Her natural reaction was to withdraw her hand from his reach. To her, what he did was inappropriate especially in public area. Therefore Ji Hyo could not help from showing her disappointment in him, "Yaa.. I told you not to cross the line!". Obviously she was unprepared to have any skinship with the young man, especially when he did not ask for her permission. Since Joong Ki did not apologized for his act, Ji Hyo had to remind her assistant, "Like it or not.. I'm still your superior and I'm much older than you. Between you and me.. we're nothing more than just working colleagues."

Her response made him let out a small sigh. "I understand.. and I will always respect you as my sunbae, noona. I didn't mean to cross the line that you've drawn between us. I was hoping to break the wall that you built around you. Behind your strong image as a leader, I see a beautiful soul of a person. A woman with a true beauty inside out. She's the one that I was talking about.. my dream girl. Not Leader Song in particular," he ended his speech with a sweet smile that made her blushed naturally. Joong Ki kept his eyes locked on hers all the time, despite she was trying hard to avoid his deep stare. From her body language, it was obvious that she was uncomfortable with the heart-to-heart conversation.

Since she was not keen to discuss it further, Ji Hyo casually changed their subject of discussion by telling Joong Ki to eat his food while it was still hot. For a moment they were enjoying their meals without saying a word to one another, which was a relieved for Ji Hyo. She was hoping that the silence would last long, but the young man could not wait to get back to the topic that made her felt uneasy. So her last resort was to put on her Project Leader cap by giving him instruction, "Oh yes! Before I forget, I need you to arrange another meeting with Mr. JK next week. We need to present our revised proposal to him."

He scoffed, "Is it necessary for me to do that when you can just tell him directly?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You two know each other, right? So why pretend that you're not?"

She put down her chopsticks, "Yaa! I told you not to.."

"Mix between personal and work matters yada yada yada," he filled her words before she could finished. Then he continued, "Then what's with the lunch today? Is that work related or it's personal?"

agape, "Oh.. my.. God. Are you jealous or something? What am I.. your girlfriend?"

"Not yet. But do you want to be.."

"Yaa Song Joong Ki!" Ji Hyo screamed at him furiously, but it made the young man burst out laughing instead. She scolded him when he told her that he was just joking, "You shouldn't make fun about things like this! Not with your superior if you wish to stay long with the team." Her threat did not seem to frighten him. "Omo.. was I talking to that fierce Leader Song? I wonder where's that pretty lady Ji Hyo went to," Joong Ki pretended to search around and got himself a slap at the back of his head from his dinner companion. The young man hissed in pain as he rubbed his head, "Whoah.. you surely can hit hard!"

Alone in his office, Jong Kook was still guessing what Ji Hyo was doing at that point of time. He knew she went for dinner with her colleague from office, however he was more concerned about who that person is. "She's never been so secretive before. Was she seeing someone? Is she on a date or something?" his mind began to think of the worst possibilities and the things he feared most - losing Ji Hyo to another man for the second time. Although he has yet to explicitly express his love for her, but he always hope that his actions would speak louder than his words.

Nevertheless, the thought of losing Ji Hyo made him jumped off from his chair and left his office in a hurry. His destination was set to the nearest shopping mall that was still open at that hour. At the very last minute, Jong Kook made up his decision to do the thing that he should have done weeks ago. Although it seemed to be such a hasty move, he had long prepared for the consequences of his action.

He smiled as he foun