Prenup of a Third Son novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: What He Knows

The door swung shut behind them.

The nurse called another number.

A woman across from Seo-yeon, very pregnant, in a yellow cardigan, leaned over and touched her knee.

"Whatever that was," she whispered, "don't let her win."

Seo-yeon didn't go back to the studio.

She went to Euljiro and stood across the street from the Hwaseon E&C tower.

The lights went off floor by floor until only the top one was left.

At nine o'clock she went in.

The guard at the desk looked at her face and called upstairs without asking her name.

Do-hyun's office was glass on two sides. The whole city lay under it, red and white lights crawling along the roads.

He was standing when she came in, his jacket off, his sleeves rolled. His father's old steel watch was on his wrist.

"She came to the clinic," Seo-yeon said.

He didn't ask which clinic. He didn't ask who.

"Sit down," he said.

"I don't want to sit down."

"Then I will." He leaned back against the edge of his desk. "Ask me."

"Has this family taken a baby before?"

He didn't look away.

"Yes," he said.

"Did you know they were doing it to Yu-na?"

"No. Not until Bo-ra's procurement spy told mine about a nursery." His jaw was tight. "My aunt doesn't tell me things."

Seo-yeon sat down after all, on the arm of the leather chair across from him.

"Who was it done to?"

He looked at her for a long time.

"Someone I love," he said. "She's alive. I found out when I was nineteen."

"She made me promise I'd never say it to anyone. That I'd never say it out loud."

"Not even to me."

"She didn't know you'd exist." He almost smiled. "Neither did I."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Prenup of a Third Son from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.