Chapter Text
Seong Hui-ju POV
Divorce
noun
1. The legal dissolution of a marriage by a court or other competent body.
2. Corporate: The strategic separation of two entities once bound by alliance, contract, or mutual interest—often to minimize losses, isolate liabilities, and preserve the stronger party’s viability.
3. Royal: The severance of a union that once lent legitimacy to power, now a public sacrifice to shield the throne from scandal and restore the Crown’s unblemished image.
4. Seong Hui-ju: Divorcing my husband? Ensuring the only man who ever made me feel seen, wanted, and alive walks away intact while I burn everything we built together.
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Not even two weeks of real marriage, and we were already in ruins.
Because of me.
The leaked contract had dragged Grand Prince I-an straight into the line of fire.
Every headline, every whispered accusation in the National Assembly and the boardrooms of Castle Group pointed at him—at us—as if our paper marriage proved some grand conspiracy against the Crown.
“Divorce him, Hui-ju. Cleanly. Publicly. Let the Crown distance itself. We will handle the rest.”
I had begged him in that sterile estate—on my knees in front of the man who raised me to never kneel. To save my husband.
And still, he asked me to do this.
For the family.
For the company.
For I-an’s future, which apparently no longer included me.
So here I was, standing in his private office in the palace annex.
I-an faced me, that quiet, devastating gaze of his steady even as the world fractured around us.
“Let’s get divorced.”
The words left my mouth like shards of glass.
His eyes lost their sheen instantly, the subtle warmth I had come to crave in recent weeks draining away.
He searched my face, always too perceptive.
“Was this something Daebi Mama said to you?” His voice was low, controlled—the tone of a man who had spent a lifetime swallowing royal expectations.
The Queen Dowager had said plenty, of course.
Every pointed remark about how a chaebol heiress was dragging the Grand Prince into scandal, tarnishing the late King’s legacy, risking the young King’s fragile position.
All of it correct.
I was dragging him down.
I forced steel into my spine, the same way I did in hostile board meetings.
“I’m just focusing on cutting my losses. You don’t have anything which can benefit me anymore.”
Liar.
There was no bigger loss than losing him.
Jaga.
My husband.
The only person who had ever looked past the illegitimate Castle Group heiress and seen me—the woman who was tired of performing perfection. And begging for validation and attention from my Abeoji.
But if sacrificing myself kept him safe, I would carve out my own heart and hand it to the wolves.
Divorce. The word tasted bitter, metallic. Funny how I had thrown it around so casually at the start of all this—multiple times, even.
A convenient exit clause in our contract.
It hadn’t crossed my mind in weeks.
Not since that night on the yacht, when his lips had found mine and everything transactional had dissolved into something terrifyingly real.
The next few days blurred into tense silence and calculated performances.
Servants moved like ghosts. Advisors hovered.
I-an allowed me—granted me—participation in the emergency council meeting.
I walked in with my head high, every inch the ruthless Seong Hui-ju the public feared and respected.
I announced the divorce.
I took full responsibility.
I directed my fury like a surgical strike, especially toward Prime Minister Min Jeong-woo.
Jeong-woo Oppa.
The man I had admired for decades, a friend, almost a brother figure in the tangled web of politics and business.
But suggesting my husband relinquish his Regency over this?
In his fucking dreams.
I would be the only one taking the fall.
Castle Group had the cards ready—damage control statements, legal teams, media plants.
They would paint me as the ambitious commoner who used the Grand Prince and discarded him when it no longer served her. I-an would emerge clean.
Protected.
The council chamber crackled with shock and opportunistic murmurs. Royal protocol clashed with corporate ruthlessness; centuries of tradition met modern media frenzy.
I felt the eyes of ministers and palace officials dissecting me.
Good. Let them.
As long as they saw my hands dirty, not his.
But the last thing I expected was the Royal Secretariat entering with solemn ceremony.
An edict from the King—my husband’s young nephew.
Jeonha was abdicating.
As per the late King’s (I-an’s elder brother) wishes, the throne would pass to Grand Prince I-an.
The room erupted.
I wasn’t the only one who had been scheming in the shadows.
My husband had been protecting us too. Protecting me.
Now he stood on the precipice of becoming King of this country.
After the meeting, I sought him out in a quiet corridor of the palace, my heart hammering against the weight of what I had just done.
He turned to me, no longer the melancholic Grand Prince but something sharper, more dangerous.
Anger burned in his eyes—raw, unfiltered.
“You said you wanted a divorce because you wanted to cut your losses.” His voice was low, edged with betrayal.
“Is that how you cut losses, Seong Hui-ju? By taking all the blame? By standing in that council and trying to destroy yourself in front of everyone?” He stepped closer, the air between us electric. “You didn’t trust me to protect us.”
I wanted to reach for him.
To tell him the truth—that every hurtful word had been a shield, every public declaration a sacrifice.
That losing him was the one loss I couldn’t survive, yet I would endure it if it meant he rose untouched.
But the words stuck in my throat, choked by the bitter aftertaste of “divorce” and the terrifying new reality of a crown on his head.
Instead, I stood there, turmoil twisting inside me like a storm I had summoned myself.
The woman who always won by any means necessary had just ensured her greatest defeat.
And the man I loved more than power, status, or Castle Beauty itself looked at me like I had finally proven I was exactly what everyone feared: a liability.
.
.
.
The palace felt like a gilded cage. Grand Prince I-an—my husband—had become a ghost.
He moved through the halls with the precision of a future king, issuing orders, receiving reports from the Royal Secretariat, and preparing for the weight of the throne that had just been placed upon him.
But he did not look at me.
Not once.
His silence was louder than any edict.
Castle Group was hemorrhaging.
Subpoenas landed like artillery fire on the board, including my Abeoji.
The public outrage refused to die despite my older brother’s carefully staged media briefing, where he took full responsibility for the contract and the divorce clause.
He painted himself as the overprotective brother who had pushed for the contract and the divorce clause.
The headlines still screamed betrayal, royal manipulation, and chaebol greed.
Castle Beauty’s stock had plummeted.
Partners were pulling out.
And I, still legally bound to the Grand Prince until the final papers were signed and sealed, had been forced to hand been forced to stay put and silent.
I was a royal now.
Untouchable in theory.
Absolutely useless in practice.
.
.
.
On the third day, everything exploded.
I was in the annex when the news alert blared across my tablet.
Fire at Castle Beauty Headquarters.
Live footage showed black smoke billowing into the Seoul sky. My heart stopped.
“Oppa… Unnie… Abeoji—” The names slipped out in a broken whisper. Were they inside?
Had they gone in for an emergency board meeting? I didn’t think.
I grabbed my keys and ran.
Choi Hyeon and the palace guards shouted after me. “Your Highness! You cannot—!” I ignored them, sliding into the car and flooring the accelerator.
Royal protocol, security details, the fact that I was still Seong Hui-ju only on paper—none of it mattered.
My company.
My people.
The families whose livelihoods had been built over decades under the Castle name. I broke every signal, knuckles white on the wheel.
Snap out of it, Hui-ju ya. You’re no good to them if you crash.
The scene was worse than any nightmare.
Flames roared from the third floor, a vicious orange gulf devouring glass and steel.
Screams cut through the chaos as employees stumbled out, coughing, some carried by colleagues.
Media vans swarmed the perimeter. Fire trucks and police barricades tried to contain the panic, but the crowd pressed forward, phones raised.
I slammed the car door and kicked off my heels, the asphalt burning my stockings. An officer blocked my path.
“Ma’am, you need to stay back—”
“It’s my fucking company!” My voice cracked with raw authority. “Move. That’s a royal order.”
He faltered at the words—recognition hitting as someone shouted my name.
The crowd parted just enough. I pushed through, joining the stream of rescuers helping the injured.
My hands shook as I guided a young intern away from the smoke, then went back for another.
The fire was technically contained to two floors in the middle block for now, but the smoke was everywhere—thick, acrid, choking.
I kept moving.
Kept pulling people out.
Kept thinking of every employee who had stayed loyal through the scandals, every connection my family had nurtured, every late night my father had spent building this empire.
This is my fault.
The leak.
The divorce.
The target I painted on us.
My lungs burned. Vision blurred at the edges.
I ignored it, dragging another coughing woman toward safety.
“Keep moving—help is here.”
Half an hour felt like eternity. Sirens wailed. Water arced through the air.
Someone was shouting my name again—maybe Choi Hyeon, maybe the press.
The world tilted violently.
The screams faded into a muffled hum.
My knees buckled.
The chaos went silent as the ground rushed up to meet me.
Blackness swallowed everything.
"Jaga, mianhe."