จำเลยอัคนี (ซีรีส์ชุด : จอมใจอสูร ลำดับที่ ๑)

"Good morning, Ms. Caroline. "

"Morning."

"Good morning Caroline."

"Morning."

Caroline smiled happily at all the staff of the government-owned Psychology agency where she worked. This morning the weather was quite good, and the mood was also very good to provide service to clients who had problems. Today she is ready to accommodate all their problems and ready to provide solutions for the smooth running of their lives.

"Caroline, you have a client at nine," said Jihoo, Caroline's assistant who has been helping Caroline for the past three years.

Jihoo is a very useful assistant for Caroline, because without Jihoo, Caroline really won't be able to do her job until this moment. Every client she worked with was never the same. They sometimes actually make a fuss with her because she is considered unable to provide a good solution for them. Or sometimes some clients demand more and are increasingly dependent on them.

Well... that's the life of a psychologist, sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter. But that's where Jihoo comes in. As a man in his mid-twenties, Jihoo has the patience and strength that can save Caroline from her troublesome clients. Not infrequently Jihoo plays the character as an evil stepfather by dragging away clients who begin to experience dependence on Caroline.

Actually Caroline is fine if they want to have a longer counseling session or have a few meetings, but what if it continues? Even outside working hours they began to terrorize Caroline and make the young woman uncomfortable. Moreover, she is not an unemployed woman who lives alone, she has a daughter who she has to take care of at home and various other activities that she cannot just skip just listening to other people complain about her. So, she was forced to make Jihoo into a cruel man who was eventually feared by her own client.

"Nine o'clock? OK. Have you put the data on my desk? I need to study her background before doing counseling sessions with her later," replied Caroline, taking off her brown coat. The woman curled her hair neatly up in a simple bun, then headed for her desk, which always looked clean and tidy. She's ready to take on today's clients.

"Here are the data. She is a woman with two children whose husband has just died in an accident. She seems to be in deep depression because— here her younger sibling writes that a week ago her sister almost attempted suicide with her two sons."

"What a pity this woman. I know how she feels, it must be tough. So that woman lives with her sister now?"

“I don't know, that might be like that. Her sister must be worried that her sister will attempt suicide again.” Jihoo explained, pointing to several points written on the white paper belonging to Caroline's client. The man then walked away leaving Caroline to finish another job at her desk.

Two weeks ago they got a project to test prospective government employees, so that in addition to focusing on serving clients, they also had to devote their time to completing the personality analysis reports of the prospective employees before Human Resources would collect the results next week.

-00-

Caroline leaned back in her chair for a moment, staring one by one the files on the table waiting for her to be worked on. She then looked at the photo of her little girl, Aleyna Chauffer. That girl is the source of her strength now. Without Aleyna, she didn't know what would happen to her.

And now Aleyna is four years old, something which is quite fantastic for Caroline because she did not expect she could take care of Aleyna like this, even though Aleyna is not her own child..

In the past, Aleyna was the daughter of a former client who had died. Yeahh... sounds pretty complicated to explain, but even though she looks very young in her late twenties, she's actually been married twice. And from those two marriages, nothing really brought her happiness. All of her marriages were destroyed in the middle of the road because of the many thorny problems that happened to her.

Her first husband, Rein Lee, is a successful entertainer whose works have always received positive appreciation from fans. She met Rein for the first time when she was in middle school. At that time Rein was one of the seniors who was quite popular at her school. Almost all students at her school want to be Rein's girlfriend. But the man miraculously chose her instead. A girl who at that time was just an ordinary girl with mediocre prestige.

Since senior high school she was not very prominent among her peers. She was just an ordinary girl who could be said without a passionate ambition. Back then she didn't even have ideals. She just wants to be a happy housewife with her little family. However, when she graduated from senior high school, her mother advised her to continue studying psychology so that she would have friends and have broad insight into the future.

Finally she accepted the advice from her mother and decided to become a psychologist in the future. Regarding her relationship with Rein, they were still in a relationship until she graduated from university. Even though there were many obstacles that got in the way of their love journey, it didn't discourage them. Actually, Caroline was quite frustrated with her relationship with Rein, but that man always held her back and convinced her that he only loved her.

One year later after she graduated from university, Rein proposed her. The man with a very manly came to her house and met her parents to propose to their daughter. Of course as a woman, she is very happy because the lover who has been in a relationship with her for many years has finally decided to make her a wife.

Only one week later, the news about her and Rein's marriage became a hot topic among the public. Some of Rein's fans showed negative responses to the happy news. But Caroline chose not to care by closing her eyes and ears and the bad news about her. She did not want her marriage and Rein to fail just because of the talk of people she thought were not important.

After getting married, her married life and Rein were fun at first. In fact, they had spent two weeks of their honeymoon to enjoy the very romantic beauty of the European continent using a cruise ship. But it didn't last long, in the fourth month of her marriage, Caroline started feeling restless. She felt that Rein was getting busier over time and rarely took the time to go home. They both become two individuals who do not greet each other and are only busy with their respective things.

Caroline, who was busy in her career, didn't care about Rein. She only occasionally contacted Rein to ask how the man was out there. But one day she received shocking news about her husband who was apparently involved in an affair with his co-star in a drama series. The man was secretly in a relationship and impregnated the woman until Caroline felt sick.

Without the need to discuss anything with her husband, Caroline immediately sued Rein for divorce on the spot when news of her husband's illicit relationship scandal broke to the media. According to her, there is no longer anything that needs to be maintained from her marriage relationship with Rein because they have also been away. She realized that what Rein had done was also related to the separation of their relationship so far, so Caroline was big enough to decide to let Rein be with a woman who could love her husband more than her.

Six months of living alone with a new status as a widow made Caroline a more mature person. She is busy living her days by handling several client cases, most of which are actually cases she has experienced, divorce. She deliberately uses her past stories as lessons that she can convey to her clients so that they don't have the same fate as her.

One of the clients who came to her was a young woman who was nine months pregnant. The woman admitted that she had problems with her husband, and that her husband had filed divorce papers with her three days ago. In front of her the woman was crying hysterically, telling all her bitter experiences and telling Caroline that she could not face her life. The woman intended to commit suicide with the child she was carrying, but Caroline immediately prevented her because the child she was carrying was innocent. Then a week later Caroline was visited by hospital officials who informed her that her former client had died from suicide. Hearing that, Caroline was very surprised. She thinks her counseling session last week has made the client change her mind to commit suicide because the woman has promised her that she will live happily with the child she is carrying.

After the hospital official broke the news of her former client's death, the hospital official gave Caroline an envelope containing a will from her former client as well as her daughter's birth certificate. In the letter, the client asked Caroline to take care of her child and treat her child as her own daughter.

At first, Caroline didn't want to because she didn't feel deserve to be a good mother. She tried by all means to find the father of the baby and her other family. But the father of the baby she could not find where he was, not even with other family members. Finally, Caroline decided to take care of the baby and named her Aleyna Chauffer, according to the request of her late mother.

The first year with Aleyna made Caroline turn into a more mature woman. There are many things she learned while being a mother and caring for Aleyna. In fact, she loved Aleyna more than anything. She really considers Aleyna as her own biological daughter and shows everyone that she is a woman who deserves to be a mother even though she has failed to carry out her role as a wife.

When Aleyna was two years old, she happened to run into Aaron Jung. The man is a cousin of her co-worker who at that time intended to set her up with Aaron. At her first meeting, Caroline deliberately invited Aleyna to come along because she didn't want Aaron to be fooled by her appearance. She wants Aaron to accept all of her past being married and having a child, even though Aleyna is not her own child.

At the begining of the meeting, Aaron still didn't give any response. They just met and chatted like a warm intimate friend. Their meeting continued for weeks like that. They just talk, eat, and talk about their daily activity and their lifes Caroline began to feel that Aaron wasn't being serious, let alone Aaron openly confessing to her that he didn't like children. Caroline's hopes of being able to continue her relationship to a more serious level are getting thinner. She only considers Aaron as a fun chat partner without ever expecting to marry Aaron later.

Day after day continued, until they didn't feel their relationship had been going on for three months. Aaron is now starting to look familiar with Aleyna and is starting to adjust to Caroline's busy life. Then suddenly one sunny afternoon, Aaron came to Caroline's house with a bouquet of flowers to propose to Caroline. Seeing that, Caroline was immediately shocked and hesitated to accept Aaron's proposal. But after Aaron continued to convince her, Caroline finally agreed to become his wife.

The magnificent wedding was held again for the second time with Caroline as the main character. She, dressed in a very beautiful white dress, vowed before God to return to tie the promise of life and death with a man she loved so much. An aura of happiness radiated from Caroline's face because she was finally able to marry a man who really accepted her as she was after living alone for more than a year.

The first two years of Caroline and Aaron's marriage were going well. Only occasionally they get into small arguments, and after that they'll make up again. Every day they also still make time to discuss their daily problems at work. Even though Aaron works as a technician who is required to go to several cities in one month, he still manages to share his time well with Caroline and Aleyna.

Their love life is always fun and exciting. Almost every night if they have no activities outside the home, then they will spend it making love passionately in their warm room. Both Caroline and Aaron, they were both very good at the bed. It's just that problems began to arise when their marriage was two years old.

At an age that is mature enough for a husband and wife to have a child, they have not been given that gift by God. Various things have been tried by Caroline so that she can get pregnant soon and give a sister/brother to Aleyna, but all of these efforts never produce results. She finally became suspicious of Aaron.

So far, she has done an examination regarding the condition of her uterus in the hospital and found that everything is fine. With great force, Caroline brought Aaron to the hospital to have his body checked. And after getting the results, it turned out that Caroline's suspicions had been correct. Aaron was diagnosed with a hormonal disorder that caused him to be infertile due to his activities as a technician which required him to be constantly exposed to radiation.

Their marriage relationship began to stretch after the incident. Aaron didn't touch Caroline as usual anymore. The man felt guilty for Caroline because he caused her to not be able to conceive and have children. Finally he decided to divorce Caroline. He didn't want to tie Caroline up any longer with him who obviously couldn't give her any offspring. Even though it was tough, Caroline finally agreed to Aaron's decision and divorced the man on a good basis.

Now Caroline is back to living her own life. Together with Aleyna, she lives her life as a single mother and as a super busy psychologist, the pride of the Chicago community. As much as possible she managed her timing well so that she could stay with Aleyna in the midst of her long, snake-like activity.