AAE -- Wishes Of The Heart

Chapter 109

written by LoveCR2 -- 2005

edited by All-About-AAE -- 2017

 

"A man will do a lot for the woman he loves. A man desperate to get back the woman he loves will do almost anything." -- Chairman Yoon Jong-Ki

 

 

MBS YEOUIDO HQ, SEOUL ...

 

"...This is Special Correspondent Jin Sun-Mi, reporting for MBS Global News Network. Thank you for watching This Week On Wall Street... Good night..."

 

Sun-Dal, jacketless with his tie loosened after a long day's work, clicks off the TV monitor in his office's wall unit with the remote and states approvingly, "I'm impressed. Sun-Mi has been in New York for barely a month, and already she looks like a pro who's been doing financial reporting for years."

 

"Yes, she has come a long way, but she's changed a lot, too," Joo-Hee, leaning on the edge of his desk in a black Prada suit and power heels, remarks with a tense edge to her voice. "Maybe... should I change, too?"

 

Perplexed, Sun-Dal swivels in his desk chair to face her. "What are you talking about?"

 

Joo-Hee stands up straight and grasps the front of her skirt, raising the hem well above her knees to demonstrate.

 

He stares, incredulous, disputing her implied assertion, "You're kidding, right? You don't really think that makes any difference these days, do you?"

 

"I'm just saying that it probably doesn't hurt, watching how you got all googly-eyed just now," she grumbles jealously, dropping her skirt.

 

"Pretty girls are a dime a dozen in broadcasting. You know that's a fact," he reproves her thinking. "But Sun-Mi is one in a thousand, someone with that indefinable factor which makes a sparkling diamond out of a lump of colorless stone. Since I saw a genuine talent in the making, and backed her early on, shouldn't I have an interest in her success?

 

"Well, there's interest and there's 'interest'," she maintains her rigid stance.

 

He sees that his attempt at reasoning isn't making much progress, and tries direct attribution, "You said so yourself, that you can't help smiling when you see Sun-Mi, remember?"

 

"But that was before. Things are different now," Joo-Hee argues. "I feel like I'm having to compete with Sun-Mi all over again for the attention of the man I love..."

 

"For goodness sake, Sun-Mi's my niece. I don't look at her that way!" he defends himself, irritated at her attitude.

 

"Then why, since I walked in the door, have you hardly taken your eyes off Sun-Mi, and barely glanced at me?" she lays out her complaint tensely, turning her back to him.

 

He takes a tactical step back, reassessing the situation from her perspective, and asks, "You really feel that way?"

 

"Yes..." her terse answer wavers slightly.

 

Sun-Dal reaches out to take Joo-Hee's hand and pulls her into his lap, and sees that her eyes are damp with tears.

 

"I'm sorry, Honey Dear. It wasn't my intent to ignore you," he apologizes guiltily. "You're the only woman in the world to me, the first face that I see when I wake up, and the last thing on my mind when I sleep..."

 

"I get it... you don't have to go overboard," she grouses stiffly, but a hint of a smile belies her frosty tone.

 

"Overboard? I'm just getting warmed up," he claims, raising his hand to caress her hair, gently sliding a finger along the edge of her ear, and down the line of her jaw to cup her chin. "You're the center of my life, the oxygen I breathe, don't you realize that?"

 

Two tears of joy slowly wend their way down her cheeks...

 

"I feel the same way too, Honey Bear," she coos, as the last traces of resentment melt in the warmth of his affections. "I'm sorry for doubting you."

 

"How could I let you go so lightly now?" he affirms. "All those years, I waited in Hyung-Chul's shadow, feeling that compared to him, I was nothing to you."

 

"How could you be nothing? You were the one I bared my sorrows to all those nights, drinking my pain away," she tells him fondly. "You were the one always by my side... waiting for a foolish woman to find her True Love, when he was always right in front of her..."

 

Sun-Dal kisses Joo-Hee tenderly, and after they exchange an intense, suggestive gaze, their lips meet with lovers' uninhibited passion...

 

 

But a few minutes later, noises from outside the open office door -- the sounds of waste bins being emptied by the cleaning staff -- interrupt their intimate moment...

 

They both open their eyes wide in surprise. Joo-Hee quickly slips out of his lap and back onto her feet, her face burning red as she hurriedly smooths her skirt down, rebuttons her jacket, and arranges her hair into place, while Sun-Dal pretends to busy himself with papers at his desk.

 

"Anything tonight, Director?" the cleaning lady calls from the open doorway without coming in.

 

"Thanks, I'm fine tonight," Sun-Dal replies. "Good night."

 

"See you tomorrow," she answers back.

 

Joo-Hee and Sun-Dal exchange a long sigh of relief at their near miss as they listen to the trash cart trundle off.

 

"Next time, let's be sure the door is latched," he grins.

 

"Humph... there won't be a 'next' time," she huffs. "Doesn't policy forbid co-fraternizing on Company time?"

 

"But it's after hours," he reminds her, and suggests, "We could find a cozy place for dinner, just the two of us. I'll call my mother, and see if she can stay on with Mi-Rae tonight..."

 

"I appreciate the thought, Hubby, but I really am missing our little girl right now," Joo-Hee gives her preference. "Can we take a rain check?"

 

"Actually, I miss Mi-Rae, too," Sun-Dal concurs with an understanding smile. "Let's go home."

 

"I'll get my bag." Joo-Hee reaches down, just as his desk phone rings...

 

 

Sun-Dal gives her a look of resignation. "Well, it was an idea," he says, and picks up the handset, identifying himself, "Director of Planning and Programming Kim Sun-Dal..."

 

"The Board meeting just adjourned," Chairman Yoon Jong-Ki informs him. "Director Yoo is with me, in my office."

 

"Just a moment, Joo-Hee is here, too... I'll put you on speaker." He pushes the button on the phone. "Okay, go ahead."

 

"Kim got everything he wanted tonight," Jong-Ki explains how the meeting went. "For every proposal I made, he had a counter proposal ready. I couldn't even get a delaying vote passed to allow for more consideration.

 

"Recently, it's as if he knows our moves before we make them," Yoo Seung-Hwan chimes in. "I can't believe it's just luck. Something else is going on..."

 

Sun-Dal glances at Joo-Hee, before he asks, "What are you suggesting, a traitor amidst us?"

 

"No... but it just seems beyond mere coincidence," Seung-Hwan backs off.

 

"Then, the new stock issue next year is a given?" Joo-Hee moves the discussion on.

 

"Unfortunately, yes. But that's not all. The Board also approved, at Kim's insistence, a private auction for existing stockholders to have first chance to purchase, before the offering is made public," Jong-Ki replies. "This way Kim and Atwater can extend their holdings to gain de facto control, before any other party can step in."

 

"But can't we do the same?" she makes the logical conclusion.

 

"Personally, I don't have the funds to compete against Atwater," Jong-Ki explains, "and the terms of the Trust prohibit us from leveraging our shares to buy more."

 

"And I've already extended myself, buying the house for you and your husband," Seung-Hwan adds.

 

 

Sun-Dal exhales a long, disconsolate sigh, "Then you're saying it's a lost cause?"

 

"We've been out-maneuvered by Kim, and now are out-gunned, too," Jung-Ki states their dire situation clearly. "Without a miracle, or a white knight, Kim and his allies will have full control by next Spring."

 

"What about Michael Atwater?" Joo-Hee proposes. "Is it possible to switch him over to our side?"

 

"We still don't know the motives for his involvement in the first place," Sun-Dal counters, discouraging the idea. "It would be too risky to put any hopes in him."

 

"Not if the alternative is defeat," Joo-Hee declares boldly, standing firm against her husband.

 

"Joo-Hee has a point," Jung-Ki agrees. "I'll see if I can arrange a private meeting with Atwater. Do we have any more on his relationship with Jin Sun-Mi?"

 

"Nothing definite, but according to President Kim's operatives, there's rumors in the New York ex-pat community that Sun-Mi has dumped Atwater now, too, and taken up with a new boyfriend," Sun-Dal discloses.

 

"I don't believe it," Joo-Hee retorts. "What I know about Sun-Mi, she's not that kind of person!"

 

"Well, you just told me she'd changed a lot," Sun-Dal reminds his wife. "Maybe you don't know her as well as you thought. Maybe none of us did."

 

"But if Jin Sun-Mi has broken off with Atwater, what's his likely play now?" Seung-Hwan wonders.

 

Jong-Ki grimly predicts, "A man will do a lot for the woman he loves. A man desperate to get back the woman he loves will do almost anything..."