Take a Chance on Me

-3-

It was getting late; way past midnight, and Taehyung had been working from his home office. The last few days had been tough. There was a major problem that had broken out in one area of his telecom business and he had been fire fighting to get things back on track. He had been out of office for most of the last few days and hadn't had time to concentrate on anything other than the problem on hand. Every night he had spent in his home office, working. It sure had been hectic.

The only ray of light was that his little sister was getting married. He had met Haein and realized that the man was completely besotted with Jisoo. So Taehyung had consented and announced their engagement to his entire family over dinner at his home, earlier tonight.

The entire Kim family was present including his grandfather, Taehyung's mother, Eunwoo, Jungkook and their parents. The twins were conspicuous by their absence as they were away studying in England. Eunwoo promised to pass on to them this happy news. The entire family had rejoiced and welcomed Haein amongst them. The women had congregated together and had gotten busy making plans for an Indian wedding according to the wishes of Haein's side of the family.

Haein and Jisoo had discussed the situation and had come to the conclusion that they wanted a wedding away from Korea. So after a lot of ideas being put back and forth, the family had chosen one of their resort hotels in Goa, India as an ideal spot for the destination Indian wedding. Jisoo was thrilled and had hugged Taehyung warmly, thanking him for everything.

Looking at Jisoo and Haein, Taehyung had felt a slight pang of envy. But he had quickly pushed it aside, convincing himself that he was better off having his choice of women, any time, any place he wanted. He was not the marrying types and he hadn't yet come across a woman who could captivate him long enough to even consider getting married.

He rubbed his tired eyes with the back of his hand and started to get up when he noticed a sealed brown manila envelope lying in a corner on his desk. Recollecting that he had got it home a couple of days ago from work, he opened it and removed its contents. It contained a report and another smaller sealed envelope. It was from the investigative agency. He hadn't had time to see it yet. He poured over the contents of the report, which pretty much said the same thing that he had heard on the phone. He tore open the smaller envelope and saw photographs of Lisa with Kim Mingyu, owner of Fortuna International, one of the companies they had lost the first contract to.

One of the pictures showed them dining together and the other showed her walking a red carpet event on his arm. Details regarding time, date and location were written at the back of the picture. He pursed his lips together and controlled the anger which threatened to overflow. He was still at odds on how to proceed on this issue and had to quickly find a solution that would expose Lisa real soon.

He knew he had to start working with her closely, that was the only way he could figure out what she planned to do next. And more importantly he had to cut his grandfather loose from the entanglement he had with her. He had to prove to his grandfather that he was being used by Lisa to further her own means. He got up and cleared the contents back into the envelope and locked it in one of the glass cabinets lined in his home office.

The next morning, on reaching work he called his assistant to schedule an immediate appointment in the afternoon with Lisa.


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On Thursday morning, Lisa received an email from Taehyung's assistant scheduling a meeting with Taehyung at one in the afternoon, to discuss the various sales cases.

Taehyung hadn't bothered to even check her availability, before setting up the meeting, Lisa thought. She had back to back appointments starting in half an hour until the end of the day. The head of the Austrian hospital chain was calling her at one to discuss the contract further. They were at the last stage of the negotiation and she couldn't shift this call. So she politely replied explaining her prescheduled meeting and requesting a change in the meeting time to another day. She added a post script, requesting him to check her calendar before scheduling a meeting, the next time. Hope that gives him the message, she thought.

In fifteen minutes she got an email – a reply from Taehyung himself, asking her to meet him at two, after her Austrian phone meeting and to cancel whatever she had till she finished the meeting with him. The meeting, he informed her, would last for at least two hours if not more, so she was to ensure her availability till then.

Lisa couldn't believe this. What the hell? She had a busy schedule and her calendar was packed today with engagements planned weeks in advance. God, he had created a mess for her. And she couldn't refuse to see him a second time, he was the new boss after all. She was beginning to dislike him for sure.

Lisa reached the top floor of her building at five minutes to two o'clock and paused. She had heard that Taehyung was based on this floor, but she had never been to his office before. Assuming that he would have occupied the offices in the left wing, since she knew Gong yoo's offices were in the right, she walked towards them. Lisa paused on the threshold. A woman in her late fifties was sitting in front of a computer typing. The woman paused when she saw Lisa and introduced herself. She then pressed the intercom button and announced Lisa in.

Lisa entered Taehyung's office, feeling a bit unsettled at this unexpected meeting. She knew she had to face him sometime, but she had hoped it would have been on a better note than this. Right now, she was angry as hell with him.