"He's not your type."
That was the first thing Hana's stepmother said when she saw the new chauffeur standing beside the black Bentley.
Tall. Sharp-jawed. Cold eyes. The kind of man who didn't bow too low when meeting the daughter of the house. Not when that daughter was her — the vicious, unloved one.
But Hana didn't care about types.
He had an aura that dared her to pry, to touch what wasn't hers — again.
And wasn't that what they all said about her anyway? That she was just trying to win back everything that wasn't hers?
====
It was a hot afternoon when she saw him polishing the car.
His shirt clung to his back from the heat, sleeves rolled up just enough to show veins in his forearms. His movements were precise, military almost. Efficient, professional.
But the moment he looked up at her?
Nothing.
Not a blink. Not a flicker of emotion. Just that deadpan stare.
As if she were no different from the polished rims he was wiping.
"New driver?" she asked the housekeeper.
"Yes, Miss. He came highly recommended by your father's connections. Name's 'Jin'."
Jin.
How poetic for someone so . . . mechanical.
====
That night, she saw him again.
He opened the door for her. But his eyes were watching the girl behind her.
Her stepsister — Yuna.
The angel of the family. The delicate, soft-spoken white lotus that made the world believe Hana was made of thorns.
Yuna smiled at him like a little lamb seeing a gentle shepherd.
He smiled back.
Not too much.
Just enough.
Something in Hana's chest twisted.
====
Later that week, she found them talking in the garden.
She wasn't spying. Not really. The roses were just a convenient cover.
Yuna giggled like a doll in a music box.
"I just love how gentle you are, Jin. Most men are so . . . rough."
He chuckled. Low. Smooth. Reserved.
Hana had never heard him laugh before.
Not once.
She clenched her fists so hard her nails bit into her palms.
====
Her mother had loved roses.
Deep crimson ones. Not those pale pink things Yuna insisted on planting.
She'd died in the greenhouse years ago. Slipped and fell they told her. The glass shattered. So did everything after.
Her father remarried six months later.
To Yuna's mother.
The woman who wore her mother's jewelry like they were prizes.
The same woman who told Hana she was "too loud," "too brash," "too jealous."
Jealous of Yuna. The perfect daughter. The perfect heir.
Funny.
No one seemed to remember that Hana was born first.
It wasn't just the betrayal in the present that haunted Hana — it was the rot that had been festering for years. Yuna wasn't just her stepsister. She was living proof of a wound that had never healed.
Her father had been cheating on her mother for years. Not some fleeting affair. No. Yuna was only a few years younger than Hana, which meant the affair had started while her mother still wore his ring — while she still believed in their family.
Worse yet, they'd been childhood sweethearts.
Her father and Yuna's mother had been in love long before the marriage ever happened. But Hana's grandparents, powerful and proud, saw the girl he loved as unworthy — too low-class, too plain, too poor.
They forced his hand, pairing him instead with a woman from a family of prestige. Hana's mother.
A woman who gave everything. Who smiled through cold winters and boardroom dinners. Who walked through her own garden until the night she died in it.
Her mother never stood a chance. Not against a man who had already given his heart away.
And now, the girl born from that stolen love stood in Hana's house. Wore her colors. Called her father "Daddy." And pretended to be the innocent one.
The world called Hana vicious. But no one ever asked what made her that way.
They all thought she was trying to take everything.
But no one asked what was taken from her first.
====
Jin wasn't supposed to matter.
He was just a driver.
But something about him . . .
The way he looked at Yuna like she was breakable — that tenderness . . .
Hana wanted that.
For once, she wanted someone to look at her like that.
She tried, of course.
She brought him coffee one morning. Black, no sugar.
He nodded once. Took it. Didn't say thank you.
When she lingered too long, he turned and walked away.
Her pride cracked.
Just a little.
====
Yuna, of course, "accidentally" spilled orange juice on his shirt during breakfast.
"Oh no! I'm so clumsy!" She offered to help blot it. Her fingers lingered on his chest. He said nothing but slap her fingers away.
Hana had to leave the table because of embarrassment.
====
That evening, she stood by the window, watching the rain blur the garden path.
She saw Jin out there. Standing beneath the umbrella. Waiting.
Yuna skipped down the stairs in a flowing white dress.
He opened the car door for her, hand brushing her back as she slid in.
They drove off, leaving Hana behind in the silence.
A thunderclap rattled the window.
She didn't flinch.
She just whispered to herself:
"I'm not the villain. I only wanted what's mine."