A car drives on the highway in the evening in When The Phone Rings: Episode 1. The car arrives a manor. A man opens the car door. He gets off the car. We see his new leather shoes. The man is Sa-Eon. He walks into the manor and he opens the gate.
Sa-Eon shows up at the party. The ladies pay attention to him. A girl Hee-Joo wears a black dress walking to Sa-Eon. She takes his arm. She looks nervous when she faces the eyes of the guests. He comforts her that the one the guests look at is him. He takes her to the second floor.
It flashes back. Hee-Joo uses sign language to help the anchor You-Ri tell the news in the studio. She uses her middle finger to curse at Director Yoon because the director was rude. You-Ri praises Hee-Joo after the show. But Director Yoon needs to resolve the problem for the girl.
There’s a kidnapping. You-Ri receives the spokesperson briefing. She’s shy when she talks about the spokesperson. Hee-Joo is asked to leave. She tries to leave. But she sees Sa-Eon showing up on the screen. So she stops. Sa-Eon holds a press conference. He begins to give a speech.
The two directors talk about the guy. They think he’s a news anchor. You-Ri stops them because she cannot hear what Sa-Eon says because of them. We learn that You-Ri is a fangirl of Sa-Eon. Sa-Eon tells the reporter that they won’t compromise with the kidnappers. Hee-Joo uses her middle finger to curse at him. But she doesn’t hear what he says that he swears to protect the lives.
Sa-Eon returns to his office. He receives a message from You-Ri. The girl supports him and she cheers him up. Hee-Joo and her mother Yeon-Hui meets with Sa-Eon’s mother Kyu-Jin at a cafe. The madam gives the mother and the daughter a hard time for her son. She leaves the cafe. Yeon-Hui scolds Hee-Joo. She thinks Hee-Joo didn’t do a good job.
Hee-Joo is in her car. It’s raining outside. She drives her car on the street. But her car is controlled by someone. The car stops. She tries to open the car door. She fails. A truck rushes to her. Sa-Eon finds out that the reporter Hyeok-Jin wrote an article to attack him. He walks into the meeting room. He asks his follower Young-Woo to take care of the article.
The truck doesn’t hit Hee-Joo. But she sees a man staring at her when he stands in the rain. He walks to her and he opens the car door. Sa-Eon gets a call from a strange number. The kidnapper threatens Sa-Eon that he’s going to kill his wife.
Sa-Eon calls his mother. He learns that she met with Hee-Joo and Yeon-Hui. So he calls Yeon-Hui. She picks up the phone in the kitchen. She’s happy when she hears his voice. She sees him on the screen. But he only cares for his wife. She tells a lie to him that Hee-Joo is at home with her.
Sa-Eon confirms that his wife is safe. He walks out of his office. He asks Young-Woo to track the number. But Young-Woo cannot remember the number. Do-Jae is fast to complete the job. Sa-Eon returns to his office. He calls the kidnapper. He tells him to kill his wife and he refuses to pay the ransom. Hee-Joo overhears it.
The kidnapper uses a rope to strangle Hee-Joo. He laughs to question her if Sa-Eon has another wife. She tears up. He calls Sa-Eon again. But Sa-Eon blocks his number. The kidnapper is furious to stab Hee-Joo’s leather chair with his knife. It hurts Hee-Joo’s neck.
Young-Woo picks up the phone by mistake. He hands over the phone to Sa-Eon. Sa-Eon tells the kidnapper that he wants to see his wife’s dead body. The kidnapper is furious to hit the car roof. Hee-Joo is sad. Do-Jae breaks into the office. He informs Sa-Eon that Argon asked to see him. Sa-Eon leaves his office.
Hee-Joo accelerates the car. The kidnapper tries to stop her. But he passes out after he was hit by the car. The radio plays the news that Sa-Eon saved all of the hostages. Sa-Eon gives a perfect speech. He doesn’t know his wife’s heart is bleeding.
Sa-Eon is in his car. Hyeok-Jin shows up outside Sa-Eon’s car. He asks him for a interview. But Sa-Eon rejects it. He uses the car window to hurt Hyeok-Jin. Hyeok-Jin mentions Sa-Eon took down all of his photos. Sa-Eon blames Hyeok-Jin for distorting the truth. He drives away but he comes back. He asks Hyeok-Jin a favor.
Hyeok-Jin gets in Sa-Eon’s car. Sa-Eon drives his car fast. Hyeok-Jin is scared. Sa-Eon asks his friend to trace the number. He stops the car and he drops him. Hee-Joo returns home. She takes off all of her clothes. She walks into the bathroom to take a shower.
She walks out of the bathroom with a bath towel. She looks herself in the mirror. She checks her wounds. She applies a band-aid on the wound. Sa-Eon drives home. He sees Hee-Joo taking the rice from the rice cooker. He feels relieved after he confirmed that she’s alive. But he wonders why she prepared dinner because he heard from her mother that she has eaten.
She ignores him because he has hurt her deeply. He gets a call from Do-Jae. Do-Jae reports to Sa-Eon that the number is a virtual number. He adds that he can only trace the number when it calls Sa-Eon. He needs more information regarding the phone owner. Sa-Eon is sure that the person was a man. He returns to his room.
Sa-Eon asks Do-Jae to send a team to protect Hee-Joo. He mentions the embassy party needs a sign language interpreter. He goes to the living room. He asks Hee-Joo to be the interpreter. She returns to her room. She receives a message from her mother. She learns that her husband was looking for her. Her mother calls her. She mentions she only have one month to get pregnant. Hee-Joo feels annoying. She puts her phone under the pillow.
We go to three years ago. Hee-Joo wears wedding dress to wait for the groom in the wedding room. Sa-Eon opens the gate. He walks to her and he asks her to take off the wedding dress because nobody will come to attend their wedding. He tells her that she’s just a stand-in.
He puts his suit on her when she tries to take off her wedding dress. He hands over a contract to her. He asks her not to tell others that she’s his wife. She signs the marriage contract. He puts the ring on her and he tells her that she’s just a hostage.
We return to the present. Hee-Joo checks the news. She learns that nobody knows who’s Sa-Eon’s wife. Jin-Yi arrives at the company. She finds out that Hee-Joo is practicing in the studio. She thinks the video isn’t good. She persuades Hee-Joo to practice Sa-Eon’s video. But Hee-Joo rejects it.
Sa-Eon takes Hee-Joo to see the ambassador and his wife. The ambassador is lost after knowing Hee-Joo isn’t Sa-Eon’s wife. Sa-Eon reveals he hid his wife because his wife is his weakness. Hee-Joo drinks up the wine. Sa-Eon stops her. He worries that she will get drunk.
He disallows her to go home. She blames him for telling the ambassador that she’s his weakness. Because she knows he never cared for her. He doesn’t understand what she says. Because she uses sign language. She’s furious to go to the restroom. She looks herself in the mirror.
Sa-Eon gets a call from the kidnapper. He laughs because he thinks the kidnapper cannot hurt his wife. But the kidnapper tells Sa-Eon that he’s at the party. He has known his real wife is In-A. He asks him to get a divorce with Hee-Joo.
Hee-Joo uses the kidnapper’s phone to talk with her husband. It flashes back. Hee-Joo yells at the kidnapper. She asks him to call Sa-Eon. She drives the car and it hits the fence. She gets off the car and she cries. She turns around and she sees the kidnapper’s phone in the car.
SEE ALSO: Episode 2 Recap: Jealousy
We return to the present. Sa-Eon is furious to hit the wall after knowing what the kidnapper did to her wife. He swears to let the guy pay it back.