𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑩𝑬𝑻𝑹𝑨𝒀𝑨𝑳

III

Several minutes passed by before he joined her. Minutes he needed, to compose himself for what was to come, while she sat patiently waiting for him.
Strangely, she felt incredibly calm. Disconnected almost. Her heart was pumping quite steadily, and her hands lay relaxed on her lap.

He came in—minus his overcoat and jacket, his tie loosened around his neck and the top few buttons of his crisp white shirt tugged undone. He didn’t glance at her but made straight for the drinks cabinet where his usual bottle of good whisky waited for him.
‘Want one?’ he asked.

She shook her head. He must have sensed her refusal because he didn’t repeat the enquiry, nor did he look at her. He poured himself a large measure, then came to drop down in the chair opposite her.

He took a large gulp at the spirit. ‘Loyal friend you’ve got,’ was his opening gambit.

Loyal husband, she countered, but didn’t bother saying it.

His eyes were closed. He had not looked directly at her once since coming into the room. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, whisky glass held loosely between both sets of fingers—long, strong fingers, with blunted nails kept beautifully clean.

Like the rest of him, she supposed: long-limbed, strong-bodied and always kept scrupulously clean. Good suits, shoes, hand-made shirts and expensive silk ties. His face was paler than usual, but it was still a very attractive face, with clean-cut squared-off lines to complement the chiselled shape of his nose and slim, determined mouth.

Thirty-one now—going on thirty-two—he had always been essentially a masculine kind of man, but through the years other facets of his character had begun to write themselves into his features: an inner strength which perhaps always came with maturity, confidence, a knowledge of self-worth. The signs of power and an ability to wield it efficiently all had a place in his face now—nothing you could actually point to and say, You have that because you’re successful and know it, but just a general air about the man, which placed him up there among the special set.

And controlled, she realised now. Jungkook had always possessed an impressive depth of self-control, rarely lost his temper, rarely became irritated when things did not quite go his way. He had this rare ability to look at a problem and put aside its negative sides to deal only with the positive.
Which was probably what he was doing now searching through the debris of what one phone call had done to his marriage and looking for the positive aspects he could sift out from it.

That, she supposed, epitomized Jeon Jungkook, head of Master Holdings, an organisation which had over the last few years grown at a phenomenal pace, gobbling up smaller companies then spitting them out again as better, far more commercially profitable appendages to their new father company.

And he had done it all on his own, too. Built his mini empire by maintaining that fine balance between success and disaster without once placing his family and what he had got for them at risk. He had surrounded her with luxury, cherished her almost—as a man would a possession he had a sentimental attachment to.

‘What now?’ he asked suddenly, lifting those darkly fringed eyelids to reveal the dove-grey beauty of his eyes to her.

So, he wasn’t going to try denying it. Something inside her quivered desperately for expression, but she squashed it down.

‘You tell me,’ she shrugged, still with that amazingly calm exterior.

Yeri must have told him exactly what she’d done. She must have worried herself sick afterwards that the silly blind Rosé had gone and done something stupid, like hanged herself or taken a bottle of pills. How novel, she thought. How very dramatic. Poor Yeri, she mused, without an ounce of sympathy, she must have been really alarmed to dare confess to Jungkook of all people!