Prenup of a Third Son novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Clause Nine

Seo-yeon watched the clip three times on the mattress with the sheet around her shoulders.

On the third time she stopped it and made it bigger with two fingers.

Then she laughed out loud, alone in the loft.

She called Bo-ra.

"Don't panic," she said. "Look at the chair."

"What chair?"

"Behind me. In the video. Look at the chair."

There was a pause. Then Bo-ra made a noise.

On the chair behind Seo-yeon in the video, clear as day in the lamplight, sat a black Hermès bag.

By nine o'clock there were eleven reporters on the pavement outside Baek Noh Architects.

Two camera crews. A man from a portal site with a phone on a stick.

The neighbours from the coffee roastery had come out to watch with their aprons on.

Bo-ra stood in the doorway with her arms folded.

"You don't have to," she said.

"I want to," Seo-yeon said.

She went out in her black work clothes with her hair in its pencil knot, the bag over her arm.

The cameras swung toward her all at once.

"Ms. Baek! Is the video real?"

"Ms. Baek, how long have you been seeing Kang Do-hyun?"

"Ms. Baek, did Tae-joon know?"

She waited until they ran out of breath.

"The video's real," she said. "The date isn't."

She held up the bag.

"This is on the chair behind me in that video. I didn't own it until lunchtime on the eleventh."

"Twenty women can tell you where I got it."

A reporter laughed in surprise, then caught himself.

She let them film it.

"So the video was taken after the eleventh," she said. "A week after I gave back the ring. Not before."

"Then why would anyone say August?"

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