"Six weeks ago, South Korean-based SH Venture Capital surprised the biotech industry with their winning bid to acquire New York biotech startup GenOne. Then they announced a second acquisition of German genetic testing innovator Minerva. The proposed merger will put SH Venture Capital on the cutting edge of genetic research with the means to target consumers directly for specific therapies. This morning I'm joined by Ji-pyeong Han, Vice President of SH Venture Capital. Mr. Han, thank you for joining us."
Ji-pyeong nodded his head and smiled.
"Thank you for having me."
"Your reputation for foresight precedes you, Mr. Han. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal ran pieces this week highlighting the ways in which this merger could revolutionize the genetic therapies market. What will a combined GenOne and Minerva look like a year from now?"
He leaned forward as if the host had just asked the most interesting question in the world.
"How did you know that is exactly what I was hoping to talk about, Ms. Foster?"
Ji-pyeong flashed a bright smile revealing his dimples across ten television monitors all at once. Mi-rae almost spit out her coffee.
Those dimples are going to be the death of me.
Chris leaned over.
"You okay?"
She nodded, choking back a cough.
Then Chris folded his arms and nodded at the soundstage.
"Thirty seconds in and he already has her eating out of his hand."
You have no idea.
Mi-rae bit the side of her mouth at the way the host was looking at Ji-pyeong. Not that she could blame her. Ji-pyeong was wearing a cobalt blue suit with a white shirt and black tie. His hair was swept back so precisely that it made her stomach flip to think she had actually run her fingers through it. A white pocket square with black piping was peeking flirtatiously from the corner of the monitor screen.
The tailoring was exquisite. And so was he. Mi-rae leaned to the left to look at him beyond the monitors and cameras.
He is probably the most attractive guest to ever grace CNBC's Squawk on the Street. How is that poor host even concentrating?
Because Mi-rae was having trouble concentrating. As Ji-pyeong answered the question exactly as they had rehearsed, her eyes remained resolutely on his face. But Mi-rae's mind was wandering far beyond.
I can't believe that man is ...my boyfriend?
She cocked her head questioningly. The word sounded alien. It was both an absurd proposition and yet woefully insufficient to capture Han Ji-pyeong. Mi-rae was watching the vice president of her client give a live interview on national television about a merger at the center of a media whirlwind for the last four days.
He was also the man that she was head over heels in love with.
Mi-rae had joked that the pergola looked like a passageway to a different world. Her words had proven prescient. She was thirty five years old. Mi-rae had believed herself to be in love before. Indeed, she had been married for five years. But nothing had ever felt like this. Kim Mi-rae had been living her life in black and white. Now the world was bursting in technicolor.
If she was honest with herself, Mi-rae knew that she was crossing a point of no return the moment she woke up on Sunday morning. But she could not help it. As elusive as happiness had proven in her life, Mi-rae's heart was not so scarred that she could bear turning away from it. And so she had made yet another pact with herself. She could do the things that she wanted to for Han Ji-pyeong. She was allowed to spend time with him. She could just be with him. None of that was prohibited under any code of ethics. Even if she knew that she was falling in love with him.
