Contract Marriage 18+ [A Hopekook Fanfiction] ✓

4.4🥀

"Are you coming in or what?" A voice interrupted whatever Jeon had been about to say and they looked up toward the house, where another tall, broad-shouldered man was silhouetted in the doorway.

"Come on," Jeon muttered, taking her hand and picking up a tog bag similar to the one Max had been carrying. He led her to the front door, where the rugged man stepped aside to let them in.

"Hey, Jeon..." his casual greeting was followed by some more masculine back-thumping and this time the friendly overture was returned by Jeon.

"Mingyu," Jeon nodded, before tugging Hobie forward. "This is Hobie."

"Hobie?" The man did a double take as he took a closer look at her, before he recovered from his astonishment with a warm smile. "I'm very happy to meet you. I'm Mingyu Kim."

...And the penny finally dropped. Hobie stared up at the warmly smiling man and felt like a complete idiot for not connecting the dots sooner. It was Friday night, Jeon was dressed in his sports gear and he had brought her to his regular, bloody football game! How typical, the man certainly pulled out all the stops when faced with an obstacle but this was just despicable and so unbelievably obvious! He had given her no warning whatsoever. No wonder he was such a successful businessman, he was a master at manipulating a situation to his advantage and this was a classic example. Give the woman what she wants and maybe her rebellion will subside and she will get down to the business of being a human incubator!

"I'm so happy to meet you, Mr Kim," she said softly, taking the man's proffered hand and disguising her anger and confusion behind a sweet smile. "Why, just recently I expressed a wish to meet you!" She refused to look at Jeon but she sensed him uncomfortably shifting from one foot to the other. "And here we are..."

"Indeed," the other man smiled even though it was obvious, in the way he glanced at Jeon, that he knew something was amiss. "I'm glad you overcame your aversion to football and decided to join us tonight. The guys will be delighted to meet jeon's beautiful wife." Her aversion to football? So that was how he'd explained away her conspicuous absences.

"And I'm looking forward to meeting them," she said warmly. She was annoyed with Jeon and hurt by his transparent ploys to keep her appeased but this tall, broad-shouldered man with the warm smile seemed lovely and Hobie could not help but instinctively like him.

"Everybody's around back, Jeon," Mingyu informed the silent man who stood at her back. "I'll join you soon, I'm waiting for Bobbie." He relinquished Hobie's hand and grinned down at her. "Don't let the guys flirt with you too much, Hobie. They're an incorrigible lot and they're suckers for a pretty girl!" He seemed to mean it, if his lingering glance over her blushing face was any indication.

"Enough with the flirting, Kim," Jeon suddenly growled, stepping forward to place a possessive hand on her elbow and Mingyu's grin took on a decidedly wicked slant.

"I can't believe it..." he hooted his voice alive with discovery. "You're jealous... of me!" The very idea was so ludicrous that Hobie laughed along with him but Jeon's grip tightened on her elbow.

"I'm not jealous," he retorted scathingly once their laughter had died down. "Just trying to protect my wife from your smarmy attentions, you smart ass."

"No... I'm beginning to believe you kept her away from all of us for so long because you can't handle the competition," the other man ribbed with the nerve that only a long-standing friend would possess.

"I am confident of my wife's excellent taste," Jeon dismissed before trying to steer Hobie away but she resisted.

"Now hold on a second, Jeon... I haven't exactly been spoiled for choice you know! I may find that my taste has changed..." Oh he did not like that, not one bit! He slanted a hard narrow-eyed glare at her that the other man, who was laughing in delight at her pithy comeback, did not see and Hobie tilted her chin stubbornly and met his glare with a defiant glare of her own.