertip, his leg tensed even more.

And to her surprise, another part of him was slowly stiffening as well, right before her eyes.

‘Holy macaroni! It’s growing!’

In the situation of being trapped between Taejun’s legs, his lower body was unavoidably exposed to Minhee’s gaze.

Thanks to Luca’s TMI gossip, Minhee knew that the right thigh of Taejun’s suit pants was slightly wider cut than the left thigh. She also knew the reason why.

Until the bump on the inner right thigh caught her eye out of the corner of her eye, Minhee had been trying really hard not to look between his legs for fear of embarrassing him. But now it was clearly outlined and bulging to the point where she could no longer pretend not to see it.

‘Is he experiencing a lot of tingling? Or is his knee unusually sensitive? But would he react like this just from a little tingling?’

Embarrassed yet proud, Minhee was delighted. She loved the fact that Taejun was so easily ar*used by her, and every time he reacted so intensely to her, she felt like the s*xiest woman in the world.

Stimulated by Taejun’s excitement, various naughty thoughts crossed her mind about what she could do to him in this position.

‘Just a few weeks ago, I never thought I’d be in this position, thinking of all the naughty things I could do to him.’

Unfortunately, Taejun is in a meeting right now. It wasn’t the time or place for naughty deeds. Her mind knew that, but her palm on his thigh started to slowly wander upward, almost instinctively.

As her hand smoothly groped up his thigh, it reached a point where it couldn’t go any further and stopped. She lightly traced the outline of the obstacle blocking her hand.