Taeyeon fell asleep. She couldn't believe she did. She looked at the clock, and it was already the start of the evening. She hurriedly checked her phone and just found out it drained its battery out. She forgot to plug it in as she had been so 'busy' since yesterday.

She took a charger out and gave it a juice of power. Then, several messages from Jessica popped up on her notifications as its screen lit up. It was mostly about the latter asking her where she was. Then, there was another message from her friend, Sooyoung. The woman said that she was drinking with Jessica at the bar downstairs and asked her to join. With that, she quickly fixed herself up, left her phone charging in her room, then headed down.

When she arrived at the bar, she noticed that many attendees at the conference were there too. It was just in time for after-dinner gatherings. It was a common thing at business conferences like this to have late-night drinks with fellow attendees.

Taeyeon wandered around to try her luck finding Jessica and Sooyoung. Unfortunately, the two were no longer in the bar. She just decided to occupy a seat at the bar counter and ordered a couple of drinks.

She was unaware that the moment she went out of the lift earlier was exactly when Jessica and Sooyoung boarded the other lift. Jessica was like literally carrying Sooyoung on her back. It turned out the tall woman was much of a light drinker. With her fourth shot of tequila, Sooyoung was out. Thus, Jessica had no choice but to drag her new friend out of the bar and take her to her hotel room. Unfortunately, Sooyoung's keycard was nowhere to be found, and she wasn't even much sober to ask where her room was. Jessica had no choice but to make Sooyoung sleep on her bed instead.

It was only a few minutes left to prepare for her video conference meeting with Eclare's U.S. Investors. The alcoholic drinks she took earlier have hit her, though not as worse than Sooyoung. Thus, she needed to make herself look unintoxicated. Else, her father and everyone in the call would notice.

Taeyeon was already on her second glass of wine. She was not much of a drinker, but she could even finish two or more bottles of wine. And with that, she planned to drink as many as she could for the night.

Thoughts ran in her head as she consumed her drink. The incident with Jessica in the restaurant earlier could just be a misunderstanding between them. 'Jessica could have just wanted a breather to think by herself', she thought, 'That could have been it.'

She realized she needed the same, anyway. So, she thought she should make things right again. That she should prove to Jessica what is her real disposition in their relationship. She had to let Jessica know this is not just a simple endearment or a pastime.

"ZT Group," she overheard a woman in blue dress mentioned her company from the table behind her. From the reflection on her glass, she could see a group of conference attendees having drinks. It seemed gossiping was a big part of their interaction. "I heard it would reach the counties of South Jeolla this time."

"Oh. Is this another attempt to expand her empire to the rest of the country?" The man beside her asked back.

"So it is. ZT Group has been outright ambitious when Miss Kim took over as CEO years ago."

Another woman from the opposite side of the table uttered, "Not even considering the welfare of small retail businesses. This is truly a deliberate attempt to destroy the livelihood of small business owners."

Blue dress answered back as she sighed loudly, "She'll do whatever it takes just for her to always be on top. Even using her own body, I heard."

Taeyeon found the conversation about her quite irrational. The accusation of her not considering small businesses seemed to be unfair to her end. Technically, everyone attending the conference represents large corporations. Thus, she thought, why single her out as the bad guy for taking away livelihood from the 'small people'? Everyone has their share of greed in this capitalist society. Why was the hate only gearing towards her?

Then, she sent out a bitter chuckle as she remembered. The terrible reputation, the negativity about her image in the industry had never left her. She knew when she broke records on massive expansion and substantial profits just in her first year of being a CEO drew attention towards her. Since then, they had placed her under a microscope. Hence, any single bit of mistake, even the tiniest dot on the cleanest sheet of paper, would always lead her reputation dragged down to the mud.

'Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous,' she thought.

Jessica was about to dial into the scheduled video conference. She was supposed to feel nervous as this is the first time she would spearhead a meeting with her company's investors. Yet, due to her untimely drinking, she was not feeling any worriment at all. Even if Sooyoung was at the time squatting in her hotel bedroom. She was in a complete and right mind at this moment. There was no sign of intoxication from her at all.

And so it started. She led the discussion among the attendees composed of almost a dozen investors, Chairman Jung, and her best friend, COO Sunny. Despite the number of attendees, she delivered the focus points clearly and adequately. The complacence was visible in the investors' eyes, which seemed to show their approval of the new CEO for Eclare.

"Thank you very much, everyone. It is a bright future ahead of us. It is my pleasure to work with you," Jessica said, still with her constant confidence throughout the meeting.

"Indeed. We look forward to having you as our CEO, Jessica," one investor said. Another added, "So it seems the coming years will be exciting for the business. We trust you on steering the wheel."

For her, it was a success. Yet, she received a personal message from her father not to drop off once the investors have left the call. Again, it seemed it would be another scolding from her father. She hoped not, but she eventually realized it is such wishful thinking.

As soon as all the other investors left the call and with only the three of them left with Sunny, Chairman Jung uttered, "You missed out a lot of points needed to be shared. You missed our investments in China and Japan. You even skipped the significant margin increase over the past months." He sighed as he darted a disappointed look to his daughter, "How many times should I remind you always to have yourself prepared for meetings?"

Sunny butted, "Mister Chairman, I believe we have already shared that in our quarterly stakeholder report last month. There's no need to--"

"There is still a need," the Chairman responded firmly, making Sunny purse her lips and look away. "Did I even ask you to speak?"

"No, Mister Chairman. I apologize," Sunny uttered.

Chairman Jung redirected back to Jessica, "How many times are you planning to disappoint me, Jessica? You just assumed the role a month ago, and I already lost count of how many times you are screwing my business and my name."

For Jessica, the complaint of the Chairman towards her was irrational and unfair. First, she did not forget that information out as she found it irrelevant sinc