THE PROPOSAL || KTH

Chapter 11 || Invitation

Kim Tae-hyung Pov

Kim Shin-jae was a shrewd man, and who other than me would know better? Growing up with him, I knew he would go to any extent to achieve anything he wanted. Nothing could hold him back. Not even blood relations. The man cared about no one but himself and his empire.

Somehow, that forced me to carve an identity for myself apart from being his son. The moment I stood up on my own in the business world, I started venturing into different businesses to find my place. A few years after working in Father's company, I managed to open my own construction business, and Dad wasn't happy about it. Of course.

He wanted me to focus on his company and take over one day, not start something of my own. My views didn't match his. I didn't want to live under his shadow all my life. I was a person of my own, and I was going to live my life as I pleased, even if that meant pissing Dad off.

I didn't really care. I wasn't really close to Dad to begin with. We had our differences since the early days of my childhood. Apparently, I didn't turn out the way he wanted me to be. I wasn't his obedient son who followed his command without questioning him. Woo-jin was that son, but Dad didn't see a leader in him who one day could rule the Kim empire.

For some odd reason, Dad saw me to fit the role. I didn't know if he genuinely believed in my abilities, or was it because I was the eldest child of the family. Either way, I didn't care. I had no interest in staying in his clutches for life by taking over the role of CEO and managing director after his retirement. I might have been in power, but it would still be him ruling. I refused to give him that sort of control over me.

Over the last couple of years, he had tried everything in his power to get me to rejoin his company. I refused for obvious reasons.

Dad didn't relent, though. He dug up deep and started blackmailing me with my previous relationship. Even that couldn't make me change my decision, so he started to coerce me into marrying a woman of his choice-the daughter of his best friend was an ideal woman to be the daughter-in-law of the Kim 's. Someone who would lead by my side and take the legacy forward.

I poured water on his plans by marrying Y/n. That was the last nail in the coffin, it seemed. I made a middle-class girl daughter-in-law of the so- called prestigious Kim family. Family reputation was something he wouldn't compromise over. Dad was livid I chose Y/n over his choice, more so because he didn't see any profit in bringing her into the family.

Before, Father was trying to get through me using my personal life, but now he had started targeting my professional life.

Dad was one of the major investors in my dream project I was starting this year-a chain of seven star-hotels across the country. That was the biggest project of my life after starting my own business. The construction work on the first hotel in the chain would be starting next month. But Dad pulled out his name from the investor list at the last moment, which had put other investors in a dilemma as well. Some of the investors were thinking of backing out from the project while some already had. What Dad did was bound to make them doubt their decisions, so I didn't blame them. My father sent the message he didn't trust my capabilities by pulling out at the last moment. That was sure to bring some bad will to me and the project, which would result in the loss of some valuable investors.

There was a knock on the door of the study, pulling me out of my thoughts. "Come in."
The door was pushed open revealing my beautiful little wife standing there with a calm look on her face. Her rosy pink lips curled into a serene smile that soothed some of the ache in my chest. It always did. That curve of her lips did possess some powers to make me forget everything.

"You forgot your phone in the room," Y/n said, walking inside, holding out my phone in her hand. She moved over, rounded the wooden desk and stood near the chair I was seated in. "Your mother called. I told her you will call her back shortly."