The Lady Wants That Dog 12
He'd grown up beaten down in an orphanage that was worse than a doghouse. Parents he'd never even seen, much less met, had never had any place in his life. And yet there was one thing he'd grown up thanking them for: they'd passed on the height and frame that caught the eye of important men, letting him become a dog working under Jang Hee-jo at an age most boys were still in school. However much he'd been raised with no one to teach him right from wrong, he still knew that what Lee Do-hee had said was sheer madness.
He had at least that much judgment. Which was exactly why he couldn't fathom how this woman had grown up so shameless that she'd outright demand Chairman Lee's permission to sleep with him.
Woo Tae-kyung let go of the steering wheel and dragged his rough palm down his bare, unskincareed face a few times.
…For the first time in his life, he'd wanted to see the mother he'd never known.
"Woo Tae-kyung, if it's your approval she's after, I'll be the one asking for it. So come with me and—"
"The drugs are still in my system, but it's about time they wore off."
"If you're worried about me, get both their blessings. This is my mom's place. Get out."
At that, Woo Tae-kyung's lips parted. Do-hee was fumbling with her seatbelt, and he stopped the buckle with one hand.
"Don't talk nonsense. Go up and behave."
"Then stand guard right here. Let's go. I need to eat. I'm starving."
Having said her piece, Lee Do-hee rapped her knuckles briskly against the back of his slackened hand, then unbuckled her belt and climbed out of the car. She planted herself with her arms crossed, radiating every intention of waiting right there until he finished parking. As she stood, she kept tugging at the dress that kept sliding down—arms crossed underneath, hauling the neckline back up whenever it threatened to spill over like an overflowing cup.
The problem was that this caught the eyes of people who were just now heading out for the morning commute.
What did he care. But even if he wanted to ignore it, Woo Tae-kyung already knew Do-hee's stubbornness well enough—she would absolutely stand there like that until he came out.
How a person's character could be fully mapped out in a single day was another fact he preferred not to think about.
He parked as fast as he possibly could and came back out to drape his arm around Do-hee's shoulders.
"Hold the dress up so it doesn't slip."
Meanwhile, Do-hee had buried her nose in his shirt and was inhaling.
Sniffing him openly, roughly, like she was hunting for some other woman's scent that had to be lurking somewhere on him—and Woo Tae-kyung had all but given up on stopping her.
"Which floor?"
"Nine."
Woo Tae-kyung waited for the elevator. A resident coming down flinched at the sight of Do-hee, then caught sight of Woo Tae-kyung's face wrapped around her protectively and shrank back.
"Hello!"
Lee Do-hee greeted the stranger brightly, oblivious to everyone around her, fussed the dress back down below her chest, and once the resident stepped off, they boarded the elevator. Woo Tae-kyung pressed nine and watched the floor numbers crawl upward at the glacial pace of an aging apartment building.
"I'll walk you to your door, then you go in, do what you need to do, and come back out. I'll be out front."
"My mom's cooking is delicious. Eat with us."
The concubine's daughter.
Yet she slipped effortlessly back and forth between her mother and Chairman Lee, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. The club was close by, so with a perfectly matter-of-fact face she'd snagged him into eating at her mother's place. How many men had she dragged here for a meal before him? He was tempted to needle her with the question, but Woo Tae-kyung had no desire to sour her mood right in front of this person called Do-hee's mother.
Before he knew it, they'd arrived, and Woo Tae-kyung was intending to wait until Do-hee punched in the passcode and went inside—until she, quite naturally, pressed the intercom bell instead, and he froze.
Ding-dong.
The bell rang, and despite the early morning hour, the front door opened within moments.
"Lee Do-hee!"
The woman who emerged had already finished her makeup beautifully. The slightly paler shade of her eyes, the shape of her face—she was unmistakably Do-hee's mother at a glance. It was hard to say whether she'd crossed forty or might even be younger. Hair swept up in an elegant twist, she'd called out her daughter's name—and then startled visibly at the sight of Woo Tae-kyung standing behind.
He knew perfectly well what kind of face he had. He was just stepping back and lowering his head when—
Splat.
Do-hee flung both arms out toward her mother, ready to be swept into a hug.
And in that exact instant, the dress she'd been holding dropped—plop—right at her feet, straddling the line between the doorstep and the outside. Woo Tae-kyung hurriedly bent down to pick it up and hand it back to her, but she simply pad pad padded in bare feet, gave her mother one hug, and vanished inside.
"…Oh my goodness…"
Kim Kyung-hwa, Lee Do-hee's mother, looked down at Woo Tae-kyung seated at the entryway with a troubled expression.
He sat there frozen, the rescued dress still in his hands with nowhere to hand it off, until she spoke first.
"Come in. I don't recognize your face—who might you be?"
"I'm Woo Tae-kyung. I've been assigned as the young lady's bodyguard, for the time being."
Unable to refuse, he stepped inside, still holding Do-hee's gaudy dress that peeled off far too easily in one hand. At his crisp, formal bow, Kim Kyung-hwa smiled gracefully and stepped aside to let him in.
So he'd ended up inside the house after all—exactly as Do-hee intended.
In contrast to the apartment's dated exterior, the interior had been completely remodeled. Do-hee had already left him in her wake, strolling down the hallway to half-collapse on the sofa in a living room with a sweeping view of the Han River. Her jacket barely covered her chest; below it gaped open and covered nothing at all. The T-back he'd seen earlier was on full display.
"Just look at this child. You went to a club again? You stayed out all night, didn't you?"
Kim Kyung-hwa sighed, glancing needlessly at Woo Tae-kyung as she approached her daughter, dragged over a sofa throw blanket, and draped it over her. It was a practiced gesture—clearly routine—and Woo Tae-kyung simply stood there in silence.
"Mom, I'm hungry."
"Ajumma hasn't come in yet, but she left side dishes from yesterday. Wait a bit."
So the home-cooked meal Do-hee had raved about wasn't her mother's cooking after all, but the housekeeper's. Wherever he was stationed, once Woo Tae-kyung planted himself, he didn't move—and this time too, he stepped aside from the sofa and took up his post at the end of the hallway.
"You said you're my daughter's bodyguard? How strange. He doesn't seem like the Chairman's taste at all."
Kim Kyung-hwa struck up conversation with a smile.
He grasped the meaning at once—that no man reeking of the underworld would ever be attached to her—and Woo Tae-kyung merely gave the faintest smile and dipped his head slightly.
"He's my taste. Handsome, isn't he?"
"Are you two dating?"
Startled by Do-hee's words, Kim Kyung-hwa let out another soft eomeona and turned to her daughter sprawled on the sofa.
"No. Even if I asked him out, he'd say no. Feed me, I'm starving. I'm eating with Woo Tae-kyung and then going to school."
"Please take good care of my daughter. She's a good girl, but trouble keeps following her everywhere, so I suppose the Chairman worried."
Kim Kyung-hwa smiled elegantly, said her please take care of her, and disappeared into the kitchen.
My daughter is a good girl.
If he hadn't been standing in front of Do-hee's mother, Woo Tae-kyung would have burst out laughing. Do-hee made a quick call on the phone he'd returned to her, then sprang to her feet. She came over to him, seized the cuff of his sleeve, and tugged.
Wondering what she was going to make him stand guard over this time, he followed—and she led him to the very sofa she'd been sitting on.
"Rest here. I'll wash up and be right out."
She punctuated it with a little yawn. On a face that looked like it hadn't slept a wink. Or rather—on a face that now looked giddy and loose, as if the damned drugs had only just worn off. Without a care for whatever expression Woo Tae-kyung was wearing, Do-hee strolled casually into one of the rooms.
And then, at last, that strange stretch of time arrived—when no one engaged with him or paid him any mind at all.
Seated in a stranger's living room, the only things available for leisurely contemplation were the Han River and the room's exquisite decor. Not a single objet in the space clashed with anything else—he could read Kim Kyung-hwa's taste in every detail. And from the way she still affectionately called Chairman Lee the Chairman, he could tell without asking that the two were still on good terms.
Which was presumably why Do-hee could flaunt her comings and goings at her mother's house so openly.
His first wife had been dead a good long while, and it was strange that Chairman Lee hadn't remarried. Perhaps because the age gap with him and the Chairman's eldest son barely seemed to register.
The smell of food being reheated drifted out from the kitchen, mouthwateringly rich.
Only now, thinking of Do-hee and remembering that he'd eaten almost nothing yesterday, did Woo Tae-kyung feel how hollow his stomach was.
"Tae-kyung, come eat."
Do-hee called to him as she emerged in a bathrobe, her hair roughly toweled dry.
The ends of her hair hung limp and tangled like seaweed, curling in loose waves. Her bare, unmade-up face was fresh from the shower, and the hint of baby fat still clinging to her cheeks made her look even younger. With makeup or without—made no real difference. Her features were striking enough on their own that someone might easily assume she wore makeup all the time. Fresh-faced and still damp, Lee Do-hee yawned again, softly.