1. Are you?

"Drake! Drake!" Diana shouted.

He turned to the door slowly when the door opened. The young woman seemed furious and rushed to him.

Slap!

Drake gasped. It shocked him that Diana slapped him for the first time.

"What did you say about us?" Diana snapped him. "People say I'm married to you. We become the talk of the town now! You know what happened to me? I'm ashamed! You embarrassed me!"

Slap!

His red eyes wider trying to believe what just had happened. Drake realized that this was real life he had to deal with. However, as far as he remembered, he didn't tell or answer any questions people had asked.

"What are you talking about?"

He didn't truly understand what was going on. To this date, the secret wedding was saved with him. He wouldn't have any courage to reveal their wedding.

"Why did you expose this fake wedding?"

"I didn't. I never tell anybody about it," Drake denied.

"If you say that you don't, then how can they talk about us? Don't make a lie, Drake. I can do bad things to you!"

Drake sighed and closed his eyes. "Don't you remember that your friends know about our marriage? You told them that you accepted their challenge and won the game!"

Drake paused. "So they can be one of the doers!"

"They won't. My friends won't betray me!" Diana denied to admit.

"Listen, Miss Diana. You and I, our family, your friends are the people who have known about this wedding. Unless it's my mom, who doesn't know that this is just a contract marriage, but I'm sure she will follow what I say to keep silent."

"Yes, your mom! Your mom is the person who tells people that his son's married to Abraham's daughter. The richest businessma—"

"STOP IT!" Drake yelled. He couldn't tolerate it anymore. "Stop talking bad about my mom! She doesn't get involved in this case! Just find the perpetrator out!"

The way he reacted shocked Diana and hurted her ego. As long as she lived, she had never been refuted by low class people. Drake scared her.

She slapped him again. "Stop shouting at me! You're trash from the rubbish bin that I never wished to take into my house! You are who I never wanted in my life!"

As a wife, Diana should have respected Drake as a husband during their period contract of marriage, but for the third time, Diana behaved badly with him.

Drake lost his patience to face his wife at this moment. Enough. Her demeanor enraged him.

"Don't cross the line, Diana!" Drake snapped at her.

The heat in him went up to his entire body. Hot and burned. He stared at her sharply. Then, a fire shadow suddenly emerged from his whole body.

***

The days before…

After cleaning up the meeting room, Drake brought out the tray, which were glasses onto it, and walked through the human resources room. He sighed to meet one of the staff, who used to create a noise with him.

"Take us some drinks, please," the man said when Drake came closer.

"Alright," Drake said and kept walking.

"Don't take it long," the man added.

Drake replied to his comment only with a slight smile as he wasn't sure they needed the drinks because it was about five o'clock. They had a habit of playing with him, taking his dignity down and abusing him since his rumor of marriage had been exposed.

From the opposite, one of them purposely nudged him so that the glasses fell to pieces.

"Owh, sorry, I ain't purpose," he said, pretending to feel guilty.

"Don't you use your eyes to see?" the finance staff snapped.

Drake was stupefied to see the glasses scattered on the floor. It could be assured his low salary would be deducted to compensate and it wouldn't be enough to cover her mother's living cost for a month.

The rush of employees going home was vividly seen from the queue and the elevator they used. Consequently, the men used the moment to bully him who wasn't able to stand up to bullying.

If he could go against them, Drake would take a risk of losing a job. If he didn't fight them back, Drake was going to be depressed and lose his good reputation.

Drake was exhausted. He was physically tired from working all day long and his soul was tired of being scorned. He seemed to have no choice but to survive. In addition, there was his pride being laughed at.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. It's my mistake." Drake finally had to admit a mistake he didn't do for the good sake and prevented other matters coming up next. "I gotta clean it out, excuse me."

They didn't take their eyes off when Drake left. They smiled and chatted away until Drake came back with the cleaning tool.

"You're gonna clean this up? What about my drink? Do I need to wait for it here?"

Drake drew his breath, deep exhalation. "I'll take it for you after this."

"Of course, you should. If you're late then there will be a hand and leg hurted," the HRD staff said when stepping on his hand.

Drake instantly yelled. His hand ached from being stepped on and pierced by the glasses shard. A thick red liquid slowly began to appear on the floor and he endured the pain as best he could, apart from trying to remove the soles of the man's feet from his hands.

"Like this, right?" he added.

They laughed at Drake. His expression and condition, who was in pain and weak, looked so poor. However, neither them nor Drake knew of an unrecognized power starting to work in Drake's body. Drake instantly got hot and burned. Hot like fire.

"Why do you all hurt me?" Drake finally spoke. It caused them to shut up and found a fury in his face.

"Hey, we're not hurting you, man! We just wanna play a game with you. Haven't we not been friends before?" the finance staff scoffed.

"What do you want from me?" Drake sadly asked. His blood was already flowing on the floor.

Again, they laughed at him. The pressure of the soles of the feet on the back of his palm grew stronger until Drake was sweating profusely with the pain.

"We just wanna hear from you DI-RECT-LY. Is that true that you are the Johnsons' son-in-law? You're becoming the talk of the town here despite it's been months, but unfortunately people can't stop from gossiping you like there's no other gossip interesting to talk about," the HRD staff said.

"What did you do to marry Diana? You should've used magic, shouldn't you?" the finance staff asked.