"So those are the main regulatory pitfalls we are going to be keeping an eye out for. We'll also want to make sure we have access to all of Minerva's ..."
Sam was wrapping up his portion of the due diligence overview.
Don't look at him. Don't look at him.
But Mi-rae did look at him. Again.
Han Ji-pyeong's chair was tilted in Sam's direction. He was listening to her colleague intently. Mi-rae, on the other hand, was not.
Instead, her eyes traced the curve of his profile with a rebellious will of their own. His hair was brushed over his forehead and to the side today. It had an alarming effect of making her wonder what it would be like to slip her fingers into the layers that so perfectly curved around his ear. Next, her eyes roved down the bold straight line of his nose and then slipped up along the curve of his jaw.
Why does he have to look like ...that.
Han Ji-pyeong looked so good in the kind of suit that mere mortals could not pull off that it made her want to throw her pen. Mi-rae yearned to be the one talking again so that she could keep her train of thought in check. That would be preferable to staring at him.
He works for your client, Mi-rae. Stop.
The initial shock that Vice President Han of SH Venture Capital and Nam Do-san from the bar last night were one in the same had dissipated in the last five hours. Mi-rae had struggled to maintain her composure throughout breakfast. Then she freaked out in a bathroom stall by herself after the first break. A rare benefit of being the only woman on the senior deal team today was her assured privacy while mumbling with her head in her hands.
But when Chris had asked her if everything was okay in the hallway before they reconvened, icy fear shot through her veins. Her career had already weathered an affair and divorce among colleagues. She had made partner in the wake of that humiliation. This was the first billion dollar deal for which she would run point. Its progress was regularly covered by the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. Mi-rae had worked too hard for too long to falter now.
And so she forced herself to focus on what she did best: anticipating risk and thinking through hypotheticals. She marched through the day's presentation never more grateful for the refuge of Powerpoint and corresponding binder tabs.
The rigor of Vice President Han's expectations had not been oversold. He had asked them question after question all day. No detail escaped him. Vague answers were not tolerated. The associates around the table struggled just trying to keep up as they furiously recorded all of the follow up points that he requested be chased down. Han Ji-pyeong was exacting and relentless.
The problem was that she enjoyed it.
He was smart as hell. And more prepared than any client for whom she had ever done a deal in ten years of practicing. Once most clients got past an initial offer they approached their counsel as a necessary stumbling block to what they had already deemed strategically necessary. But Han Ji-pyeong did not assume that he was right. Rather, he wanted to anticipate everything that could go wrong. He was everything that a person in his position of responsibility should be but few were. It was thrilling to spar back and forth as they considered future pitfalls together.
But the last thing that Mi-rae needed was to like him even more. That seemed to be the one detail that he disregarded. Everything Han Ji-pyeong did seemed to worsen her predicament. Right now he was rubbing his mouth in an absentminded way while reading over something that Sam had just pointed out in an initial GenOne disclosure. She watched, spellbound, as his index finger dragged seductively across the plush pink of his lips.
