Even If You Run Away

Even the simple act of putting on a condom felt captivating, leaving me utterly absorbed. His large, thick shaft was strikingly prominent, commanding attention.

Who would guess that this man—meticulously composed, with not a single hair out of place—always carries a condom, ready for intimacy at a moment’s notice? And it’s all just for his wife.

The tip, undeniably thicker than a finger, pressed into my soaked core, stretching me with every inch. My hands, slick with our shared desire, clung to his hips. His strong fingers gripped my flesh firmly, leaving a sensation that promised to linger.

“If you keep doing that, it’s like you’re teasing me,” Taehon murmured, his voice rough and thick with want.

He spoke as though I could seduce him effortlessly, yet I often found myself disoriented in the throes of passion with him. Was it truly my body that stirred such raw desire? Would I show the same expression if I were with someone else?

The days when he was away on business trips always felt unbearable. The ache of missing him was constant, gnawing at me in his absence.

“Just put it in already. I get it, Taeheon,” I urged, my voice trembling with need.

His reply, deepened by his arousal, seemed to reverberate through me. “If someone else had touched you, there’s no way you’d still be this tight… impossible,” he whispered, each word punctuated by heavy breaths.

With every thrust, the tension inside me built. I could feel every inch of him as my body clenched around his, the sensation becoming sharper, more intense with each moment.

It felt as though her stomach was completely full. Even the slightest movement pressed everything inside, heightening the sensation. Tears began to pool in Yein’s eyes. Sex with her husband always pushed her to her limits—it had been that way from the very beginning.

“None… ugh, ha, none,” she whispered breathlessly, clinging to Taehon.

Her hands pressed against his back, feeling the taut muscles shift beneath her palms with every thrust.

“Someone else… no one else but you…” she murmured, her words trailing off.

Taehon froze for a moment, his movements halting as if he’d caught something in her soft muttering.

Then, without warning, his pace shifted. The deliberate rhythm he’d been keeping was abandoned, replaced by sudden, intense thrusts. The shaft that had been moving slowly now plunged deeply, mercilessly, into her.

Yein arched her neck, a silent scream stuck in her throat. Her exposed skin prickled as Taeheon’s mouth claimed her, his teeth grazing her neck before his lips suckled greedily. Each pull of his hips left wetness trailing down her thighs, evidence of her surrender.

Tears spilled over as pleasure surged through her, igniting a fire in her mind and unraveling her fragile grip on reason. Without thinking, her nails dug into his back as she cried out, the sound primal, desperate—an instinctive plea born of overwhelming sensation.

As always, she was consumed by him, swept up in the storm of Taeheon’s unrelenting passion. With every act, every word, he pushed her further, until Yein was left questioning herself.

Through her sobs, a quiet wish formed.

She wanted to go back.

Back to the beginning.

Back to the day they first met.

If she could, she wouldn’t make such foolish choices again.

She wouldn’t have slipped her feet into shoes that never fit—driven by greed for what she could never truly have.

She wouldn’t have married him.

The day Yein first met her father and the day she met Taehon bore a striking resemblance: in both moments, she only learned their names just before they became family.

But her mindset was entirely different. Unlike the past, when she’d foolishly done whatever her father demanded, this time, she vowed not to be swept away by circumstance.

Yet Taeheon made it impossible for her to stay in control.

He’d arrived at their first meeting precisely on time, his presence immaculate, without a hint of disorder. His expression, however, betrayed his disinterest. He sat across from her with an air of absolute boredom, listening to her every word as though it were a tedious obligation.

Yein swallowed hard, her throat dry. He was far more handsome than she had imagined. His imposing physique and sharp, chiseled features left her feeling small and out of place, a stark reminder of the gap between them.

Kwon Taeheon. Managing Director of Changseong Group. She had received his profile just this morning, a detailed dossier outlining his career and personal life.

No doubt, Taeheon had also received a similar profile about her:
Lee Yein. The second daughter of the Haesong Group.

But there was one key difference. Taeheon’s profile was real. Hers was a lie.

“I’m not the woman Kwon Taeheon wants.”

Yein’s voice was steady as she met his piercing gaze. It was a line she had rehearsed countless times, the words etched into her mind since the moment she decided to come here.

“I am not Lee Yein.”

Her sudden confession didn’t faze him. Taeheon listened without so much as a blink, his calm demeanor as unshakable as it had been since their conversation began. He’d sat there in silence when Yein first spoke, insisting there was something he needed to know before anything else.

“Mr. Kwon Taeheon may know me as Haesong’s second daughter,” she continued, her voice unwavering, “but my mother isn’t Director Baek So-jeong. My mother is someone else entirely.”

Outside, the autumn rain fell steadily, the soft patter of raindrops sliding down the café’s windows filling the silence between them. The delicate rhythm seemed to amplify the stillness at their table, a quiet tension hanging in the air.

Yein shivered and pulled her cardigan tighter around her shoulders. She couldn’t tell if the chill came from the weather or the man seated across from her.

From the moment she entered the café, Taeheon had exuded an intimidating presence. Draped in a long coat that only heightened his commanding aura, he seemed to dominate the space effortlessly, even while sitting silently across from her.

“That means you’re an illegitimate child,” he said at last, his smooth baritone cutting through the quiet.

Yein flinched at the bluntness of his words but quickly straightened her back, determined not to show weakness.

“That’s right,” she replied, her tone firm, though the words stung more than she wanted to admit. “An illegitimate child.”

She’d heard it all before, after all.

A child who didn’t even know her father.
A girl abandoned by her mother, left to fend for herself.
A shadow that didn’t belong anywhere.

Those labels had followed Yein like a curse, defining her life as she grew up. This moment, this confrontation, was just another reminder of the identity she couldn’t escape.

Choi Yein became Lee Yein when she was seven years old.

One day, she returned home from playing outside to find a stranger sitting with her grandmother. He wasn’t her father. He was someone her father had sent.

The man, who introduced himself as a secretary from Haesong Enterprise, treated Yein like a package to be delivered. He loaded her into his car without hesitation and drove her straight to her father.

Her grandmother, who had raised Yein as her own, was left behind. When she later came to plead with Yein’s father to see her granddaughter, he heartlessly turned her away—in the middle of winter.

To be close to Yein, who cried every day in that cold, unfamiliar house, her grandmother took a job as a cleaner in the same household, working without pay.

My memories of that time are nothing but hell.

Yein endured ten years in Chairman Haesong’s house before being cast out. Now, at twenty-four, she was being summoned back again.

Not out of love or obligation.

But to be sold.

“So, you don’t have to marry me,” Yein said, her voice steady despite the knot tightening in her chest.

She felt a flicker of relief after uttering such a cliché, as if the words themselves could shield her from the humiliation. But the faces of her father and stepmother loomed in her mind, their sharp voices warning her not to ruin this opportunity.

Her reluctance to expose her painful family history to a man she had just met was easily outweighed by her simmering resentment toward her father. A part of her hoped this revelation would anger Taeheon—perhaps he’d enjoy humiliating the man who had tried to deceive them both.

But Taeheon didn’t react.

Not even a flicker of emotion crossed his face. His expression remained cold, impassive, like a sculpture carved from ice.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“…What?” Yein blinked, caught off guard.

“What else should I know about Ms. Lee Yein?” he pressed, his tone steady and unaffected. “The things she’s been hiding—is that all? That her mother isn’t who she claims to be?”

The indifference in his voice made the lifelong burdens Yein carried feel small, insignificant. For a moment, she was rendered speechless, but then she forced herself to continue.

“I lived in my father’s house as if I were a servant,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “Unlike my sister, I never learned ballet or violin. I was raised almost entirely by my grandmother.”

The truth spilled out, each word heavy with years of resentment and pain.

“Family relationships, academic background—everything is fake?”

“I went to college on my own,” Yein replied, her tone measured but tinged with bitterness. “But the part about living abroad when I was young? That’s a lie.”

According to the fabricated profile, Yein was the second daughter who had been sent away for health reasons, supposedly recuperating abroad for most of her childhood. The truth was far less polished.

She had been kicked out of the house, but her name remained on the family register—a decision that likely served her father’s petty schemes more than any sense of duty. Knowing her father’s personality, it seemed less like careful planning and more like a jab at her stepmother.

“My father brought me here because he wanted Kwon Taehon’s money.”

“And why were you dragged into this?”

The question caught Yein off guard, the sharpness of Taeheon’s words cutting through her carefully prepared answers.

“You’ve clearly planned everything you wanted to say from the moment I sat down,” he continued, his gaze unwavering. “It’s obvious you never intended to participate in your father’s fraud. So, I’ll ask again: why did you agree to sit here? Are you trying to get me to refuse the marriage?”

His doubts were understandable, even natural. If she despised this situation so much, why had she come at all? If she planned to confess everything the moment they met, why go through the trouble of showing up?

Yein hesitated, the thought of defying her father flashing through her mind. She had fantasized about rejecting the political marriage outright, about standing firm against her father’s manipulations. But reality was far more complicated.

“I think there might be a weakness,” Taeheon said, his voice calm but piercing, as if peering directly into her thoughts.

Yein flinched, his words striking closer to the truth than she cared to admit. Taehon’s lips curved slightly, the faintest hint of a smirk forming.

“You’re not in a position to refuse this marriage yourself,” he continued. “So, your plan is to convince me to do it for you.”

“…Yes,” Yein admitted softly, the word barely audible.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Taeheon said, his tone icy and decisive, “but I have no intention of refusing.”

Yein’s breath hitched.

After everything she had confessed, after revealing the lies, the manipulations, and her father’s selfish motives—he still wanted to go through with the marriage?

“I told you—” Yein started, but Taeheon cut her off.

“I don’t care.”

His words were final, leaving no room for argument.

“You don’t care?”

“Not at all,” Taehon replied coolly. “She’ll keep pretending to be Haesong’s second daughter, and I appreciate her honesty. She’s even naive enough to reveal her weaknesses to a man she’s just met.”

His blunt words made Yein’s head spin. Was he mocking her? Why did it feel like he was laughing at her, even if his expression didn’t show it?

“I didn’t come here looking for a spouse,” Taehon continued. “I came to find someone I can do business with.”

“What kind of deal could I possibly make with Mr. Kwon Taehon?” Yein asked, her voice laced with frustration.

“Why are you here?” Taehon countered, his sharp eyes locking onto hers.

“My father—”

“Not him,” Taeheon interrupted, shaking his head before she could finish.

Yein hesitated, moistening her dry lips. There was no point in hiding it now—not after everything she had already revealed.

“The grandmother who raised me is sick. I don’t have the money to pay her hospital bills.”

Her face burned with shame as the truth spilled out. She hated how it sounded, hated that it was no different from admitting she was being sold. Her grandmother’s condition had worsened dramatically in recent months. The doctors had warned it was hard to predict how much time she had left.

Yein had tried to manage on her own, juggling savings and part-time jobs, but the cost of surgery was astronomical. She’d even taken a leave of absence from school to care for her grandmother, but no matter how hard she worked, she couldn’t make ends meet.

“If I offer to cover the cost,” Taehon said, his voice calm and dispassionate, as though discussing the weather, “will you marry me?”

The cold simplicity of his words hit Yein like ice water.

Her toes curled inside her shoes, and her chest felt hollow, the chill spreading deeper.

First, her father had treated her like a pawn. Now, this man was doing the same. It was clear: Yein wasn’t just caught in her father’s schemes. The real storm was Taehon.

“I understand what you’re proposing,” she said, her voice trembling despite her attempt to sound composed. “But I don’t understand why. Even if it’s a deal, as you’ve heard, I have nothing to offer.”

Her words hung in the air. She was a freshly graduated student, buried in debt from school and overwhelmed by her grandmother’s medical expenses.

“All I have is my body.”

The truth cut deeply, but there was no avoiding it. Yein had no wealth, no connections, no prestige—not even a stable family.

“Then sell it to me.”

Taehon’s response was immediate, delivered without hesitation, his tone steady as if he had asked her to pass the salt.