Chapter 18

LISA POV:

The elevator ride up to the penthouse was loud, but completely silent.

It was 2:00 a.m. The high-society circus at the Shilla Hotel was finally over, but the air inside the private glass capsule was thick with the kind of tension that makes your phone screen look bright even when it’s off.

Lisa leaned her shoulder against the mirrored wall of the elevator, staring at the digital floor counter as it clicked past level forty. She felt like she had just finished a five-hour DJ set at an underground club, but instead of techno, she had been blasting corporate small talk. Her feet were tired, her neck was stiff from the weight of the historical diamond chains, and her brain was stuck on a loop.

“Shut up and kiss me.”

Every time the elevator chimed, Lisa’s mind snapped right back to the rooftop. To the exact temperature of Jennie’s skin. To the soft, completely un-CEO-like whimper Jennie had let out right before Minji from event coordination ruined the entire ecosystem.

Lisa risked a glance to her left. Jennie was standing perfectly straight, her eyes locked on her iPad screen, swiping through PR data like she hadn’t just rearranged Lisa’s internal settings fifty stories above the ground. She was still wearing the custom Chanel dress, but she had lost the iced-pearl heels somewhere in the VIP holding suite, standing bare-footed on the elevator carpet.

“The Vogue Global engagement metrics are already at seventy percent,” Jennie said, her voice smooth and entirely automatic. “The media team is calling the red carpet pictures ‘the definitive visual standard for the merger.’ We completely optimized the layout.”

“Cool,” Lisa muttered, her voice sounding way deeper and rougher than usual. She cleared her throat, adjusting the lapels of her cropped jacket. “Great. Love that for the shareholders.”

Jennie didn’t look up from the screen, but Lisa noticed the way her thumb hovered over the glass for a split second too long. The corporate armor was back on, but the seals were leaking.

Ding.

The elevator doors slid open directly into the private foyer of the penthouse. The automatic warm lights of the hallway glowed to life, reflecting off the dark marble floor.

Jennie stepped out first, her bare feet making zero noise as she walked through the entrance. “I need to check the Q3 logistics report before I sleep. The Tokyo team left three high-priority messages while we were doing the final photo session.”

“Jennie, it’s literally two in the morning,” Lisa said, following her into the massive, open-concept living room. She unbuttoned the front of her tuxedo jacket, letting the heavy diamond body chain clink softly against her skin. “The logistics aren’t going to evaporate if you sleep for six hours.”

“The market doesn’t sleep, Lalisa,” Jennie said, setting her iPad down on the quartzite kitchen island with a definitive clack. She turned around, leaning her hips against the counter, and finally looked at Lisa.

And that was a mistake. A massive, structural error.

The living room lights were low, casting long, dramatic shadows across the space. Without the blinding camera flashes of the red carpet, everything felt way too intimate. Jennie looked smaller out of her heels, her dark eyes looking up at Lisa with that sharp, cat-like intensity that usually meant she was about to execute a board member. But right now? Her lips were still slightly flushed from the rooftop.

Lisa’s brain immediately screamed at her to step forward. To close the distance. To put her hands right back on Jennie’s waist and finish what the event coordinator had interrupted. The urge was so strong it felt physical, like a magnet pulling her across the marble floor.

Control the data, Manoban, Lisa told herself, her knuckles turning white as she shoved her hands deep into her trouser pockets. Do not glitch again. Rule Number Four is literally holding on by a thread.

“You’re staring,” Jennie whispered, her voice dropping the executive tone entirely. The silence of the penthouse was too heavy for corporate speak.

“You’re hard to look away from, Kim,” Lisa said honestly, her voice raspy. She didn’t move. She couldn’t trust her own feet right now. “The Chanel dress is giving absolute main character energy. It’s distracting.”

Jennie’s chest rose and fell in a slow, uneven breath. She reached up, her fingers trembling just a fraction as she pulled the pins out of her high bun, letting her dark hair cascade down her shoulders in loose, messy waves. It was the most unpolished, real thing Lisa had seen all night, and it was devastating to her self-control.

“Tonight wasn’t part of the contract,” Jennie said quietly, her eyes dropping to Lisa’s bare chest where the diamond chains caught the amber light, then snapping back up to her face. “The… the rooftop. It was an anomaly. A system failure because of the stress from Minho.”

“An anomaly,” Lisa repeated, a slow, slightly bitter smile touching her lips. She took one step forward, just one, her bare chest inches away from the kitchen island. The scent of jasmine and sandalwood instantly locked them back into the same orbit. “Is that what we’re calling it? A corporate glitch?”

“It’s the only logical explanation,” Jennie said, but she didn’t step back. Her fingers gripped the edge of the quartzite counter behind her so tightly her knuckles went pale. “We need to maintain the boundaries, Lisa. If we let the interest rate fluctuate like this, the final report in two years is going to be impossible to manage.”

Lisa looked at Jennie’s mouth. It was right there. If she leaned down, she could taste the champagne and the chaos all over again. Her entire body was telling her to ignore the rules, to ignore the two-year timeline, to just be the captain of the ship Jennie had talked about.

But then she saw the subtle tightness in Jennie’s shoulders. The tiny, almost invisible flicker of fear in her eyes. Not fear of Lisa—fear of how much she was losing control. Jennie Kim didn’t do chaos. She didn’t do unoptimized data.

Lisa took a deep, unrestricted breath, forcing the air into her lungs until her chest hurt. She needed to be the steady one. If they both caught fire tonight, the whole penthouse would burn down before September.

“Right,” Lisa murmured, her voice softening into something quiet and protective. She took a step back, breaking the invisible magnetic pull, and gave Jennie a small, reassuring version of her trademark smirk. “The boundaries. Got it, boss. I’ll make sure to update the spreadsheet in the morning.”

Jennie let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for the last hour, her shoulders dropping as the tension broke. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lisa said, turning toward Wing B before her brain could change its mind. “Go read your Tokyo reports, Jen. Try not to bankrupt us before the actual wedding.”

“Goodnight, Lisa,” Jennie called out softly.

Lisa didn’t turn around. She just raised a hand in a lazy wave as she walked down the corridor. “Goodnight, Nini.”

The heavy door of her wing shut with a soft click. Lisa immediately leaned her back against the wood, letting out a long, loud groan as she buried her face in her hands.

“Five months,” she muttered to the dark room, pulling the diamond chains over her head and tossing them onto the nightstand. “I have to survive five months of this without losing my absolute mind.”

She walked over to the glass window, looking out at the neon grid of Seoul. Her heart was still drumming that rapid, frantic rooftop rhythm. She was completely, historically screwed, but as she looked down at her own hand—the one that had held Jennie’s all the way through the hotel lobby—Lisa knew she wouldn’t change a single metric.

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