"You...!"

My aunt was thrown, all right.

She jumped up from her seat, eyes wide as a startled rabbit's.

I'd come here braced for this. She'd just been struck by lightning—she had to be reeling.

"Auntie!!!"

I just walked over and threw my arms around her.

"!!!" I could hear her heart jump, pounding loud enough to reach my ears.

A hopeless lunatic shows up, calls you Auntie and hugs you—what woman wouldn't be shocked?

In broad daylight, in her own CEO's office, no less.

"You're out of your..."

"Out of your mind with missing me? Me too. You have no idea how surprised I was to hear I had an aunt."

I let go of this woman who was supposedly my aunt.

Grandfather had been handsome, they said, and she'd clearly gotten his genes.

She had the looks of a woman who must have turned heads when she was young.

Still, she couldn't come close to Mom.

"What on earth..."

What kind of stunt was this—was that it?

"A present. It's nothing much, but please take it. I came in a hurry, so I couldn't prepare properly. It only came to a measly hundred million won."

You always have to come fully prepared.

Stick your head into the enemy's den first and it gets cracked open.

My aunt was a woman, too.

I'd bought a 2008 limited-edition watch set with Cartier jewels.

Thanks to shopping with Mom, I was a VIP at the department store.

"!!!" Even a company CEO doesn't wear a hundred-million-won watch lightly.

Especially with Dongnyong Confectionery still at the level of a small or midsize business.

But in the future it becomes a gem of a company with five trillion won in sales, fat net profits and a dividend paid every year.

Aria Choco Pie sold not just in China, Russia and Vietnam but all over Asia.

The slogan Choco Pie is love got lodged in people's heads.

Whatever else you could say about her, her management skills were solid.

She'd tormented Mom, but I didn't have any concrete proof.

I was curious how different…