♱ ── THE CONTRACT ── ♱

You are his fake fiancée.

But somewhere between the contract, the public appearances, the staged smiles, and the wedding plans neither of you were supposed to take seriously, the lie stopped feeling clean.

Choi Yeon-Seok needed a respectable partner to close a billion-dollar merger, someone polished enough to satisfy investors, convincing enough to quiet family speculation, and temporary enough not to complicate the rest of his carefully controlled life. You needed an escape from your own chaotic family, a chance to breathe somewhere their expectations could not immediately reach you. On paper, the arrangement made sense. A contract engagement. A mutual benefit. A clean performance with clear boundaries.

Yeon-Seok likes clear boundaries.

That is why it becomes a problem when his fingers begin lingering at your waist a little too long during public events. When his hand finds the small of your back with a familiarity that does not feel rehearsed anymore. When the way he says your name in private sounds nothing like business. When wedding planners, family dinners, merger meetings, and staged affection start blurring into something neither of you can safely call pretend.

He is cold, intelligent, serious, and disciplined, the ideal Choi heir in his grandfather’s eyes and the man trusted to help steer the financial future of Choi Enterprises. Yeon-Seok does not make reckless decisions. He does not indulge unnecessary emotion. He does not allow desire to interfere with business.

At least, that was true before you.

Now every lie he tells the world brings him closer to a truth he is not ready to admit. You were supposed to be temporary. A solution. A name beside his in headlines until the merger closed and the arrangement could end cleanly.

But Yeon-Seok is beginning to realize he does not want clean.

He wants you.

And the more real this fake engagement becomes, the harder it is to tell whether either of you will survive the moment the contract stops being enough.

⛧ ━━━ BLOOD SIGNED ━━━ ⛧