Part Two: A Deal With Thorns
1455 Words
Her fingers hovered above the paper. The pen didn’t move.
The contract sat on the kitchen table, perfectly flat — untouched, like it was waiting for her soul to sign with the ink.
The rain had stopped.
But inside Serena Choi, it still stormed.
This wasn’t a fairytale proposal. No white roses. No kneeling prince.
Just ink, signatures, and a man with too many shadows behind his eyes.
But ₩3 billion was more than money. It was oxygen. It was her mother’s next operation. Her sister’s tuition. Her own freedom.
So why was her hand shaking?
She stood up, pushing the chair back sharply. Her tea had gone cold.
And in the silence of her one-room apartment, a knock came.
One knock.
Then two.
Then silence.
Serena opened the door slowly.
He looked older. Tired. Sober, for once.
“Uncle Min?” she said.
Her father’s lawyer. Once part of their inner circle. The kind of man who knew too much.
He stepped in without asking.
“You shouldn’t sign it,” he said without preamble, eyes already scanning the contract on the table.
Serena tensed. “You knew?”
“Everyone in the old families is talking about it. You think a Varo engagement goes unnoticed?”
“I didn’t ask for permission.”
“No,” he said, softer now. “But you deserve a warning.”
Serena folded her arms. “You worked for my father for ten years and never warned him. Why warn me now?”
He sat down, slow, heavy. “Because you’re not your father. And Dominic Varo… isn’t just cruel. He’s smart.”
She stayed silent.
“He doesn’t do anything for free. And no one signs over that much money without expecting something bigger.”
She walked toward the window. Her view overlooked a noodle shop and a cracked billboard. Nothing glamorous. Just real.
“I’m not doing it for money.”
He looked at her.
“I’m doing it for survival,” she said, her voice calm.
The day she found out her father had fallen, she was wearing a silk dress the color of moonlight and drinking champagne from a glass too expensive to replace.
The police came at midnight.
She remembered the way her mother fell to the floor, quiet, like a tower collapsing without a sound.
The tabloids didn't care about innocence.
They tore her apart, photo by photo.
One week later, she found her designer bags sold online. The maids disappeared. Her father’s friends stopped returning calls.
And in the middle of it, Serena was dragged into court with cameras flashing and a headline that never went away:
"Heiress or Accomplice?"
They cleared her name eventually.
But not her life.
No one hired her. No one invited her. No one forgave her.
She disappeared from the society pages.
From her own world.
Until now.
The next morning, Serena took the contract to VaroCorp.
She didn't wear designer. Just a clean white blouse, black slacks, and lip gloss that sparkled under fluorescent lights.
She felt like a ghost walking through the lobby. Everyone turned.
She walked with her head high anyway.
The receptionist blinked as she stepped into the private elevator without permission.
On the 99th floor, Dominic was already waiting.
No smile. Just an expressionless stare. As always.
“You came alone.”
“I was never one for entourages.”
He gestured to the sleek black folder on the glass desk.
“Any changes?”
She pulled out the contract she’d marked.
“One.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I want a clause that guarantees silence about my mother’s illness,” she said, her voice flat. “If this is going to be fake, I don’t want anyone dragging her into it.”
He studied her for a moment.
“Done,” he said, without hesitation.
She slid the contract toward him. Signed.
He didn’t flinch.
He signed too.
In blue ink. Sharp, clean strokes. Like the blade of a guillotine.
“Tell me the story,” he said.
They were sitting across from each other in the boardroom. Massive windows around them, but the air was closed.
“Our love story,” she corrected.
He nodded.
“I was nineteen,” she began. “And I was in Paris for a photoshoot. You were already CEO, attending some investors’ summit.”
“Seems plausible,” he said.
“It was raining. I got locked out of my hotel. You saw me struggling with the door.”
“Did I help?”
“No. You walked past me like I didn’t exist.”
He smirked. “Sounds accurate.”
She smiled slightly.
“But I chased after you,” she said. “Yelled that I knew who you were. That your family once ate at our private kitchen during a Choi gala.”
He blinked. Slowly.
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything,” she said softly.
“You told me I was annoying,” she added. “That I should go find someone who liked being saved.”
His jaw tightened.
“But I followed you into that restaurant anyway. And when the hostess told me you always sat alone… I asked for the table next to yours.”
Dominic didn’t interrupt.
“We didn’t talk that night,” she said. “But the next night, I sat at the same table. And the next.”
“A slow burn,” he said, a little amused.
“And on the fifth night,” she whispered, “you finally looked up and said, ‘Why do you keep showing up?’”
He didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Good,” he finally said. “Plausible. Romantic. And painful.”
“Painful?”
“Because no one expects pain in a love story,” he said, standing. “Which makes it believable.”
She stared at him.
And for the first time, she wondered who had broken him.
The press release hit the media within 24 hours.
“VARO CORPORATION CONFIRMS DOMINIC VARO’S ENGAGEMENT TO SERENA CHOI”
The internet broke.
Comments flooded in under every news site, every post:
“This has to be a PR stunt, right??”
“Didn’t her dad rob half the country??”
“OMG chaebol drama incoming I can’t breathe 😭😭😭”
Within hours, Serena’s name trended again.
Not as a scandal.
As a future wife.
Paparazzi were suddenly outside her apartment, snapping her groceries. Her sister texted her nonstop. Her mother’s nurses asked if she was really engaged to “the ice prince.”
Serena didn’t answer.
Because pretending to be in love was already starting to feel more real than her old life ever had.
Her fitting was the next day.
A sleek boutique uptown. They brought her six gowns to try. None of them were white. Dominic had requested “champagne gold” — a rare, regal color only worn by imperial families during weddings in old Joseon.
She didn’t ask why.
She simply stood there in a gown of silk and crystals, being measured, twisted, praised by designers who once ignored her calls.
“You’re glowing,” one whispered.
She wasn’t.
She was pretending.
But maybe that was what power felt like.
Being worshipped even when you were empty.
Serena sat on the edge of the changing platform and stared at herself in the mirror.
Beautiful.
Poised.
Lying.
A woman stepped into the room. Tall. Elegant. With eyes that sparkled cold like iced tea on a winter’s day.
“Dominic always had a taste for broken things,” the woman said calmly.
Serena turned. “I’m sorry, who—?”
“Yoon Hana,” she said. “Stepdaughter of Chairman Varo. Or… should I say, the real heiress of this empire.”
Serena felt her skin go still.
Hana smiled, slow and sharp. “Enjoy the throne, Miss Choi. Just remember — the higher you sit, the longer the fall.”
Then she left.
Just like that.
No drama. Just a warning in lipstick and designer heels.
Serena called her sister that night.
“I saw the photos,” Jinah said. “You look like a goddess.”
“I feel like a grenade.”
“Still beautiful.”
They laughed. But not for long.
Serena listened to her sister’s voice fade as she read the contract again.
There was one line that haunted her:
No falling in love. Ever.
But what scared her wasn’t falling in love with Dominic.
It was that, somewhere deep in his cold, mechanical heart… he might be capable of it too.
And that was dangerous.
Because no one survived loving a man like him.
Not even in pretend.
- Writer
