Prenup of a Third Son novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Friday

Her mother confesses the loan and Madam Heo sets a Friday deadline; Seo-yeon gives up her apartment to pay it, and at dawn an article says the engagement ended over her indiscretion.

Her mother's arm went stiff under Seo-yeon's hand.

"Mom?"

Her mother didn't look at her. She looked at the gold buttons on her new jacket.

"In May," she said quietly. "For the yedan."

The yedan. The bride's family's gifts to the groom's family.

Seo-yeon had told her to keep it small. A watch for Tae-joon. Something nice for his mother. That was all.

"Madam Heo came to the shop," her mother said. "She said the Kangs' friends would see what we sent."

"She said she didn't want me to be embarrassed."

"How much did you send?"

"A watch. Two bags. A coat." Her mother swallowed. "And the cash gift. And our half of the wedding hall."

"Mom. How much?"

"Three hundred million." Her voice was barely there. "She lent it to me. I signed a paper."

Three hundred million won.

Her mother's shop made that in about fifteen years, if nobody got sick.

Across the lobby, Madam Heo was waiting with her hands folded.

The tour groups had stopped pretending not to listen.

"You lent my mother the money," Seo-yeon said, loud enough to carry, "to buy gifts for yourself."

"I helped her." Madam Heo smiled at the crowd. "The note is due on demand. I'm demanding."

"Fine."

"By Friday," Madam Heo said. "Or my lawyer files on Monday, and the shop goes with it."

Seo-yeon's mother made a small sound.

The shop was the collateral.

Of course it was.

"Friday," Seo-yeon said.

Madam Heo tilted her head. "You don't have it."

"You'll have it Friday."

Seo-yeon turned her back on her and walked her mother through the revolving door.

Do-hyun came out behind them.

A black sedan pulled up at the curb, and he opened the back door himself.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Mangwon-dong," Seo-yeon said. "We'll take a taxi."

"It's raining."

It was. She hadn't noticed.

Her mother looked at the sedan, and then at the man holding the door, and then at Seo-yeon.

"Seo-yeon," she said, "my feet hurt."

So they got in.

He sat in front beside the driver and didn't say a word the whole way across the river.

Her mother held Seo-yeon's hand in the back seat so hard that her ring finger went numb.

The ring finger with nothing on it.

The shop was dark when they got there. Eight tables, the steel pots scrubbed, the menu on the wall in Seo-yeon's father's handwriting.

Her mother went straight to the kitchen and turned on the gas.

"Mom. It's eleven o'clock."

"He drove us home." She was already pulling dough from the fridge. "Sit down, CEO Kang."

He sat down at table four, in his dark suit.

Seo-yeon sat across from him.

"You didn't have to do that," she said.

"I know."

"Your aunt will make you pay for it."

"She's been making me pay for things since I was twelve." He loosened his collar a little. "It's a habit with her."

Her mother set a steaming bowl in front of him.

Knife-cut noodles, zucchini, a sprinkle of seaweed, in the broth she had made the same way for twenty years.

He ate it without talking.

Then he looked up at her and said, "Is there more?"

Her mother's whole face changed.

She brought him a second bowl.

He ate that too.

"Ms. Baek," he said, when he'd finished. "The library. Mangwon riverside. You know the brief."

"I know it by heart."

"I'm offering it again. Standard rates. A signing advance. No favors."

"An advance won't cover three hundred million."

"No," he agreed. "I could."

"No."

He nodded.

"Then take the contract," he said. "Not the money."

Seo-yeon looked at the folder on the table between the soy sauce and the kimchi.

For a year she had said no because she was going to marry into his family.

She wasn't anymore.

She opened the folder, found the signature page and held out her hand for his pen.

He gave it to her.

"Standard rates," she said, and signed.

"Standard rates." He signed under her. Then he stood, and bowed to her mother properly, from the waist. "Thank you for dinner."

"Come back," her mother said. "You're too thin."

He was the least thin man Seo-yeon had ever seen.

After he left, she called Bo-ra.

Her business partner picked up on the first ring, chewing.

"How was dinner with the in-laws?"

"I'm moving into the loft," Seo-yeon said. "Tonight. I'm pulling my jeonse deposit."

There was a long pause.

"How much do you need?"

"Bo-ra."

"How much do you need, Seo-yeon?"

The deposit on Seo-yeon's apartment was two hundred and twenty million won. It was everything she had.

"Eighty," she said. "I'll pay it back."

"Okay." She heard Bo-ra put the phone down and pick it up again. "Okay. Done. Do you want me to come get you?"

Seo-yeon cried, then. For the first time all night.

Not about Tae-joon.

About Bo-ra saying "Okay" as if Seo-yeon had asked to borrow a sweater.

She slept on the shop's bench with her mother's coat over her.

At six in the morning her phone rang.

It was Bo-ra again, and she wasn't chewing.

"Don't look at the news," Bo-ra said.

Seo-yeon looked at the news.

There was a photo of her getting into Do-hyun's car outside the Hwaseon Hotel, his hand on the door.

The headline said, "Hwaseon Third Son's Engagement Ends Over Bride's 'Indiscretion'."

"There's more," Bo-ra said. "The library committee just emailed. They've cancelled your public session on Tuesday. They say they need to 'reassess the architect's suitability.'"

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