Mi Sung

A few months passed and it was now winter. In the city, Alex suddenly became even busier with work. The rookie group from 5 years ago that gained a lot of recognition within the first year of their debut made it big. Their more recent songs had been a huge hit and were currently trending on the Billboard's top 100 for the 3rd week in a row! They even claimed the Number 1 spot on the iTunes chart in the UK, as well as the US!

Since they were such a hit, the demand for them from a wide variety of media outlets and shows increased. This meant that Alex was practically walking on eggshells because it became a huge competition for many of these media outlets and shows to meet him. He had to choose carefully since rivalries ran deep in the entertainment industry. No matter how powerful a company or person, there were still people that couldn't be offended no matter what.

In addition, Alex didn't want to give his company any bad exposure. Afterall, a lot of money, time, and effort had been poured into nurturing new talents, as well as giving room for Sabor Sights' more experienced talents to improve. Since Alex took over, the company hardly ever neglected anyone, whether it was their artists or their employees. Alex understood that no one was perfect even if they recruited many talented producers, young singer-songwriters, composers and choreographers.

No matter how stringent the selection criteria for new trainees and employees or how rigorous the training was, it was all to nurture talented people with the potential for growth. If they weren't able to work hard for everything they had, then they shouldn't deserve recognition. That was one of the mottos he learned from Kaia. She had fought hard to earn her title of CEO in the past. Even though she met all the necessary requirements and more to earn the position, people had always been unwilling to give way to a woman, much less a young and seemingly "inexperienced" and "naive" one at that.

Alex sighed, closing one of the folders with information on one of the media outlets that persistently pursued him for the past two months. He rubbed his tired eyes. He wasn't able to get any sleep recently because he kept on having nightmares about Kaia. It always happened right when Christmas was around the corner. But there was one time when he didn't have any nightmares. It was when Naomi brought baby Alexa over to visit him.

He smiled at the thought of Alexa. He remembered the string of multicolored hearts and smiley face emojis that Alexa sent to him when she received his birthday present for her 5th birthday, which was a glittery purple pony plushie. It was one of her favorite ponies from the show he watched till they fell asleep on his couch.

He suddenly heard a few *dings* from his phone and saw that they were texts from Mi Sung. She was coming back to the UK again after the little hide and seek incident. She never told him the real reason why she hurriedly went back to South Korea. She only used the excuse of her father missing her to cover up for the embarrassment of falling for Alexa's little scheme. In addition to coming back, this time she wanted to talk about their wedding as well as the contract between her father's company and Sabor Sights.

About two years ago, other shareholders and board members of Sabor Sights came together and agreed on expanding into the Asian music industry. They planned on starting with South Korea because of the explosion in popularity of kpop (Korean pop music) in recent years. Since a lot of popular kpop songs had a lot of heavy Western influence, Sabor Sights planned to make use of their own talented choreographers, composers and songwriters. Afterall, as a requirement for joining Sabor Sights, many of their talents were given opportunities to go overseas for training.

Since the shareholders and board members of Sabor Sights were all eager to expand, Alex's plan was to send a few of their top songwriters and choreographers to South Korea for extensive training, as well as exposure. If things went well, he also planned on sending a few rookies there. His parents had long been friends with a major CEO of one of the top entertainment companies in South Korea, which was Mi Sung's father.

Since Alex also wanted to expand, Mi Sung's father was only willing to ask the board members for permission to allow an audition for Sabor Sights' top choreographers, composers and songwriters. He only did this on account of his longtime friendship with Alex's parents. He wasn't willing to do more because he was still angry about what happened back then when Mi Sung and Alex were previously engaged.

Of the select few talents, only four made it past the extensive auditions. One composer and songwriter duo, two choreographers--one of which also joined 1Million Dance Studio--and one award-winning singer-songwriter who was known for her unique voice.

Since Alex didn't want any of these talented individuals to suffer any unnecessary hardships, he finally agreed to marry Mi Sung. After all, he had no foundation in South Korea. If he got support from Mi Sung's father's company, his future father-in-law would do his best to protect and nurture the talents that passed the auditions. His future father-in-law would also introduce Sabor Sights to influential people in the industry. The influential CEO would even go so far as to help Sabor Sights make an entrance into the Japanese music industry after Alex and Mi Sung married.

He paused after reading through the texts. He sighed and put his phone down. Although it had been a year and a half since he agreed to the engagement, he still couldn't help but feel guilty. Even though Kaia was physically "dead," she still lived on in his heart. He couldn't bring himself to betray her merely for the sake of profits, but he was aware of his position as CEO and the responsibilities that came with it.

Plus, he was constantly pressured and even threatened once or twice by the other shareholders and board members who were impatient to continue their expansion into the Asian music industry. They didn't want to miss an opportunity to earn more profit and expand Sabor Sights' influence. They also couldn't understand why Alex was dragging out the engagement and pushing back the wedding for so long. After all, they weren't aware of his secret marriage to Kaia. But soon, they would...