Love in Disguise Episode 8 delivered a tense hour of television that changed the direction of the entire series. The episode, which aired on tvN on November 10, 2026, and streams globally on Prime Video, combined a violent attack, a long-hidden family trauma, a painful rejection, and a car crash that finally exposed the show’s biggest secret. The episode recorded a nationwide rating of 5.4 percent, with a peak of 6.9 percent, keeping the drama at the top of its time slot for an eighth straight episode.
The hour opened with a flashback that set the stage for everything that followed. Yoon Yi-Jun (Yim Si-Wan), Kang Jae-Hee (Seol In-Ah), Kim Si-Hyun (Kim Jung-Hyun), and Lee Hye-Jung (Yeonwoo) gathered to listen to the recording stored on Secretary Han’s pen. The audio revealed that Yoon Na-Jung and Chief Secretary Na Man-Seok had both requested verification of the financial data Yi-Jun was investigating before Han’s death. Hye-Jung added that the two had visited the chairman after Han died and asked him to close the case quickly, a detail that pointed directly toward a cover-up.
Hye-Jung Is Attacked in Her Own Home
The danger that had been building around the recording pen turned physical. Hye-Jung returned to her house and was attacked by a tattooed man who had been waiting inside. Kim Si-Hyun arrived in time to intervene, but the attacker escaped before the police could reach the scene. Hye-Jung later confirmed to investigators that the man had tattoos on his wrist, matching the description of the person who had been after Park Min-Hwan.
Si-Hyun moved Hye-Jung to a secure hotel room and made sure the doors were locked properly, a small but telling sign of how much he cared for her safety. The attack connected back to the Taekang Cultural Foundation. Police learned that a tattooed man had recently left the foundation, and a staff photo book later shown to the janitorial team included a picture of a masked man who resembled Hye-Jung’s attacker. The other workers said he kept himself covered because he had many tattoos and that he quit around the time Secretary Han died.
Na-Jung’s Suspicious Moves and the Milk Poisoning Secret
Yoon Na-Jung spent much of the episode operating in the shadows. She noticed that Yi-Jun was unusually soft toward Jae-Hee, even offering Jae-Hee his own drink after a late arrival. Na-Jung ordered staff members to search Secretary Han’s house for the pen and warned them not to reveal anything about a man she had seen in Yi-Jun’s kitchen mixing something into his milk.
The episode confirmed that Na-Jung already knew Kang Jae-Hee was a woman. She was also the person who had sent Yi-Jun the box containing the belt, a detail that reframed her earlier behaviour as deliberate psychological pressure rather than mere suspicion. Manager Choi later confirmed to Na-Jung that Yi-Jun had a soft spot for Jae-Hee and that she had seen a mysterious man pouring poison into Yi-Jun’s milk, but Na-Jung made her promise to keep it secret.
Yi-Jun Finally Talks About His Mother
The emotional centre of Episode 8 was Yoon Yi-Jun’s confession about his mother’s death. Yi-Jun took Jae-Hee to a church and told her that his mother had suffered from depression before she died by suicide. Yi-Jun and Na-Jung were the ones who found her in her drawing room. Chairman Yoon arrived at the scene and covered Yi-Jun’s eyes first before taking Na-Jung away, a moment that left Na-Jung believing their father favoured Yi-Jun.
The backstory explained why Yi-Jun reacted so strongly to closed doors and why he had been haunted by nightmares. Earlier episodes had shown that the memory of his mother’s death was tied to a bathroom door and to a handmade Ara figure she had given him as a child. In Episode 8, that trauma was no longer a hidden wound. Yi-Jun spoke about it openly, and the scene marked the first time he allowed Jae-Hee to see the fear underneath his controlled public image.
A Confession, a Kiss, and a Rejection
Yi-Jun’s honesty about his past led directly to a confession. He told Jae-Hee that it was becoming harder to hide his feelings and asked her whether she would like him if they were an ordinary man and woman. Jae-Hee said it would never happen, but Yi-Jun did not believe her.
A flashback showed Jae-Hee entering Yi-Jun’s room while he was asleep and having nightmares. She held his hand and patted his head until he calmed down, a quiet act of care that she had never acknowledged. In the present, Jae-Hee kissed Yi-Jun to prove that she felt nothing, told him she would pretend it never happened, and walked away. Yi-Jun followed and clearly told her that he liked her, but the episode cut away before her response.
Jae-Hee’s rejection was not a simple lack of feeling. She had been living as a man to conduct an undercover investigation, and she knew that revealing her identity would put both of them in danger. The kiss was an attempt to protect Yi-Jun from a truth she was not ready to share, not a sign that she did not care.
The Car Crash and the Truth About Jae-Hee
The episode’s final sequence tied the investigation and the romance together. On the drive to the chairman’s house for the memorial, Yi-Jun took the wheel. The brakes stopped working, and the car was struck by another vehicle. A masked man got out and tried to steal the recording pen from Yi-Jun’s jacket. Jae-Hee fought him, but the attacker had a knife, stabbed her, took the car’s dashcam, and escaped.
Yi-Jun lost consciousness during the crash. When he woke up while being treated by paramedics, he asked about Jae-Hee. One of the paramedics referred to Jae-Hee as a woman, and Yi-Jun finally learned that his male secretary was actually a woman who had been hiding her identity. The reveal landed as a direct consequence of the attack, not as a separate twist, which made the discovery feel earned rather than random.
At the chairman’s house, Yi-Jun’s chair remained empty. Na Man-Seok received a text from someone saying the pen had been successfully retrieved, confirming that the people behind the retained earnings cover-up were still active even after the crash.
What the Retained Earnings Case Means
The recording pen contained more than a family argument. It held evidence that Na-Jung and Man-Seok had asked to verify the retained earnings data Yi-Jun was investigating before Secretary Han’s death. Retained earnings are profits a company keeps instead of paying out as dividends, and manipulating those figures can hide financial problems or illegal transfers of money.
Hye-Jung’s recording also revealed that Na-Jung and Man-Seok went to the chairman after Han’s death and asked him to wrap the case up quickly. Yi-Jun suggested leaking the fact that they had the pen to see who would react, a move designed to expose how far the guilty party was connected inside the police as well. The strategy worked, but it also put Hye-Jung in direct danger and turned the pen into a target for theft and violence.
The Cast Behind the Episode
Yim Si-Wan plays Yoon Yi-Jun, a third-generation chaebol heir to Taekang Group who becomes a murder suspect and spends much of the series denying his feelings for his secretary. Seol In-Ah plays Kang Jae-Hee, a former special forces officer turned police detective who disguises herself as a man to investigate Yi-Jun from inside his security team. Kim Jung-Hyun plays Kim Si-Hyun, the legal team lawyer who rescues Hye-Jung and begins to show clear concern for her. Yeonwoo plays Lee Hye-Jung, the chairman’s office secretary whose recording becomes the most dangerous piece of evidence in the case.
The series is directed by Park Dan-Hee and written by Moon Soo-Jung. It airs every Monday and Tuesday at 8:50 p.m. KST on tvN and streams globally on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories, with new episodes arriving weekly.
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Where to Watch Episode 8
Viewers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, and other global markets can stream Love in Disguise Episode 8 on Prime Video. The platform releases new episodes weekly, with the tvN broadcast and the Prime Video drop happening on the same night for most regions. The series is scheduled for 12 episodes, placing Episode 8 at the two-thirds mark of the season.
Love in Disguise continues to build its mystery around the retained earnings case while keeping the central relationship at the front of the story. Episode 8 ended with Yi-Jun knowing the truth about Jae-Hee and with the pen in the hands of the people who wanted it destroyed, leaving both the investigation and the romance at a breaking point.
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