The private dining room of the Shilla Hotel was an oppressive display of wealth. Silk screens painted with traditional cranes lined the walls, and the table was heavy with gold-rimmed porcelain.
Ethan sat rigidly in his chair, a glass of untouched sake in front of him. Across the table, Miss Kang—elegant, perfectly poised, and entirely aware of the political theater taking place—was smiling for the benefit of the senior board members seated around them. To anyone looking in, Ethan Choi was the picture of a dutiful, corporate-minded heir mending fences for the sake of his family's empire.
But inside, Ethan was entirely absent.
Every laugh Miss Kang gave felt like static in his ears. Every calculating nod from Director Kang made his skin crawl. His mind was miles away, anchored entirely to the quiet penthouse where he had left Hazel crying. He remembered the raw hurt in her puppy-like eyes, the way her voice had cracked when she called him a liar. The guilt was a physical weight in his chest, suffocating him.
Just a little longer, he told himself, his fingers tightening around his glass until his knuckles structural lines strained. Once I secure the encryption keys to their leak source tonight, I can go home. I can tell her everything.
"You seem distracted, Vice President Choi," Miss Kang murmured, leaning in slightly, her voice laced with a practiced, high-society sweetness. "Is the company dinner not to your liking?"
Ethan forced his feline eyes to focus on her, his mask flawless and chillingly detached. "The dinner is fine, Miss Kang. I am simply calculating the logistics of our next venture. Business takes precedence, as always."
Director Kang laughed heartily from the head of the table, thoroughly satisfied by Ethan's submissive, cold demeanor. They thought they had broken him. They thought they had successfully caged the predator.
They had no idea he was just waiting for the match to strike.
---
It was past midnight when the black town car finally pulled up to the penthouse complex. Ethan didn't wait for the chauffeur to open his door. He broke into a fast, uncharacteristic stride the moment he hit the lobby floor, practically tearing through the elevator doors.
He had done it. Through a quiet counter-threat delivered via his legal team during the dessert course—revealing that he had tracked Director Kang’s illegal offshore shipping accounts—he had forced a mutual destruction pact. The blackmail photos were permanently deleted, the servers wiped, and the Kang family had backed down. He was finally free. He could finally protect her with the truth.
He pressed his thumb against the biometric scanner of the penthouse door. The lock clicked open with a heavy, satisfying sound.
"Hazel!" Ethan called out, his voice instantly dropping the icy corporate mask, filled with a desperate, breathless urgency. "Hazel, I'm home. I need to talk to you—"
He stepped into the living room, and the words died in his throat.
The penthouse was pitch-black. The golden city lights filtered through the panoramic windows, illuminating an apartment that felt completely, devastatingly hollow. There was no scent of vanilla or warm sugar in the air.
Ethan’s heart did a violent, terrifying flip. He walked into the kitchen. The plate of chocolate chip cookies from the day before was gone, the counters meticulously wiped clean.
With his breathing turning shallow, he lunged down the hallway toward his bedroom. The door swung open. The bed was perfectly made, the duvet pulled tight without a single wrinkle. He ran across the hall to her original bedroom—the room she had kept during their "roommate" phase.
The closet doors were slightly ajar. When he pulled them open, his vision went completely blurry. Her colorful sweaters, her oversized sweatshirts, her clumsy canvas shoes—half of them were gone. Left behind on her empty desk was a small, neat stack of papers.
On top of the papers lay her wedding ring, its simple platinum band catching the cold moonlight.
Beneath it was a short, handwritten note in her neat, rounded script:
'Ethan,
I think I finally understand. You were right—we made a deal to keep your family happy, and I shouldn't have confused your protective nature for something else. I don't want to be a burden or a corporate obligation that forces you to act like someone you're not. I'm going to stay at my old university apartment for a while so we can both breathe. Let's go back to being seatmates who look out for each other from a distance. Take care of yourself.'
---
Ethan stared at the note, the paper trembling violently in his hand. The quiet, elegant prince died right then and there.
A raw, agonizing sound tore from his chest—a mix of a sob and a territorial growl. He had spent his entire life building walls to keep the world out, thinking that if he kept her inside the cage with him, she would be safe. But his silence, his icy deception, had become the very weapon that drove her away. She thought he didn't want her. She thought he was discarding her for a high-society arrangement.
"Foolish... incredibly foolish," Ethan rasped out, his eyes turning bloodshot as a terrifying, frantic adrenaline flooded his veins.
He didn't care about his father. He didn't care about the board, the logistics merger, or the pristine reputation he had spent twenty-four years maintaining. If he lost her, the penthouse was just a tomb, and his freedom was entirely meaningless.
He slammed his phone against his ear, dialing his personal secretary as he sprinted back out toward the elevator, his tailored suit jacket completely forgotten on the floor of her empty bedroom.
"Sir?" the secretary answered, her voice thick with sleep. "Is everything alright?"
"Track the location of the vintage Mini Cooper registered under Hazel's name," Ethan commanded, his voice a low, lethal growl that made the secretary sit up instantly. He was taking the stairs three at a time, his cat-like reflexes working on pure survival instinct. "Find out which route she took toward the university district. Now!"
"Sir, it's one in the morning—"
"I don't care if it's the end of the world!" Ethan roared into the receiver, slamming his fist against the steering wheel of his sports car as he started the engine, the roar echoing like thunder in the empty underground parking lot. "If she leaves my perimeter, none of this matters. Find her!"