Chapter: 10
The Slipping Dress
“Oh my, how considerate. I’ll be back shortly.”
After everyone left, Taeyeon and Hyunseo were left sitting across from each other alone. When his gaze subtly lowered, Taeyeon placed a hand over her chest. From his eye level, sitting like this, he would be able to see straight down her cleavage.
He said nothing, yet she felt as though his gaze was slowly tightening around her. His eyes moved deliberately from her slender neck to the swell of her breasts.
Covering her cleavage with one hand didn’t conceal the overall shape or fullness of her chest. If anything, it only made it more tantalizing.
Sitting there like this was harder for Taeyeon. Even with just his eyes, Choi Hyunseo was arousing her. His lingering gaze felt as though it were licking at the curves of her chest and the base of her neck, making her breath grow uneven.
Was it just her imagination that he felt different than usual?
It was acting worthy of an Academy Award for Best Actor. All the staff in the dress shop probably thought Choi Hyunseo was utterly smitten with his bride.
Unable to endure it any longer, Taeyeon suddenly stood up. But perhaps she stepped on the hem of the dress wrong—because as she rose, the dress slipped down.
“Ah!”
Instinctively she covered her breasts with both hands, but the dress had already slid down to her waist. Her face turned crimson as he approached her.
“Are you okay?”
Before she could even answer, he grabbed her wrists. Holding them one by one, he pulled both her hands away from her chest.
“Director!”
She couldn’t even scream properly, just stared at him in shock. Looking at her exposed chest, he spoke.
“I heard and saw that Yoonwoo was sucking on these every day. Even though there’s no milk coming out.”
“……”
After staring at her bared chest, he lowered his head. His lips touched her breast. The force of his suction was astonishing. She couldn’t even begin to understand how he could dominate a person like this. Perhaps that was precisely why he could.
At first she was startled, then she tried to push him away—but it was useless. Her neck tilted back, and without realizing it, she thrust her chest forward as though asking him to suck more.
A wave of moisture spread between her legs. As her waist arched backward, his firm arm came around to support her. The skin where he touched flushed red and swollen.
The act was so unexpected that Taeyeon didn’t know what to do and only looked up at him. In the mirror, her reflection was unbearably provocative. The pure white wedding dress was bunched at her waist; her fully exposed breasts were reddened with marks from his mouth, the stimulated peaks swollen.
She felt as though she might faint. Her mind went blank. Then he stepped closer and yanked the dress up with tremendous force.
Just then, two staff members entered, and he said calmly,
“I don’t think this dress will work. I like it, but if it slips down at the ceremony, that would be a disaster.”
“Yes. Bride, please come this way. We’ve brought another one.”
She didn’t even know how she made it to the fitting room. As the staff helped her change into another dress, her chest was revealed again. The red marks left behind clearly showed what had happened when they were alone.
“The director must love you very much. You must be so happy.”
At their words, Taeyeon bit her lip.
Had he done that with this reaction in mind? So people would say he was completely in love with his bride?
A chill rose from deep inside her. Taeyeon steeled herself. At this rate, she would become a fool who truly got hurt. She mustn’t forget—this was all a contract, her role, her job.
After trying on several different designs, they finally chose one that satisfied Choi Hyunseo. Perhaps it was because he liked the dress—his expression shifted slightly.
The corners of his eyes seemed to soften faintly, and the edges of his lips lifted. Did he make expressions like that? She didn’t recall seeing him look that way even at Yoonwoo. Though he saw Yoonwoo every morning and night, his expression never particularly changed.
“We’ll go with this dress.”
He nodded. He looked composed and restrained—nothing like the man who had been boldly sucking at her body moments ago. His face showed no trace of having ever been aroused.
As expected. He must have done it deliberately to spark rumors. The perfect wedding he envisioned.
The time until the wedding passed in a flash. Before that, they had a meal with his family. It was an unbearably uncomfortable gathering, and afterward, compensation would be deposited into her bank account. Payment for not being treated like a person.
Not only Oh Jinhee, but also Chairman Choi’s sister and brother treated her as though she were invisible. Everyone’s attention was solely on Yoonwoo. Sitting there, Taeyeon felt like some modern-day surrogate.
No one asked her anything about herself. No matter that it was her job—it was hard to endure. After exhausting all her patience to get through the meal, she returned completely drained.
As soon as she barely stepped into her room, an alarm rang. It was the notification that compensation had been deposited. Seeing the balance in her account, Taeyeon let out a sigh and put the bankbook away in a drawer.
It didn’t make her happy at all.
On the way back from Pyeongchang-dong, Choi Hyunseo had already transferred the money. That meant he knew she would be ignored and hurt. It left her feeling hollow.
As she stood there, unable to sort out her emotions, he entered. It seemed he had come from the dressing room to retrieve something from the bedroom. Seeing her, he asked,
“Is it not enough?”
“No, Director. But when I see money transferred like this, I start wondering what kind of profession I’ve chosen. Is my real job to be looked down on?”
He was silent for a moment before replying,
“Think of it as customer service. Customers file complaints all the time, don’t they? Sometimes they even treat you like you’re nothing.”
So being treated like an invisible person by her in-laws was “customer service.” Well, it wasn’t a proper marriage anyway, so perhaps saying that wasn’t unreasonable. Yet why did something surge up from deep inside her chest?
Even if everyone else ignored her, she had hoped he would at least once take her side—at least say something, not leave the disregard unaddressed. That small expectation kept rising within her.
In truth, the one who hurt her most wasn’t the people from the Miu Group whom she barely knew—it was Choi Hyunseo. She kept harboring expectations she couldn’t even name, only for them to vanish like foam. It was her own foolish heart, yet her resentment kept turning toward him.
“The wedding’s the day after tomorrow. Don’t waste your energy on pointless things. Yoonwoo’s already asleep—Leecheon-dak put him to bed.”
Lately Yoonwoo had been eating more and sleeping more. By 10 p.m., he’d fall asleep and sleep soundly until 5 a.m.—seven hours straight. For a baby not yet a hundred days old, that was remarkable.
From Taeyeon’s perspective, the only thing Choi Hyunseo cared about at home was Yoonwoo.
Well, of course. The child of the woman he loved.
After three months of raising Yoonwoo, Taeyeon had grown deeply attached to him too. When he drank his milk and smiled at her with his eyes, he looked like an angel. Even if the whole world turned its back on her and hurt her, just seeing Yoonwoo’s beautiful smile felt like enough to keep living.
Yet in this moment, hearing Choi Hyunseo mention Yoonwoo made her heart sink helplessly.
Who were those people to matter so much? If she really thought of it as customer service, that should be enough. But even customer service had its limits—plenty of CS team members filed for leave.
Seeing her silent, he said,
“If that’s not enough comfort, I can transfer more.”
“That’s fine.”
“If it’s fine, then don’t make that face.”
“Excuse me?”
“Should an employee show that kind of dissatisfaction to a superior over work-related matters?”
“No. Dissatisfaction can be expressed.”
“Sure. But our contract binds you for at least two years. So you can’t quit—better not to show it. Regular employees can express complaints. They can forfeit their salary and leave. But not Assistant Manager Min Taeyeon. You’re tied up like this for at least two years.”
It was a brutal statement of fact. A surge of defiance rose inside her—only natural for any human being.
“That doesn’t mean you can tell me not to show any emotion on my face.”
“Adapt. I don’t tolerate that from subordinates.”
“Then fire me.”
She said it boldly. She’d already been paid and secured a year’s worth of hospital fees for her mother. Of course she knew she couldn’t just walk away like this—but she was being stubborn.
“You know I can’t fire you, so why say that? Are you trying to challenge me?”
Taeyeon didn’t answer. She went to the bed and pulled the blanket over her head.
“You’re pulling the blanket over your head in front of your boss?”
At that, she threw the blanket off and lifted her head.
“Yes! This is my workplace, isn’t it? So what am I supposed to do? It’s a live-in job—you get to see even this.”
After shouting that, Taeyeon pulled the blanket back over herself again.
