OTGM 3

Chapter 3

At that moment, the door to the private room opened, and a server wheeled in a cart, setting simple yet pretty dishes onto the table.

Fortunately, a brief reprieve arrived.

After the server left, Go Jun-i let out an irritated sigh and spoke to her.

“Hoo—let’s just eat. Enough wasting time and energy.”

“My grandma says you get punished for wasting food. Let’s eat first. It looks real pretty.”

She sliced into the buckwheat tart with her knife, the blade scraping softly. Sweat ran down her spine, but she pretended to be calm as she stuffed the food into her mouth.

Go Jun-i watched her silently, his gaze noisy with disdain. She deliberately ignored it and asked casually,

“Then… what kind of woman do you find sexy? Tell me.”

Because she had to make it to marriage with him—only then would her grandma live.

“A woman who doesn’t get bride training.”

His answer stabbed her chest. Because, in his eyes, she was already branded as just a woman who’d received that sort of training.

He went on, describing his ideal of a sexy woman.

“A woman who has something she wants to do, dreams she wants to achieve, and runs herself ragged chasing those dreams. A woman who doesn’t stake her life on love or waste effort on marriage. A woman who lives each day fully, pursuing clear values and purpose in life. Is that enough?”

It sounded like he had someone specific in mind.

She, too, had dreams—things she wanted to do and achieve. Though everything had changed now.

She asked again,

“So if I become that kind of woman, will that do? Or… is there someone you like?”

“……”

“So that’s why I won’t do, huh.”

Maybe it was a sharp question. Go Jun-i’s smooth brow creased slightly, though his voice came out unhurried.

“Your name was… right, Ma Dosil. It’s unusual—I almost forgot. Why do you think that is? Because I feel absolutely no attraction toward you. If we’re talking marriage, I should at least feel some desire to press lips together. But I don’t feel anything.”

This man really knew how to scrape at people’s insides. Did he think she’d back off once she got hurt? That clinging would only make her look worse?

Most women would retreat to protect their pride—but she had a purpose. And to achieve it, she had to endure each day fully. Desperately.

“Well, you never know. We might rub lips and suddenly—bam—you get all lustful and decide I’m sexy.”

By any words necessary. Desperately.

This man was the rope she had to cling to to reach her goal, so she had to grip it fiercely.

Even if a cryptic smile bloomed on Go Jun-i’s lips.

“I don’t think that’ll happen.”

Even with such a firm, obvious answer, she couldn’t give up.

“Then why are you still sittin’ here? Ain’t it ’cause you need me too, so you can’t leave?”

“Need you for what?”

“For me to dump you, right? You can’t tell your parents you’ll never marry, so you’re pushin’ it onto me. You’re pokin’ at my pride so I’ll say it first—‘I can’t marry!’ Ain’t that it? Am I wrong?”

“You’re perceptive, but you lack tact. If you knew, you should’ve exited on your own.”

She had a purpose, and to achieve it, she had to live each day to the fullest.

Crack. Crack.
Go Jun-i’s long fingers sounded again as his knuckles popped.

His strikingly handsome face looked even more hopeless with that infuriating boredom etched into it.

And yet—was it some kind of handsome-man nausea? Every time she looked at that face, something churned noisily below her chest.

To the point she thought maybe marrying him and living off his face wouldn’t be so bad.

Her eyes flashed as she declared to him,

“I’m gonna marry you. I will.”

“……”

“So if you don’t wanna marry me, then you go ahead and smash it yourself. Don’t tell me to be the one to smash it.”

This was exactly why—why people in this world were so exhausting and disgusting. Bastards were even worse.

He rubbed each finger joint one by one. Crack. Crack.

It was a habit he’d developed long ago, after his mother died and a new family appeared.

Ma Dosil.
He’d heard she was the illegitimate child born from the former chairman of Jeonghan Daily’s affair. She resembled his own spoiled youngest half-sister.

His half-sister—his father’s mistress and her daughter, who entered the house after his mother’s death, wreaking havoc both inside and outside the home.

Ha. This was exactly why bastards were irritating.

The only difference was that this one was stubborn in a different direction.

“So you learn cooking because your family tells you to, learn painting because they tell you to, and even marry because they tell you to. So obedient. Is it because you’re a bastard…? Too bad. I’m someone who finds bastards disgusting.”

“Ah, so you even knew I was a bastard, not just some idiot who got bride training. That’s right. So you can’t marry me ’cause I’m disgusting? Ah—you said I ain’t sexy. That’s fine by me.”

“Your stepmother must’ve treated you well. Judging by how you’re volunteering to be the family sacrifice. Or did you fall for me at first sight…?”

Our side had decided to absorb Jeonghan Daily’s failing OTT platform. The staff would remain, but decision-making authority would be ours.

This marriage wasn’t some binding promise or deal like in old times.

Still, the other side had enthusiastically welcomed the marriage we proposed, treating it as exactly that—a contract or pledge.

He was being threatened by his father.

All he needed was for this woman to refuse, and the marriage would fall apart smoothly. He’d come here thinking it wouldn’t be difficult.

But she was a landmine. Ma Dosil—with the strange name.

An illegitimate child who spoke like a grandmother and stubbornly insisted on marrying him.

No matter how cruelly he gnawed at her pride, she took no damage at all—just stared back with those ferret-like, cunning eyes glittering even brighter.

Was Ma Dosil’s biological mother still alive?

Even if the former chairman had died and she’d grown up under a stepmother, she looked like she’d been raised delicately enough to receive bride training. Then why was his father so desperate to marry her off to him?

Even if his father had been close with the former chairman—why?

And even if it was a family order—why was this woman so desperate to marry him?

“I guess I did fall for you at first sight. Bet you’ve heard that plenty—handsome enough to drive women wild, right?”

Her calm, almost-confessional words made him want to laugh in disbelief.

What the hell was this woman? He found himself oddly curious about the true identity of Ma Dosil, with her strange name.

“But even if you lived shut away in the provinces… your dialect’s a bit much. Who exactly did you live with?”

My grandma.

But she couldn’t let people like him find out about her grandmother.

She had to maintain the image of the secret daughter of a chaebol family—a refined woman who’d received bride training.

That refined concept was already pretty broken thanks to her dialect, though.

“I went to school, chatted with folks in the neighborhood—uh, talked with them—and just lived there. I grew up there, so… ain’t it natural the dialect stuck?”

Even so, it was excessive. Like the speech of elderly villagers.

Still, he didn’t want to dig any deeper into her story or past.

“Fine. But in the end, you fell for my face? That’s hardly a reason to go as far as marriage. Or are you thinking of this marriage as an M&A contract?”

Chairwoman Lee firmly believed this marriage was no different from signing an acquisition agreement.

“The elders sure think that way. If I break this marriage and the company falls apart—will you take responsibility for that?”