✔Private Affair [Taennie Adaption]

1

"Don't look now, but you're being watched," Lalisa Manoban whispered conspiratorially.

Kim Jennie had sensed Taehyung watching her the moment she walked into the party. This was more than mere overactive intuition. These days, he was always watching her.

She schooled her features and took a sip of wine before risking a glance over her shoulder. On the other side of the sprawling conference room, Taehyung stood talking to a board member and to Bae Irene from the legal department. From this distance, Jennie couldn't hear them. The party was in full swing, everyone in the mood to celebrate the release of their new chronic lymphoma drug. The catering staff carried trays of champagne and appetizers through the crowd of boisterous employees. Someone had plugged their iPod into the room's speakers and Coldplay rumbled behind the chatter.

Despite the festive chaos of the room, her attention narrowed in on one man. Kim Taehyung was particularly tall and handsome. He was a little shy of six feet and wore his blond hair too long to be fashionable and too careless to be chic. The piercing that was on lips and eyebrow was his most identifying feature. The piercing seemed a physical representation of his personal intensity.Everything about him, from the quiet strength of his presence to the attention he commanded, declared he was a man to be reckoned with. More to the point, he was her boss. He leveled his inscrutable gaze at her, as if he enjoyed making her squirm.

Jennie straightened her shoulders, refusing to be bullied, even if he did hold her career in his hands. To Lisa, she said, "He doesn't scare me."

Lisa snorted her laughter past a bite of bruschetta. "Then I'm pretty sure you're the only one. Maybe it's just because you haven't had the chance to meet him yet."

"He was out of town when I interviewed." She and Lisa had gone to college together. When Jennie had decided to change jobs, it was Lisa who had gotten her the interview at Alexander Enterprises. "But I met him on my first day. And I've seen him around a few times." Lisa seemed to be waiting for her to say more. Since she couldn't tell her friend what she really thought of Taehyung, Jennie took another sip of her wine and feigned a bored sigh. "He seems pigheaded and domineering."

Lisa chuckled. "Most brilliant men are. But I think he prefers the terms determined and assertive."

"They always do," she murmured drily.

"That's right," Lisa said. "Your older brother is like that, too, isn't he?"

"Jimin is my half brother." She and Jimin had grown up in separate households. Their father had a wife and family in one town, a mistress and daughters in the next. He'd played them all for fools. At his death, Jimin had done what he could to weave the two broken families into one whole. She admired his determination, but knew his wounds went as deep as her own. Trying to make up for their father's failings, Jimin was the consummate older brother, wanting to take care of everyone...without letting anyone close enough to hurt him. Her issues were a bit more cut–and–dried. She never wanted to make her mother's mistakes. She wanted to stand on her own two feet and make her own way, thank you very much."But you're right," she continued. "Jimin and Mr. Kim are cut from the same cloth. They get what they want, no matter who stands in their way."

"You make him sound unreasonable."

"Not unreasonable. Just convinced he knows what's best."

Lisa looked across the room. "Well, there's one way they're different. Isn't your brother ridiculously handsome?"

Jennie followed Lisa's gaze. "You don't think Taehyung is?"

"Goodness, no. He's so...so..." She shrugged, clearly incapable of coming up with an accurate adjective. "Wait a second. You're calling him Taehyung now?"