CHAPTER 2

Dara watched the buildings and the streetlights passing by while leaning on the glass window of the car her—husband—ís driving. It was already dark, she guessed close to 8:00 in the evening. She watched as they drove past from trees to trees, to small houses. They were probably out of the main city now. She was told they were going home. Which home?

She sneaked a glance beside the man beside her, his eyes focused on the road ahead of him. They haven’t even exchanged a single word to each other after he picked her up from the hospital. Even after a series of tests she had undergone, he was just there with his brooding look not saying anything. Like he’d rather be somewhere else. After the doctor informed them that what she’s experiencing is a Post-Traumatic Amnesia and could last a couple of weeks, depending how fast the recovery of her head injury, he only nodded. The closest acknowledgment he did to demonstrate he knew this was his wife they were talking about.

She sighed heavily. He didn’t even made the slightest move or any indication that he knew she was there. He didn’t even ask if she’s OK when she climbed up to take the passenger seat. Dara was beginning to think she married a jerk.

She sighed again as she assess all the information she had gathered about herself so far. She was told his husband’s name was Lee Donghae, as the girl in the hospital had kindly offered the information. Turned out the girl with the small face is her assistant named Lee Hi. Lee Donghae is her husband for almost three years now. They started out working in two different music companies which joined together when they got married. She was the CEO of SP Entertainment while he’s the CEO of Hits Entertainment. She knew what Hits Entertainment at least. It was where her father had worked before he married her mom. One of the biggest music companies and the one she was aiming to send her music files to.

SP Entertainment is just a small music company when she first started it out, she was told, but made the biggest breakthrough when its artists’ music topped the charts. Dara couldn’t understand how the stock works but she guessed she got enough shares to be considered one of the most successful women in all of Korea. Her popularity intensified when she married Lee Donghae.

She studied his profile furtively. At the time when she was brutally informed she was married, she couldn’t accept it. One thing this whole damn ordeal unacceptable is the fact that she’s married. Yeah, she did good by choosing a drop-dead gorgeous guy that even Bom would drool over but… she already planned how she would get married countless times in her mind when she was in highscool. The perfect wedding, the wedding dress, the guests, where she’s going to get married, the guy she would be inlove with would look at her in adoration while she walked down the aisle to meet him… She’s got everything planned out and this… This is the event in her life she took most of her time planning. Lying in bed, in classes when she’s too bored to listen to her teacher drone on, during lunch,  during break, even at times she was with Bom and the latter whacking her in the head to snap her back to reality. This is the most important thing in her life. To live with the perfect love story like her parents. Now, it’s like she got married. Just married for the sake of getting married.

The car turned right passing through a wrought iron gate. Dara didn’t realize her nose is already pressed up against the car window as she caught sight of a house with all its light lit up. She couldn’t find  sufficient words to describe it. The house was all glass and marble, encompassed with willowy trees. It seem to stand out in magnificence in the middle of the dark night.  

They pulled to a stop under a canopy from where the main door is and Donghae stepped out of the car. Dara did the same looking around wide-eyed. She’d never seen anything so beautiful. It looks like it got picked out straight from a Housing brochure or something.

She was about to ask Donghae if this is where they live but the last thing she saw was his back  disappearing inside the fiberglass door. What, he just left her there? She scowled. She confirmed one thing. She married a total, complete jerk. What did she ever see in him? She grudgingly took her small bag, the only possesion that was returned to her after the accident, and walked inside the house.

He saw him talking to a formidable-looking woman in a tight bun and dressed in a formal dark dress all the way down to her ankles. She could pass her off as a sixty or seventy-year-old Morticia Addams if not for the bun. Neither of them smiled when they saw her standing awkwardly beside the door.

“I’ll just be in my office,” Donghae told Morticia Addams.

Dara’s eyes followed where Donghae stepped inside a door at the far left corner of what she guessed would be the living room. She heard Morticia clearing to get her attention and ordered Dara to follow her. They walked up the stairs and she could see the beauty of the night through the glass window. The 2nd floor was just as beautiful as the 1st. The couches are all in immaculate white with a glass coffee in the middle. A white lacquered bookcase perched on the corner with row of books neatly stacked.

Morticia stopped in front of a closed mahogany door with a brass handle. “This is your room.” She asserted, unsmiling. “Just call me if you need something.” Then she left her. That woman is as cold as the weather. Come to think if, even Donghae is. Were she really living with this people?

Dara stood there staring at the door wondering what she will find when she open it. A little scared of what she will see to tell her who she is now.  She placed her hand on the handle and turned it.

formed an O when she was greeted by the grandiose setting o