The Substitute Wife

CHAPTER 181

Her client was Director Li. With his assistant in tow, he saw Lisa Lim when he entered but showed no sign of approaching her. Instead, he waited until she stood up and waved at him with a smile on her face before he walked over to her.

He was still five feet away from the dining table when Lisa Lim said, "Hello, Director Li."

Director Li did not speak. He raked his gaze over Lisa Lim and lingered when it reached her chest. Then, he suppressed the interest in his eyes, met Lisa Lim's gaze, and nodded lightly. "Miss Lim, hello."

"Director Li, please take a seat." Lisa Lim politely pointed at a chair.

He was in no hurry to sit down. Instead, he invited her to take a seat first. Lisa Lim did not bother being too calculating about such small matters, and she gladly sat down on the seat that had been meant for Director Li.

Director Li chose the chair beside her after she took her seat. When he pulled out the chair, he deliberately moved it toward Lisa Lim. As a result, he was very close to Lisa Lim when he sat down.

Lisa Lim used to be in charge of design back in Shanghai. After sitting around in the office all day, she would have gone straight to Bambam after work. She had not interacted much with anyone else besides the female colleagues in her department. After she had returned to Seoul with Bambam to start a business, he had never allowed her to socialize. After having broken up with Bambam and to hurry up and pay Jeon Jungkook back, she had transferred to the business department. Only then had she realized how naive and silly she had been in the past.

After a few months of intense training, she still did not possess completely discerning eyes, but there were many things that she could detect. She knew what kind of intentions Director Li had. When she had first started doing business, she could not put up with the subjective gazes from the males, and she had even once walked away from a client; however, there were too many clients who were like that. If she resisted every single one of them, it would be difficult for her to earn a living, much less repay her debt.

I need to grow and adapt... As long as I'm not being taken advantage of, I'll learn to put up with it.

Lisa Lim forced herself to neglect the proximity between her and Director Li. She cocked her head and handed the menu to him. "Director Li, please choose what you want."

Director Li took the menu, summoned the waiter, and started ordering. At the end, he even asked for two bottles of white wine. When the waiter served the wine, Director Li had his assistant open the bottles without even waiting for their food. He poured the wine into three glasses. He placed one glass before Lisa Lim, took another for himself, and raised it before her. "Miss Lim, here's a toast to our first meeting."

Lisa Lim had still not completely adapted to the practice of drinking with clients at dinner, but she was no longer the person she had been back then. She had no one and no capital to back her up now. Even though the sight of the alcohol worried her, she still raised her glass with a smile and knocked it against Director Li's glass before taking a sip.

...

Only 30 minutes into drinking while waiting for dinner, Lisa Lim had already been made to drink half a bottle of white wine. Perhaps due to her flu, the alcohol did not sit well in her stomach. When Director Li handed her another full glass of wine, she could no longer stay put. She apologized and told him, "I'm going to the restroom," before getting up and rushing toward the restroom with shaky legs.

Lisa Lim did not make it to the restroom. She squatted before the common sink area and started throwing up until her stomach was devoid of everything. It was only then that she lifted her head weakly and breathlessly. She was just about to turn on the tap to rinse her mouth when the corner of her eye caught sight in the mirror of Jeon Jungkook and a well-dressed man walking in and chatting happily.