Til Death Do Us Part

27

“I can save him, or I can destroy him. That goes for you too. I’m a major shareholder of OLO, and this is enough to not only dissolve the investment deal with Biochem but to see you struck off and held liable for the losses while never working in this industry again. You’ll be tied up in court for years, and I’ll take every penny I can from him that I know he won’t let you pay alone. Jyeon will still have some money, of course, but a******y and mixing business with smut is still a big no-no in this culture. The board of directors will silence him as a non-active shareholder, take away his control and leave it all to me. He can thank you for that. With his fame in the business world, he won’t be able to escape it.” It’s delivered smugly, as though this really is the best punishment for both of them.

“You really are as awful as he said you were. How could you be this manipulative? This heartless and cruel.” her rolling big fat tears that cascade down her face does nothing for me, and I shrug.

“Asks the woman who steals another’s husband and tries to destroy a family. Do you think he loves you? That he would leave me for you. Where is he right now?” I lift a picture from the table with deliberate ease and admire it, of them walking hand in hand. “He followed me home, and he’s there trying to pick up the pieces that he shattered within his family. Why didn’t he stay with you if he cared so much? Why didn’t he tend to you when I attacked you out front?” I raise my brow and drop it like it’s a dirty rag, watching it flutter to the floor with a sense of calm before I rub my fingers together to remove traces of its filth. Enjoying the wounded expression that flickers across her face.

“He followed you because he was worried about you. You were a mess. He’s not a cold bastard like you are.” She scrambles to pick up all the pictures and then tugs the paper forward, her eyes growing wetter as she reads the lawsuit I intend to file against her. Against both of them. Biotech being in negotiation and her position really did give me a slaying edge over them in terms of the legal side. If only they waited until it was a done deal and the ethical questions wouldn’t be an issue in the process, only a moral mess.

“You have a choice in which way you will go. Stay, fight for your love, and I’ll single handily make you regret it for the rest of your life, where Jyeon will grow to resent the choices he made.” I smooth down my lapel and exhale slowly and deliberately. “Or……. Leave, resign from Biotech, cut ties with my husband, and I’ll give you the financial means to start over anywhere but here. He’ll keep his company, his investment deal, and his life. You’ll be a distant memory that reminds him he should never play with fire, and we all get to forget this distasteful mistake.”

“Do you know how hard I worked to get into that company, to get to that position? And you expect me to throw it all away.” She blanches and pushes the paperwork away from her in impulse, her face twisting in rage.

“And yet, you willingly tossed it aside for s*x. You’re pathetic.” I retort.

“Do you think this is all you need to fix your mess of a marriage? Me gone, and it’s all happy families and love? You are deluded. You live on another planet.” She bites the words my way, tears trickling down her cheeks, and I only smile salaciously in response. She has no idea how the wealthy and elite conduct their personal lives.

“He told me you are a cold and unlovable monster that any feelings he has are tied to a girl he used to know and hasn’t existed in a long time. That you make his skin crawl, and he loathes having you near him. Now I understand why.”

I don’t react to her words, but they still cut me deeply. Hearing them in his voice and knowing those are things he would say, that those are precisely what he’s implied over the years and how he has acted towards me.

“You think our marriage is only about us? About him loving me? You are really naïve.” I lean forward and push the contract back towards her before sliding the cheque out of my handbag and placing it on top blatantly. So many zeros in an amount that pains me to have to give the b***h, but I want to send her far away and never lay eyes on her again.

“You can’t buy me off. I won’t betray him.” She wails at me and jumps up, trying her hardest to intimidate me by mirroring my posture and cold persona and failing. She’s like a weaker, outdated version of the young me before I learned how to handle all the pain and emotion that made me so.

It’s ironic now that I look at her and see our resemblances. Ironic because Jyeon always swore he never had a romantic interest in me, yet she’s practically my doppelganger with a different hair color and fashion sense. The same delicate features, eyeshade, physically similar. She’s softer, sweeter, and naïve, from what I can tell because the Park family hasn’t gotten their claws into her. Smart and business savvy to get where she is, but she’s too soft to fight in the big boy’s world, and she’s easy to snap. She is me at fifteen.

“I’m not asking you to betray him, and I’m not paying you off. I’m telling you that if you love him, you should sacrifice yourself to protect him and everything he has dedicated his life to building. The money is compensation for choosing his happiness over your own.” I lean back, crossing my hands over my knees, and regard her for a long moment. Not in the least intimidated by the way she’s standing glaring at me.

She’s feeble. I can tell even from here. I don’t even know how she managed to anchor herself as someone prominent in Biochem unless she lied to me about her origin and how she got that position. I don’t think the office that day was their first meeting, and it wouldn’t be hard to find out.

“He’ll hate you for this. For controlling everything and making him miserable.”

“He already hates me. I’m the only one looking out for his best interests in the long term. That’s why I’m doing this, like everything I have done for him all these years. That’s love, not this bullshit right here.” It’s a tiny spike in my temper to drive the point home, and her lip trembles.

“Why can’t you just let him go? Let him be happy and still have OLO. Why are you doing this?”

“Because I can, and I have to. OLO isn’t just a company; it’s my family. Jyeon isn’t just my husband, he’s my entire existence, and I won’t let you sweep in and turn it to s**t because you think he wants a life with you. He was scratching an itch, and if I lay this out in front of him, which do you think he’ll choose? You or OLO?”

Her crumbling expression gives me a sense of satisfaction that she knows how much more important the company is than what they have. I thank my stars their affair is new enough to not leave any lasting impression on my future with him.

I tap my fingertip on my watch with impatience and rise to stand, brushing off my suit and locking her in the eye. Done for now, and need her to mull this over.

“You have twenty-four hours to decide. This time tomorrow, I’ll start the ball rolling if you haven’t contacted me. And you can watch as your lover goes down in flames.” I pull out my business card from my purse, lean down, and carefully lay it on the table. Deliberate and smooth with every mannerism, to drive home the class divide between us is like the Grand Canyon, and she will never be able to step into our world. The Parks would eat her for breakfast.

She can’t hold back her tears as she watches me walk across the floor and head for her hallway. I stop at the entranceway and glance back over my shoulder. Defeated so easily and I scowl at the fact he picked someone this incapable of fighting their corner, of fighting for their love. It’s sad.

“Make the right choice for Jyeon. You might just lose a job, a face in this city, but he’ll lose everything and everyone that was ever important to him. And he’ll only have you to blame when it’s done.” I don’t wait for her response and walk out, clicking my heels on her wooden floor and yank open the door to blinding daylight for the first time this month. Suddenly the skies are clear, and the sun breaks the grey muggy hell of our recent weather.