A Broke Waitress Brought Her Baby to Work and Found the Most Feared Korean Boss Holding Him Like He Had Been Waiting His Whole Life

Jae carefully shifted his weight, rising from the leather executive chair behind his massive glass-and-steel desk. Every movement was controlled, deliberate, and unnervingly graceful. He cradled Noah against his chest as if he had been holding infants every day of his life, though the sheer size of him made the baby look impossibly small.

“A restaurant kitchen is no place for a six-month-old child, Miss Mason,” Jae said, walking slowly toward the seating area near the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the gray expanse of the Chicago River. “The heat, the noise, the sanitation risks. It is a liability.”

“I know,” Olivia whispered, wiping her cheeks with the back of her sleeve, feeling small and utterly defeated. “I didn't have a choice. I tried every option I had.”

“Where is the father?” Jae asked, his voice dropping an octave, a sudden, hard edge sharpening his tone.

Olivia’s jaw tightened. The memory of Tyler Brooks—his cold indifference, his empty wallet, his casual dismissal of a human life—flared up like a fresh burn.

“He left when he found out,” Olivia said flatly, refusing to let her voice crack. “He decided Noah wasn't part of his life plan.”

Jae’s dark eyes narrowed slightly. A flicker of something cold and dangerous passed across his sharp features, a shadow of the ruthlessness that made men across the city cross the street to avoid him. But when he looked back down at Noah, whose tiny fingers had uncurled to rest flat against Jae’s white dress shirt, that shadow vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“Cowards usually do,” Jae murmured.

Before Olivia could process what he meant, the office door clicked open.

Ron Keller burst into the room, red-faced and panting, holding a tablet in his hand. “Mr. Park, I am so sorry, sir, we had a mix-up with table twelve, and I was just looking for—oh.”

Ron stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes bulged as he stared at the scene before him: the most feared man in the city holding a baby, while his underpaid, terrified waitress stood frozen a few feet away.

“Ron,” Jae said, his voice dropping into that icy, lethal register that made everyone in the building hold their breath.

“M-Mr. Park?” Ron stammered, sweating profusely despite the air conditioning.

“Miss Mason is taking the rest of the day off,” Jae stated smoothly.

Ron blinked, his brain clearly short-circuiting. “Sir? But the lunch rush—table twelve—we’re short-staffed—she can't just walk out—!”

“She isn't walking out,” Jae interrupted, his dark eyes locking onto the floor manager with a glare that could freeze fire. “She is being granted paid personal leave. For the rest of the week. And if I hear that you, or anyone else in this building, gives her a single moment of trouble about her circumstances, you won't have to worry about the lunch rush ever again. Because you won't have a job.”

Ron swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing violently. “Yes, sir. Understood, sir.”