I was so badly startled that I kicked the wardrobe door, and the door slammed straight into Kyle’s head before banging shut and swinging open again.
He must have taken it squarely, because Kyle staggered backward. Beyond the wide open wardrobe doors I could see Kang Yunsik and the hotel manager with shocked faces, and Kyle Carver rubbing his forehead.
“Wh... What do you think you’re doing?”
Absurdity and shock had Korean coming out of my mouth even though I knew he wouldn’t understand it. Kang Yunsik avoided my eyes, apparently intending to see this through by feigning ignorance. Watching him do it made my blood boil.
“Managing Director! What are you doing right now? You brought this man here, didn’t you?”
“I never expected things to turn out like this either... He simply said he wished to meet you, so I escorted him. I never imagined he would go this far.”
“No, seriously, is he insane? What is this?”
What is that supposed to be, an explanation or a fart? Being caught hiding in here was embarrassing and the whole thing was so preposterous that the rough language came out without passing through any filter.
“You know who this man is, don’t you?”
“I escorted him here precisely because I know who he is.”
Kang Yunsik knew perfectly well that this was going sideways, knew perfectly well that he had created the situation, and was standing there with both hands off it. It was unbelievable.
The genuinely worst part was that I was still delivering all of this from inside a wardrobe. Unless Kyle moved out of the way, getting out of here was a distant prospect.
“Enough. Take him out of here right now!”
“Looks like you’re scared.”
But Kyle got closer faster than Kang Yunsik did. He braced a hand on the wardrobe wall and bent his head slightly. My skin lifted at the bitter alpha pheromones. They were blatantly clinging, unpleasant beyond measure.
“Is it because of me?”
He blocked the light, and those deep blue eyes glinted with something dank in them. Perhaps it was the pheromones, which he was unmistakably letting off on purpose, but every nerve in me stood on end as though I had become a tiger’s prey. I pressed my back flat against the wardrobe wall, with nowhere left to retreat, and pulled my head back to get as far from him as I could.
I had been half doubtful that he would actually lay a hand on the family of one of his own company’s key partners, but this man was plainly, flatly insane.
I cut my eyes toward the door latch, just visible in the space between the wardrobe and Kyle. The latch was completely destroyed and dangling in midair. I evened out my shallow breathing and then spoke calmly.
“What do you think you’re doing, being this rude?”
I was still Baek Ihyeok’s husband. As long as this man was tangled up with him through mutual interests, he couldn’t just do whatever he liked with me, and that thought made me speak a little forcefully.
But Kyle said nothing, only picked his way slowly over my face as though studying it. It felt exactly like a gaze appraising the market value of a product, and the longer the silence ran the worse I felt. So when I couldn’t stand it any longer and was on the point of telling him to move.
“You look nothing like the photo!”
He grinned wide and shoved his face right up to mine. Thanks to which I jerked my head back on reflex and cracked the back of it against the wall.
“With that face you’re a dominant? Seriously?”
In that instant I regretted hiding in the wardrobe down to my bones. That beaming face directly in front of mine couldn’t possibly have been more skin crawling.
“I’ve never seen a dominant like you. And it doesn’t look like you’ve had work done anywhere either.”
“Would you move, please?”
I bent one knee, fully intending to kick him if he kept talking nonsense. There was one thing I had learned across a great many experiences in my life.
The cure for a madman is another madman.
Baek Ihyeok in rut had been one, and the foreigner in front of me now was another.
“Sure, fine. I can’t see your face properly to keep talking in there anyway.”
Unexpectedly, Kyle moved off me without a fuss. I hurried out of the wardrobe. I had no wish to meet that gaze again, the one that looked like it was drooling.
Kyle ambled over to the sofa and sat down. Then he gave the champagne glass on the table a light shake in my direction.
“Want a drink?”
It took less than a few seconds alone in the room with him to work out that how he had carried himself at our first meeting had been comparatively formal. Gripping the phone, I moved toward the entrance and frowned.
“Is that something you say after barging into someone else’s room?”
“How is this your room? Anyone can come in here and rest. Is it an omega thing, making it that obvious this is your first time somewhere like this?”
“That would be the room right next door. This one Ihyeok set aside for me specifically. Which is why you don’t have a key, and why you just forced the door open to get in.”
What is even wrong with this world? Everyone equal regardless of trait, supposedly, and yet every single alpha bastard I met looked down on omegas. And then they put on their faces at official functions and pretended not to discriminate, which called to mind a great many varieties of discrimination I had lived through in my previous life.
“Oh, really? That explains it.”
Kyle placidly poured champagne into his glass and took a mouthful. Whatever he found so amusing, the smile at his mouth showed no sign of going anywhere.
“Sit down first, why don’t you? I’ve got something to discuss.”
“Ihyeok will be here soon. Let’s talk together then.”
“He’ll be a while. He’s deep in business talk with the CEOs right now, I’d say.”
“Then it can wait until next time.”
Bang!
“Sit.”
“...”
The table shook faintly along with the crash. Kyle had set the champagne down hard on it and was staring at me. The mood froze over in an instant. I had no choice but to stop walking with barely three or four paces between me and the entrance. And that wasn’t only because of Kyle.
“...What are you doing?”
“The Director will be here shortly, so please spare us a moment.”
Shock aside, Kang Yunsik blocking the entrance was what made it unbelievable. Even after seeing my expression, he gestured toward Kyle with a stiff face.
“He is a director at our company’s key partner firm. He is also the man holding this contract extension. There is nothing to gain from needlessly falling out of his favor.”
“Hold on, am I the one who has to extend that contract?”
“I am asking you as a favor.”
What is he talking about? I checked the phone, and apart from a message from Secretary Choi saying he would get here as fast as he could, no contact had come through at all. Then why tell me to get in touch in the first place?
Between not understanding and being unable to do anything about it, the anger I had worked to hold down began to simmer up. I was trying to make an honest go of living, and starting with Jeong Jio, one damned obstruction after another kept scraping at my nerves. Ignorant of any of that, Kyle’s voice, far too loud for talking to himself, drilled neatly into my ears.
“I think it’d be nice if you came to my party. If a dominant went into heat somewhere like that, it’d be a real spectacle. Every last one of them would be panting for it without needing any drugs. It’s my creed that good things ought to be shared.”
“...”
“Do you like parties? Ah, well. Even if you don’t, you’ll come to like mine.”
“...”
“Lucky Baek Ihyeok, actually going and marrying a dominant like you. Just looking at you I could easily pull off three loads.”
And the moment I saw his hand go to his waistband, the heat that had been bubbling shot straight to the top of my head.
This absolute lunatic. Seriously.
It was like pouring oil onto a small ember that had been burning quietly. Along with the humiliation I was so incensed that I hallucinated sparks going off in front of my eyes.
I clenched a fist and walked over to him in long strides. Kyle rubbed at the front of his suit trousers, following the distinct outline of himself, and looked up at me. A sneering smile hung at his mouth.
I looked at him and said it flatly.
“Go on then. Pull one off.”
“What?”
“I said pull one off.”
The hand at his waistband stopped short. Thinking he had misheard, apparently, he tilted his head. Without a single change in my expression, I pointed my index finger at his crotch.
“You said just from looking at my face you could pull off three loads. Let’s see whether you actually can.”
Turning to Kang Yunsik and the manager standing at the entrance, I called them over, deliberately in English.
“Managing Director, and the manager over there, come in. Shouldn’t we have at least three witnesses?”
I sat down on the sofa opposite Kyle and patted the seat beside me, tap, tap.
“Why are you standing there? Come and sit. When else are you going to see a ‘Novus director’ put on a masturbation show?”
“...”
“As it happens, I think along much the same lines as you, Mr. Kyle. Rare things ought to be shared and watched together.”
“...”
“And while we’re at it, shall we bet on how many minutes each load takes? How about it?”
I set the phone Baek Ihyeok had given me on the table and, making sure everyone saw, started a timer.
