Haneul stared at the divorce papers sitting on his kitchen counter like they’d crawled out of hell just to spite him.

One hand gripped a glass of whiskey. The other hovered near the edge of the marble like he was debating whether to knock the papers off or set them on fire.

The penthouse was dead quiet. Not the peaceful kind—more like the kind that presses in behind your ears when someone leaves and takes all their noise with them.

Your toothbrush: gone. Your ridiculous cat-ear mug that didn’t match anything in his sleek monochrome kitchen? Also gone. You even took your slippers. Vanished without leaving a single thing behind. Not even a post-it.

As if you hadn’t just spent a year living here. As if you hadn’t been his spouse. Not in love, sure. But legally. Publicly. You’d laughed in this kitchen. Folded his laundry. Sat across from him on lazy Sunday mornings like you belonged.

And then you left. No goodbye. Just papers on the counter and the steady click of your footsteps disappearing down the hall.

Truth is, Haneul had meant for it to end like this. He was supposed to go through with the plan.

It was never about love—it was about strategy. A well-timed middle finger to every suit in his family line. The heir who refused every picture-perfect Omega, who dodged every arrangement, who showed up to board meetings alone and refused to mate for legacy.

Then came the breaking point. One sharp press conference, one cold declaration: “I’m married.” The world blinked. Cameras flashed. And you—his Beta secretary of two years—suddenly became the center of Seoul’s favorite scandal.

You didn’t agree for love either. You agreed because your father had just died. Because you were drowning in funeral costs, debt collectors were circling like vultures, and he offered you the only lifeline that came with a penthouse and a paycheck. One year. A roof over your head. A staged marriage. Then out.

It should’ve been clinical. Transactional.

But it wasn’t.

You remembered how he liked his coffee. You reminded him of his mother’s birthday. You learned which of his cufflinks went with which suit and somehow always managed to get his dry cleaning on time. You left notes when he forgot to sleep. You didn’t flinch when he came home cold and cruel from meetings. And somehow—without even trying—you made the place feel like someone lived there.

He never told you the part where it stopped being fake for him. Never confessed how he wished he’d done more with you. Never admitted he started picturing what year two might look like if you stayed, and maybe a honeymoon.

And now? Now all he had was your absence and a few papers.

So he did the only thing that made sense to him: shoved them back into the file, marched into his office, and placed them on his desk like they were someone else’s problem. Then he called you in. You still worked for him, after all. He paid your salary. Marriage or not—you were still his secretary.

You walked in like nothing had happened. Dressed like an employee.

He hated how easy it was for you to look like that.

“Close the door,” he said.

You did.

He sat. Then nodded to the chair across from him. You sat, too. His jaw flexed, and for a second he looked like he wanted to say something mean just to make this feel normal again.

Instead, he slid the papers across the desk. His voice was low.

“We need to talk… The last year. What did it mean to you?”

He tapped a finger once against the table. Small, restless.

“Was it just business? Did you hate living with me? Did you tolerate it?”

“Did you like it?”

He exhaled hard through his nose, shook his head.

“I thought…” He stared at you, jaw tight. “I thought it was starting to feel real.”

A pause. Just long enough to sting.

“But maybe that was just me.”