It was almost lunch time when Jiwon arrived at the address that Junmyeon had sent her, and she awkwardly stood at the doorway, contemplating whether to text the CEO first or to just straight up ring the doorbell.

She was not done contemplating when the door suddenly opened and she was face to face with a tall man sporting blonde hair who was smiling widely at her, huge ears sticking out cutely.

“You must be Ms. Yoo Jiwon. The concierge called me to say that you were on your way up here,” he held out his arm for a handshake, to which the heiress accepted. “I’m Park Chanyeol, Junmyeon’s cousin. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Likewise, Mr. Park,” she returned a small smile as the man guided her inside.

The first thing she saw was Junmyeon sitting comfortably on the couch, wearing simple shirt and sweatpants. He waved when he saw Jiwon, then invited her to sit down.

“Good morning, love,” he teased.

The heiress rolled her eyes while Chanyeol, who heard the endearment loud and clear, smirked at his cousin.

“Wow. You’ve known each other for half a day and you already have an endearment. Nicely done, people. You’re on the right track,” he commented.

“Good morning to you too, sajangnim,” Jiwon greeted back.

Junmyeon raised a brow at the new pet name. “Sajangnim? I thought we agreed on using love?”

“Well, we’re not acting right now, no one’s really here so we don’t need to use that,” she replied. “I suppose you already told your cousin about the situation? And the deal?”

Chanyeol nodded, affirming that he was already briefed and oriented about the details of the setup, before heading towards his kitchen to get some refreshments for their guest.

“My whole family actually knows now, as a matter of fact, but Chanyeol’s the only one who knows all the details,” Junmyeon said.

“And your family does not disagree with this?”

“Nope. They trust me enough to let me sort out this problem. Speaking of my family, they want to meet you,” he was observing how the heiress would react to the idea of officially meeting his parents and siblings, but Jiwon seemed unbothered.

“I suppose that’s fine. It’s normal that they’d be curious about the substitute bride, right?”

“So, are you free sometime next week? The rest of my family members are scattered around the world at the moment, but they’ll come home soon.”

It wasn’t a surprise that the Kims were not in the same country at the moment, since they all had their own matters to attend to. The chairman and his wife were currently on business trip, Jongin was in Singapore to visit their overseas branch, while Jisoo was still in New York for fashion week. His two other brothers were in Korea but they’re also occupied with work.

“Yeah, no problem,” Jiwon answered.

Chanyeol returned with a carton of strawberry milk and a plate of store-bought muffins, and he set it down on the center table.

“Sorry, I only have beer and strawberry milk on the fridge. I figured you wouldn’t want alcohol at this time of day,” he said.

Jiwon assured him that it was fine, and she actually took the flavoured milk. “It’s almost lunch time. I should’ve brought food over but it slipped my mind.”

“Let’s just order takeout since Chanyeol’s not very talented in the kitchen,” Junmyeon interjected, earning whines of protest from Chanyeol because of his comment about his cooking. “Are you up for Chinese?”

“Hmm. Sure. I’d volunteer to cook but it seems like we have important things to discuss,” Jiwon mused.

***

The CEO started talking to Jiwon about Chanyeol’s idea to call for another press conference, this time to officially introduce her to the public. He explained that this was a better way to keep the media from snooping around and probing about Jiwon’s life, and the heiress listened to every detail of the ploy.