Pure as a Lily
A knock soon sounded, and Hansu entered.
Do-heon leaned deep into his chair as if prepared to hear whatever came next.
“Han Hye-won entered Korea University’s Department of Business Administration as the top student this March.”
“Business Administration?”
“Yes.”
So she never made it to art school after all.
“She’s currently on leave of absence in the second semester of her first year. From what I can tell, she barely finished the first semester while juggling multiple part-time jobs, including tutoring.”
“Is her family in financial difficulty?”
“Thirteen years ago her father, Han Jin-sang, recklessly expanded his business and ended up buried under debt. It seems Han Hye-won has been keeping the household afloat ever since.”
Do-heon’s eyes sank even deeper.
“What about the rest of the family?”
“Her biological mother left home when Hye-won was just over a year old and hasn’t been heard from since. There was an older brother named Han Jun-seo, ten years her senior, who died in a hit-and-run at eighteen. Right now she’s living with her biological father, her grandmother, Han Jin-sang’s second wife, and the daughter from that marriage. The whole neighborhood is buzzing with the same rumor—that the entire family is living off Hye-won’s back. She’s been working since middle school, posting flyers, running errands for shops, earning money that all went straight into the family’s living expenses. How much can a student even make? Ugh, damn it.”
Hansu had been calmly delivering the information, but at some point he became too immersed and grew agitated as if the injustice had been done to him personally.
“Don’t the parents work?”
Not knowing Hye-won had been trapped in such an environment left a heavy weight in Do-heon’s chest.
She had always smiled so brightly, without a single crease of worry, that he never would have guessed.
“Han Jin-sang has been a severe alcoholic for a long time and hasn’t worked in ages. He’s so far gone he goes around telling the neighbors nonsense about becoming in-laws with a chaebol family. And the second wife, No Seon-sim, is incompetent at work and has such a difficult personality that no one nearby will hire her. She only occasionally picks up fill-in jobs in other areas, from what I heard. So only Hye-won is suffering. On top of that she was abused. Her face and body never had a day without wounds healing, they say. Haa, just thinking about it makes me angry all over again. She’s twenty in name only—still so young. Younger than my own little sister.”
Hansu ranted with spit flying, and Do-heon’s mind began to tangle.
“In short, he’s a bastard.”
Do-heon, who had been lost in thought, lifted his eyes to glance at Hansu and swallowed a bitter smile.
Had she needed a refuge? Was marriage the last choice a twenty-year-old could make?
Then she should have at least said something about the situation. She never even opened her mouth about her family.
Fuck. Was she trying to protect that father and family even so? Or was it pride?
Suddenly her smile rose in his mind—eyes like winter, smiling like spring.
That smile, that gaze, kept pricking at his nerves as if he had done something unforgivable to her.
More than anyone he had wished for her dreams to come true. If she had simply asked for financial help, as her former teacher he could have at least covered her tuition.
But marriage…
It was an absurd request. She must have known that too.
Young as she was, she wasn’t so lacking in common sense or maturity that she wouldn’t understand. He knew that well. He would have sent anyone else away the same way.
That was the right thing to do…
Yet he couldn’t understand why he felt so uneasy. A nameless guilt kept washing over him. It was like forcibly shooing away an injured bird that had flown into his arms.
Haa.
Was she wandering around matchmaking meetings again without even knowing what marriage was?
The image of her asking him to marry her with eyes that looked ready to spill tears kept overlapping. Every word she had spoken, every look in her eyes, resurfaced and complicated his thoughts.
Stop.
Do-heon deliberately closed his eyes.
He had to cut off the thoughts that were growing deeper.
He wasn’t going to give her the marriage she wanted, and he couldn’t even manage his own life—who was he to help anyone?
If you looked closely, whose life was free of hardship?
It would have been better not to know, but knowing her situation changed nothing.
He simply wished her well and forcibly shook off her tears.
He thought their meeting had ended there. No—he believed it had.
Until, not long after, he heard the news of her marriage.
Large, well-defined features and kind eyes; a neatly pinned-up hairstyle revealing a straight, elegant neckline.
Hye-won in a pure white silk wedding dress was as pure and delicate as a single lily.
Jae-mun, who had finished preparing early, had been watching her for thirty minutes.
One hand thrust into his pocket, he could not take his eyes off her, as if entranced.
His gaze even held a sense of reverence as he faced a pure body untouched by any man’s hand.
Whether the fifty-million-won dress was worth its price, or whether Hye-won’s body elevated its value—
the way the fabric flowed, wrapping the soft, slender curves of her body, stole his soul.
Jae-mun’s murky gaze traveled down her white, slender neck. She was cold, never once glancing his way, but he did not care. By the end of today she would be his woman.
If she had given herself to him easily, he would never have grown this desperate.
Once the ceremony was over he planned to go straight up to the room and take her first.
That was why he had postponed the reception by two full hours under the pretext of the bride’s rest.
How long he had waited for this day—Jae-mun was already so heated he felt he would go mad.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as his gaze stopped at her chest.
Her full breasts, betraying a waist that could be held in one hand, rose and fell with every breath, and his throat moved with them.
Just imagining gripping that soft flesh and filling his mouth made him feel as if he would come.
Having already licked her body with his eyes several times, Jae-mun trembled with lewd heat.
And those thick, long lashes that cast shadows—when she blinked her moist eyes, it felt as if his very core were melting.
Ignoring his stare, Hye-won only looked at her own pitiful reflection in the mirror.
Her eyes, having resigned everything, held nothing left. Even her tears had dried up.
The events from being caught at the airport two days ago until arriving here flashed past like a lantern show.
In the end it had come to this.
Only now realizing that all her struggles had been meaningless thrashing, Hye-won gave a bitter smile.
Not knowing what her smile meant, Jae-mun lifted the corners of his mouth in tandem.
To a man who thought only of devouring her milky-white skin, Hye-won’s empty eyes were invisible.
Quietly approaching from behind, Jae-mun leaned forward and rested his hand on her slender shoulder.
The moment she felt his rough knuckles, goosebumps raced over Hye-won’s skin and she tightly gripped the hem of her dress.
It was horrifying, as if insects were crawling over her entire body. Just his touch made her shudder with disgust. An unhappy married life already seemed to unfold before her eyes.
As if barely restraining the urge to press his lips to her smooth shoulder line, she felt strength enter Jae-mun’s hand.
His lewd gaze openly traveling between her lips and chest in the mirror, the clear knife scar remaining in his cheek dimple, the ear from which flesh had been torn away—
everything about Jae-mun was filthy and disgusting to Hye-won.
She wanted to carve out every inch of skin his dirty breath touched.
Sliding his fingers over her delicate shoulder, Jae-mun finally pressed his body against hers.
Feeling his swollen front against her back, Hye-won squeezed her eyes shut.
“Don’t even think about touching my body.”
“Your little games end today.”
Though her outright rejection should have wounded his pride, Jae-mun instead twisted his lips upward as if finding her cute.
The wedding venue was a villa on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province.
On a winding mountain road, a luxury sedan slowly followed a five-ton truck.
Trailing Jae-mun, who had left first on business, Hye-won—bridal makeup complete—was also on her way to the villa.
“Ugh, this is sticky.”
Hyeong-woo, turning the wheel while keeping a careful distance from the truck, frowned and grabbed the front of his shirt, shaking it.
“I’d rather it just poured rain and cooled everything off.”
His whole body felt clammy enough to drive him crazy. Summer had been unusually long this year, and even now in early October the weather remained muggy.
As they entered the unpaved road and the trees grew dense, the air became even stickier, clinging to the skin like leeches—
as if grabbing hold and refusing to let them go any farther.
“Madam, may I close the window and turn on the air conditioning?”
Unable to endure any longer, Hyeong-woo glanced in the rearview mirror and asked Hye-won sitting in the back seat, but she only stared out the window with an expressionless face.
“I’ll just turn it on for a bit.”
Worried that Hye-won in her thin wedding dress might feel the chill, Hyeong-woo had been repeatedly raising and lowering the window, but finally switched on the AC only after his armpits were soaked. As if by magic the humidity cleared and the air inside the car became pleasant.
“Ahh, now I can live.”
Unfastening the seatbelt that clung to his body and drying his wet shirt with the cool air, he soon felt his skin becoming soft and dry again.
Ding-ding. Even as the seatbelt warning chimed, Hyeong-woo muttered that he should have turned the AC on earlier and checked Hye-won’s expression in the rearview mirror.
If she looked even a little cold, he would have to switch it off.
Fortunately there was no change in her face.
No—she was so still one might doubt whether she was breathing at all.
Was this really a woman three hours away from her wedding?
Hye-won’s cold eyes, whose thoughts no one could guess, were like a doll’s. Transparent skin, pure face, slender figure.
He thought he finally understood what it meant that the notorious lecher Jae-mun had fretted quite a bit over Hye-won. She possessed a uniquely elegant atmosphere that somehow drew the eye.
Indeed, the boss’s woman was on a different level, he thought.
A hundred points, a hundred points, five hundred points!
The moment he was secretly scoring Hye-won’s face, neckline, and chest through the rearview mirror—
“Whoa whoa whoa!”
The truck ahead lost its balance while turning the corner, and the cargo bed suddenly swung open in an L-shape.