All Chapters of My Boss is a Secretive K-Drama Freak?!!: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

~ Hailey ~The hall outside the boardroom is too quiet.Not office-quiet.Not post-scandal quiet.Not even we’re-all-pretending-to-work-so-the-CEO-doesn’t-kill-us quiet.No.This is battlefield quiet.The kind that hangs in the air right before arrows fly.Ethan is gripping my hand so tightly it almost hurts—but I don’t tell him to loosen up, because his eyes… God, his eyes look like a man who’s preparing to go to war.For me.Kevin keeps pacing back and forth like a hamster with bills due.“Sir—just a warning—they’re angry. All of them. Like, angrier than when we cut the Q4 incentives.”Ethan doesn’t blink. “Good.”Kevin freezes. “Good?? Why is that good??”“Because,” Ethan says, lifting his chin with that lethal CEO calm, “I’m angry too.”Oh no.This is going to be terrible.Sexy… but terrible.He guides me forward, protective and razor-focused. His hand doesn’t leave my waist until we’re inches from the boardroom doors.“Ethan,” I whisper, tugging gently on his sleeve, “maybe we sh

~ Hailey ~The elevator ride to Ethan’s penthouse feels nothing like the one in the garage.That one was filled with fear.This one… is filled with something worse.Tension so thick it pushes against my ribs. Silence too loud to be silence. The weight of everything boardroom threats, stalking vans, leaked videos, emotional confessions crushing the air around us until even Kevin looks like he’s forgetting how to breathe.When the elevator doors open, the penthouse lights flicker on automatically, revealing the vast, open space stretched with glass walls overlooking a storm-drenched Seoul. Rain splatters the windows like frantic fingers.Kevin rushes ahead, panicked and dramatic, the perfect mess. “Okay, okay, okay systems in meltdown, PR on fire, investors sending death emojis ETHAN, HURRY.”Ethan ignores him, stepping in first, pulling me inside by the hand. He’s still gripping me too tightly, like my pulse is the only thing keeping him from falling apart.I don’t tell him to loosen u

~ Hailey ~The moment Ethan steps out of the SUV, the storm swallows him.Rain crashes down in thick sheets, blurring the flashing police lights into red streaks across the wet pavement. The air is freezing, sharp, and electric like the entire city is holding its breath.I barely get one foot out when Ethan grabs my wrist and pulls me close, shielding me with his body as he scans the area with a level of intensity that makes even the police officers pause.“Stay behind me,” he murmurs.I do.Not because he told me to.But because tonight… I’m scared.Really scared.The front entrance of my apartment building is blocked off by yellow tape. Tenants are pressed against the windows, looking out like it’s some sick reality show happening live below them.Kevin’s voice blasts through Ethan’s phone before it even makes it out of his pocket.“Ethan! Hailey! Are you there? Did you see the door? Did you—”Ethan hangs up mid-sentence.He’s focused on something else.Something ahead.The front do

~ Ethan ~The rain hasn’t stopped.Not since the moment I saw those notes plastered across Hailey’s door.Even now, as the SUV speeds through the slick streets, rain pelts the windows with the desperation of a thousand fists.Hailey sits beside me small, quiet, trembling in a way she pretends she isn’t.But I can feel it.In her breathing.In the way her fingers curl into her jacket.In the way she keeps glancing at the window, like the storm outside is following us.And I can’t stop looking at her.Every streetlight we pass flickers across her face—wet, pale, exhausted.She hasn’t said a word since we left.Neither have I.Not because I don’t want to.Because I don’t trust myself to speak without revealing everything I’m not supposed to feel.“Ethan,” she whispers finally.I look at her.She looks back.Then she leans slightly toward me. Just that tiny movement barely a breath—and something in my chest threatens to split open.But she only says, “Thank you… for coming tonight.”My th

~ Hailey ~“No. No. No… this has to be wrong.”Those are the first words out of my mouth.Not a scream.Not a gasp.Just a whisper — tiny, cracked, desperate.Ms. Kim turns the laptop toward me fully, as if I somehow didn’t see the name the first time.As if seeing it clearer will make it hurt less.It doesn’t.It makes the room colder.Because the name glowing on the screen is—Sora Choi.My coworker.My lunch buddy.The girl who once cried in the bathroom after her breakup and I held her hair while she sobbed.The girl who brings extra chopsticks “just in case” and always asks if I’ve eaten.The one who teases me about Ethan like she’s my nosy older sister.That Sora.My ribs tighten around my lungs.I hear Seojun exhale slowly behind me, like a man who’s been proven right against his own wishes.Ethan doesn’t move. Not even a flinch. He’s frozen like marble — a statue carved out of fury and disbelief.Ms. Kim is the one who speaks.“Hailey… I’m sorry.”Sorry.That one word snaps so