MC from beginning to end is very clear that he works so he can fund his business ventures. He wants to bake and open more bakeries. His career is a means to an end. His relationship to ML is purely transactional and physical and he's aware that it means little to either of them. But it's also apparent that they both benefit from it; it's not ML taking advantage of MC's feelings. Which in the beginning he does not have. When he realizes he DOES have feelings for ML and misunderstands that it's not reciprocated, MC immediately breaks it off with ML and tries to move on.

Initially ML does come off as a terrible person who sleeps around, but he is not taking advantage of the people he sleeps with. And it's actually ML who goes through the most character development. From a superficial sleazey commitment-phobe to a full on romantic. And it's more believable that his s*x drive had already been high prior to MC.

To be honest, they aren't the most fully fleshed out characters ever, but it does what it's trying to do well. It's paced well and the conflict isn't filled with contrite cartoon villians that only throw themselves at the MC and ML as canon fodder. For instance one of MC's 'rivals', but really just another person ML was sleeping with in the beginning isn't bent on getting revenge on MC for monopolizing ML. He quickly moves on to MC's childhood friend and even kind of befriends MC, because in the end there were no feelings him and ML. Another thing I appreciated was how ML's relationship with his family is complicated. He kind of resents them, but he doesn't want to completely cut them off either. Everything justs has a touch more believability than most other novels of similar genres. This isn't important, but the least interesting character is probably MC's childhood friend. They establish that he's in love with MC, but he doesn't have much of a personality besides being a cold-faced beauty. And he quickly moves on as well.