Prenup of a Third Son novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Cash on the Table

Seo-yeon took the pen.

She put it in her pocket.

"I'll think about it," she said, and walked to the exit ramp with her heart still going like a drum.

He didn't follow her.

She heard him laugh, once, behind her in the concrete. It was the first time she had ever heard him laugh.

On Friday at noon Seo-yeon walked into the Hwaseon Hotel's garden restaurant with her mother on one side and a cashier's check in her bag.

Madam Heo's charity committee met there on the second Friday of every month.

Twenty women sat at one long table under a glass roof, in silk and good jewellery. Wives of chairmen, wives of ministers.

The hostess tried to stop them. Seo-yeon's mother walked past her into her own kitchen.

She had on the navy jacket again.

She had said, this morning, "I paid for it. I'm wearing it."

Madam Heo sat at the head of the table in pale grey silk and pearls.

Yu-na sat at her left hand again, pouring.

On the back of Madam Heo's chair hung a black Hermès bag.

Seo-yeon knew that bag. Her mother had bought it in May, with money she'd been lent for it.

The table went quiet as they came up.

"Ms. Baek." Madam Heo didn't rise. "Our committee is in session."

"It's Friday," Seo-yeon said.

She took the envelope out of her bag and set it on the white tablecloth in front of Madam Heo, between the salad forks.

"Three hundred million won. The note, please."

Madam Heo looked at the envelope without touching it.

Then she nodded to the lawyer, who had been eating alone at a side table.

He came over with a folder and handed Seo-yeon a sheet of paper.

Her mother's signature was at the bottom. Small and careful, the way she signed everything.

Seo-yeon folded it into her bag.

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