The press release went out at 9:00 a.m. sharp.
The first draft had been carved, line by cautious line, over three nights. Legal had combed through the language. PR had sanded down the sharper edges of truth until it gleamed with acceptable fiction.
At 9:00:08 a.m., the Han Group website crashed under the traffic.
At 9:00:15 a.m., the first major outlet pushed a breaking banner:
HAN GROUP'S HEIRESS MARRIES FOR LOVE.
SECRET ROMANCE WITH FORMER CELLO PRODIGY.
On the thirty-seventh floor, in a conference room suffocating with glass and daylight, Han Seo-yoon watched the live feed of her own life being reinterpreted.
Behind her, the city was a map of rectangles and ambitions. In front of her, the wall-sized screen divided into television segments, news sites, comment threads, financial tickers. All of them were talking about her.
No one in the room dared to.
Director Han Sang-gu occupied the seat at the head of the table, the one that technically belonged to her but which he had taken before she arrived. It was a move so ingrained in him he likely believed it courteous.
Now he sat back, hands folded over a belly earned through boardroom victories and expensive dinners, watching the coverage with a faint, indulgent smile.
"Love," he said at last, the word dragged like a joke across his tongue. "Such an… accessible choice, Seo-yoon-ah."
She did not look at him. Her gaze did not waver from the screen, where a lifestyle anchor was recounting the "fairy-tale romance" between the stoic heiress and the fallen musician.
"It tests better than 'strategic alliance,'" she said. "Particularly with women in their thirties-to-fifties. Our primary consumer demographic."
Someone at the table shifted. The PR director, eyes flicking between her and Sang-gu as though watching the early tremors of an earthquake.
Her uncle chuckled. "Everything is numbers with you. Demographics. Percentages." He tilted his head, a gesture meant to appear avuncular, wise. "Marriage is not a quarterly report, child. It is a sacred vow."
"Which we are fulfilling," she replied. "Publicly, efficiently, and with minimal disruption to operations."
"You expect us to believe this was not disruptive?" His smile turned, the curvature tightening around his eyes. "You announce your marriage without consulting the full board. You marry a… day laborer."
A slow, disdainful pause.
"…and expect no consequences?"
Now she turned her head. Just enough so that her gaze met his. Not challenging. Not deferential. A straight line.
"I married a former world-class cellist," she said. "Educated, multilingual, widely recognized in international performing arts circles. His background actually broadens our brand appeal in Western markets."
"Former," Sang-gu repeated, savoring the word. "As in, no longer. As in, ruined. As in, a man who cannot even do what he was supposedly born for."
She felt the prickle of heat rise, sharp and clean, in the back of her throat.
She swallowed it.
"Board members have been arrested for less and still retained their seats," she said. "A scandal in the arts world is comparatively benign."
A few of the directors looked away, their expressions flattening.
A small victory. Petty, but useful.
On the screen, a photo of Jin-hyuk appeared—taken from some older feature, before the scandal. He was on stage, instrument cradled against his shoulder, eyes closed. The light caught on the curve of the cello, the angle of his jaw, the veins on his hand. He looked like a man mid-prayer.
The chyron beneath read: THE MAN WHO WALKED AWAY FROM GENIUS.
"We live in an era of narratives," she continued. "The public already knows his story. A promising artist who sacrificed himself for a younger student's future. They thought the punishment unfair. The online sentiment remains sympathetic."
"And yet," Sang-gu said mildly, "he is still banned from professional orchestras. There were… details… that did not reach the public, if I remember correctly?"
Her heartbeat slowed instead of quickened. A learned paradox: the more threatened she felt, the calmer she became.
"The Shadow Benefactor holds those details," she said. "Not the public. You know that."
"Mm." He tapped a fingertip against the polished table. Once. Twice. "This mysterious benefactor. Helping your husband, controlling his fate, holding this evidence like a sword over your pretty new marriage. You seemed quite unconcerned about them in our last risk report."
"They want leverage, not exposure. They gain nothing if they destroy their own currency."
Her uncle's smile sharpened. "Unless their true goal is to destroy you."
Silence settled, thin and vibrating.
She heard, distantly, the sound of the elevator dinging in the outer hall. Footsteps approaching. Voices.
"We are not discussing hypotheticals," she said.
"On the contrary," Sang-gu murmured, rising as the conference room door began to open. "We are watching them walk in."
The door swept inward.
Kang Jin-hyuk stepped into the room, and overnight myth entered with him.
He wore the navy suit she had had delivered to the tiny apartment two nights ago—adjusted in the waist, shoulders, and sleeves, the fabric falling on him like something that had been waiting for his frame. His hair was pushed back from his face, a little too stubborn to stay perfectly in place. The scar along his left knuckle was visible where his cuff shifted.
He paused just inside the doorway.
For half a heartbeat, his eyes moved across the room—taking in the board members, the screen, the images of his younger self frozen mid-performance. There was a flash of something on his face then: a squeezed, quiet ache.
It was gone when he turned to her.
"Sorry I'm late," he said, bowing. "My wife's security detail insisted on walking me from the lobby, as if I might get lost in the elevators."
The word wife slid into the room and burst like a small, controlled explosion.
On instinct, every gaze pivoted between the two of them, measuring.
Seo-yoon did not blink. "Arrive five minutes early next time," she said. "Investors interpret tardiness as disrespect."
"Yes, Executive Chair," he replied, then corrected himself with a small, deliberate smile. "Seo-yoon-ah."
A sharper inhale from one of the more conservative directors. A faint twitch in Sang-gu's jaw.
Bold, she thought. Of course he would be.
"Come," she said. "We are reviewing the media response."
She turned back to the screen. He moved to stand at her side instead of taking a seat, one hand on the back of her chair—not possessive, but present. The cameras embedded at the top corners of the room caught the angle: united front, subtle intimacy, shared focus.
The PR director cleared his throat. "The initial sentiment is… overwhelmingly engaged. We're tracking positive-to-neutral at around seventy-four percent. The key concerns are predictably centered around Chairman Han's…." He faltered, then corrected, "around Executive Chair Han's business judgment."
"You can say 'female,'" she said. "I am aware of my gender."
A strained laugh skittered around the table, dying quickly.
"They're already calling him the 'Trophy Husband,'" another director added, too eager, showing teeth. "There's a trending hashtag. #HanGroupsPrince."
"Better than #HanGroupsOrphan," Jin-hyuk said lightly. "Which, if I remember the tabloids from last month, was gaining traction."
Several faces froze. One of the older directors coughed into his fist, eyes dropping.
He was smiling when he said it, those dark eyes faintly amused, but his posture did not falter. Not ingratiating. Not meek.
A blade wrapped in velvet, she thought.
Her uncle's gaze lingered on him. "You speak easily, Mr. Kang," Sang-gu said. "For someone so unfamiliar with this world."
Jin-hyuk tilted his head. "I used to play recitals for five thousand people," he replied. "Between us, Director-nim, I find this room's energy far more intimidating."
A few of the younger executives looked down hastily to hide smiles.
Seo-yoon kept her own expression unaltered, but internally, she noted the exchange. He was doing it instinctively: disarming the ones who mattered, pricking the ones who threatened, keeping himself in that precarious space between charming and dangerous.
They had not rehearsed this part. But he had stepped into it as though the stage had always been his.
"Perhaps," Sang-gu said softly, "you should focus less on energy and more on your wife's reputation. I wonder how long it will withstand your… past."
"Director Han," she said.
She did not raise her voice, but the room adjusted to her, the way sound adjusts to a closed door.
"We will reconvene this afternoon with updated sentiment analysis. In the meantime, Legal will finalize the joint statement for the shareholder town hall. I expect the senior directors to attend with prepared questions." She glanced at the clock on the far wall. "We are done."
Chairs scraped. Files closed. People stood, trying to exit in a way that made it seem they were not rushing.
Sang-gu remained seated, watching her. "Family dinner this Sunday," he said. "Your aunt insists on celebrating your marriage. And your grandfather would like to… assess… his new grandson-in-law."
He looked at Jin-hyuk then, letting the weight of the word land.
"You will both attend. Of course."
It was phrased like an invitation. It sounded like a summons.
"We will check our schedules," she replied.
He smiled. "You won't find anything more important."
After he left, the room emptied in layers, like peeling an onion. Directors, legal, PR, junior staff. The air thinned with each exit until there were only two people and a muted city behind glass.
He was quiet beside her, watching the screen, where a collage of their photos had taken over. Her walking out of a courthouse months ago. Him carrying boxes into an old building. Now, their marriage registration document, blurred at the address line, highlighted at the names.
"You did well," she said.
"High praise from my boss."
"I am your wife here. Not your employer."
He considered that. "Then you should know your husband was five breaths away from punching your uncle."
"Do not assault board members," she said. "It is bad for the stock price."
"Is there a list," he asked, "of people I'm allowed to hit?"
She almost smiled. The impulse startled her, like stepping into a patch of unexpected sunlight.
"Your hands are assets," she said instead. "I do not want them damaged further."
His gaze dipped to his own fingers—scarred, calloused, the joints thicker than they should have been.
"Assets," he repeated. "Funny. I used to call them something else."
The lighting in the room shifted as a cloud passed. The rain had stopped; the city outside was rinsed and raw, edges sharper.
"You know," he said, more quietly now, "the first time I played on that stage they keep showing, I was nineteen. I threw up backstage from nerves. My teacher told me to wash my face and remember that music was bigger than vomit."
She looked at him. This was new information. Personal, useless in negotiation, and therefore dangerous.
"What calmed you?" she asked.
He shrugged, looking at his younger self on the screen. "The first note. Once I played it, the fear didn't matter anymore. There was only sound. And duty to it."
Duty. The word sat between them, familiar in different ways.
"The Board will expect you to perform again," she said. "Charity galas. Cultural initiatives. They will push for it as part of our 'shared story.'"
"And you?" He turned to her. "Do you expect it?"
Her instinctive answer—No, it's too risky—rose and met another thought halfway.
She remembered the way he had said it the night before: I play. Even if it's only once.
Somewhere far from this room, on a secure server, the Shadow Benefactor watched their names climb trending lists, fingers hovering over a cache of buried evidence.
Somewhere closer, in a private hospital room, a man lay sleeping under a white blanket that smelled faintly of antiseptic and a son's desperation.
"You asked me yesterday," she said slowly, "what I do if my uncle destroys everything and I lose the company." She held his gaze. "I said I rebuild. That was true."
He waited.
"If you play again," she continued, "the risk is not only mine. The Benefactor may expose you. The scandal could be worse than before. You might not get to stop on your own terms."
"So." His voice was steady. "Do you order me not to play?"
The corner of her jaw tightened. No one in the company had ever asked that of her—not the phrasing, not the challenge. Do you order me…
"We have three years," she said. "For that duration, I will not forbid you from anything that does not directly endanger the company's survival."
His brows lifted, a fraction. "You're… willing to let me try?"
"I am not 'letting' you," she said. "You are not my subordinate. You are my… partner."
The last word tasted strange. It had never fit in her mouth before.
He watched her, something indefinable softening around his eyes.
"You know," he said, "for a cold-hearted corporate shark, you say very romantic things."
"I am being pragmatic."
"Of course." A hint of laughter. "Pure pragmatism. That's why you just gave a ruined musician permission to chase the one thing that could burn your entire empire down."
Silence stretched. Not hostile. Not comfortable. Something in between—a rope held by two hands, neither pulling yet.
"Jin-hyuk," she said quietly.
"Yes, Executive Chair?"
"Do not fail."
He considered her, then nodded once.
"If I play," he said, "it will not be to fail."
They left the conference room together, his hand hovering at the small of her back—not touching, but close enough that every watching eye would see what it wanted to see.
In the elevator, the mirrored walls threw their reflection back at them: the perfect power couple, tailored and composed.
Their lie had a date, a shape, and two signatures.
Outside, the city dried under a hesitant sun.
Somewhere, unnoticed, a practice room waited. Dust on the music stands. A forgotten cello in a corner, strings slack and silent.
The world, already turning, did not yet know it was moving toward the day when deception and truth would share a stage—and only one of them would be allowed to take a bow.