Chapter 109.2

Chapter 109.2

These days, Miran carried a small notebook everywhere, memorizing her prepared answers whenever she had a spare moment. Her speaking was still basic, but her listening skills had improved a lot. That alone made her time in New York feel worth it.

During the day, Miran kept herself busy, moving nonstop. It was the only way she could collapse from exhaustion when she got home. The hard part was the night.

On the outside, she acted as if everything were fine, but once she lay in bed tossing and turning, André inevitably came to mind.

‘Is he doing well? He’s probably angry that I left without a word.’

‘Does he ever think about me? A man that busy doesn’t have time to think about someone who’s already gone.’

‘When you don’t see a stray dog that used to hang around the neighborhood, you start to miss it and worry, don’t you? But not him. With that cold personality of his, he’s probably living just fine, like I never even existed.’

She asked and answered herself, silently counting down the days.

‘D–1. Tomorrow’s the wedding day…’

She couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. Afraid Juran would worry if she heard, Miran buried herself under the blanket, clamped her hand over her mouth, and sobbed.

The next day, her face still swollen from crying, she met Jieun for the first time in a while. They sat at a small pub behind Gangnam Station with beer and a spicy bowl of sea snail noodles between them, and Miran told her everything that had happened in New York.

“Wow! What kind of filthy bastard does that? Mistress? Concubine? What the actual hell? God, I’m so pissed off! You should’ve slapped him across the face on your way out!”

Jieun’s creative string of curses was both satisfying and slightly embarrassing.

“Hey, I’m not trying to defend him, really, I’m not. It’s just… he wasn’t all bad. He tried, in his own way. Except for never once saying he loved me… and asking me to be his mistress while marrying another woman… ugh…!”

While trying to make excuses for André, Miran broke down again.

“Ugh, maybe he really is a terrible man!”

“Ha… Want a cigarette?”

“Yeah, give me one.”

Taking a Marlboro Red from Jieun, Miran lit it with a shaky hand and drew in a deep breath, trying to look like she knew what she was doing. A moment later, she was coughing like a patient with lung disease, wheezing as she exhaled thick smoke through both her mouth and nose like a steam train.

Holding the cigarette between her fingers, Miran kept coughing, her face a mess of tears and runny nose. Jieun clamped a hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh. But a snorting giggle escaped through her fingers, like air leaking from a balloon.

Miran glared at her while coughing, but soon she burst out laughing too.

“God, that burns. Marlboro Red really does taste like failed love. Cough.”

She muttered bitterly.

—

September 6, 1996, Friday.

The Lafayette–Lowell Group’s shareholders’ meeting was held in the main conference hall. What was usually a dull, drawn-out affair turned into a day full of unexpected turns.

Chairman Charles de Lafayette announced the separation of the Lafayette–Lowell Group and the department store division, then voluntarily stepped down from his position.

With the separation, the department store division was rebranded as the Lafayette Group.

Gordon Lowell, under investigation for embezzlement and breach of trust, did not attend the meeting. With the split finalized, Mars Investment officially withdrew its hostile takeover attempt and began to liquidate its shares.

André de Lafayette, the group’s vice chairman and largest shareholder, was elected as the new chairman of the Lafayette Group. His appointment recognized his achievements in significantly reducing company debt in a short period, stabilizing management during the absence of the former vice chairman, and implementing decisive structural reforms.

He also earned shareholder confidence by announcing a bold modernization plan: introducing cutting-edge IT systems to streamline operations and pursuing aggressive investments in the Asian market, focusing on hotels, dining, and real estate development as the core of the Lafayette Group’s 21st-century vision.

Years later, major shareholders who witnessed the meeting in person would look back on that day and say this:

[A flawless generational shift. The rise of a young chairman, André de Lafayette, and the flood of a new technology and dynamic change left no room to catch one’s breath. Right before our eyes, we were witnessing the very moment the 20th century turned into the 21st.]