Chapter 4 Hickeys On The Neck

"Please say no more." Rose shook her head, but smirked slightly, "You've misunderstood me, Emily. I was just trying to comfort you."

She feigned sincerity, but her heart was full of pride.

They'd been friends since they were in college, but in comparison, Emily seemed to be better than her at everything; even Emily's boyfriend had better features and family background than Rose's. Why?

Rose, however, didn't believe that she was second to Emily. She tried every means to surpass Emily, including stealing her boyfriend. Finally, she had managed to break them up and it was proof that Emily had lost to her in love. Her superiority complex was soaring off the charts.

Emily clenched her fists, glared at her pretentious face coldly and said, "So, it must feel good to be Jack's mistress?"

"No, that was not my intention. It was Jack who..." With a hint of pretentious helplessness and kindness in her tone, Rose walked close to Emily all of a sudden, and gently asked, "How can you blame me, if you can't even keep your boyfriend in check? He'd never ever touch you, right? Instead, he'd rather make love to me or any other woman. Also, you couldn't imagine how much he enjoyed being in bed with me..."

Rose wore a dress that specifically highlighted her shoulders, just to show off the marks Jack had left on her neck, collarbones and shoulders.

Emily was nauseated by the sight of Rose's shoulders; with a hint of disgust in her eyes, she said to her, "Sorry, I was wrong. You're not a mistress, you're just one of Jack's cheap bimbos."

As to the affair, she wasn't bothered by Rose anymore because it was a well-known fact that Jack was a womanizer. The fact that Rose didn't mind sleeping with a man like Jack, came as a surprise to Emily. In her personal opinion, a man who had multiple love affairs with other women was just like a toothbrush that had been used many times by various people. And similarly, Jack too was such a man, or, more exactly, such a toothbrush. She really couldn't understand how Rose could gladly use that toothbrush to brush her teeth, without any complains?

The word "bimbos" immediately embarrassed Rose, but she had to keep herself from going berserk because she had to play nice and sweet in front of the people around her. She simply said, "You talk a lot of nonsense..."

"Nonsense? You know it's truth, don't you? After all I'm better than those who don't know how to live and function without a man. Oh, and thank you for recycling the junk I don't want."

Soon, the onlookers felt the awkwardness in the room intensified; they made excuses to leave, and dispersed shortly after.

"Ah! Mr. Hua has asked me to take these files to his office urgently, so sorry I can't chat right now." Emily was just leaving after organizing the files on the desk. Seeing Rose distraught, made her feel a little better.

Rose was so mad at Emily that she had planned to embarrass her before she left. She reached out to grab Emily's hand, but unfortunately, Emily moved too soon; instead of catching Emily, she accidentally caught the files Emily was holding.

Paper after paper, they fell everywhere at once.

"Are you nuts?" Instead of arguing with her, Emily hurried and got down to pick up the files from the floor.

Rose wasn't finished with Emily; when she looked down at Emily, something else had caught her immediate attention.

What were they? Hickeys! There were hickeys on Emily's neck!

Rose couldn't believe her eyes, as she attentively glared at the marks on Emily's neck. Despite Emily's high-necked top, she was still able to see the red marks on her back.

Rose was quick to determine that it couldn't have been Jack because he was with her yesterday and the day before that. Then who?

Rose secretly took a photo of Emily's neck before she could notice and sent it to Jack. She was giddily waiting to see Jack's reaction to the photo.

She knew once Jack found out that Emily had slept with someone else, he would certainly go stark raving mad instead of swallowing the humiliation, therefore further ensuring the permanence of Jack and Emily's separation.

Emily didn't notice what Rose was scheming. She came back to her desk after picking up the files and sending them to Mr. Hua.

She was lost in her thoughts, imagining how things would be if it all turned out to be false; how nice it would be if Jack hadn't betrayed her; if Rose hadn't seduced her boyfriend and if she hadn't slept with... Jacob....

But, she knew that the reality was far from her imaginations. She backed the wrong horses when she chose to be together with Jack and made friends with Rose. The affair with Jacob was also a byproduct of her own wrongdoings.

After getting off work, Emily was just about to leave the office, when she saw Jack's car parked at the gate of the company. She tried to pretend not seeing Jack and walked past his car, but Jack got out of his car and walked straight towards her.

Emily wasn't aware that Jack was angry at her because of the photo Rose had sent to him.

Initially, he had intended to give Emily the cold shoulder for a few days until she'd come to her senses and back into his arms. But much to his surprise and disappointment, Emily had an affair with another man on the same night she had found out about his affair with Rose.

"Stop! Emily Bai!" Jack grabbed Emily by the arms, with an angry look on his face.

"Let go of me!" Emily struggled but refused to look at his face. The mere thought of what had happened in the police station, dissolved whatever feelings she had for him. "Are you insane?" She asked impatiently.

Emily always waited for her colleagues to leave the company first, before she would leave, and so there was nobody around to help her.

"You are a fast learner, Emily! since you are dared to cuckold me! Tell me where you were yesterday and the night before !"

His words caught Emily by surprise, as she tried to hide the truth from him, "Why should I answer to you, Jack? We were already broke up the night before yesterday!"

"I told you I didn't agree to breaking up with you!"

"For us, it was over the moment when you slept with Rose!"

"That's impossible!" Jack growled when reaching out to pull Emily's collar. Sure enough, he saw the ambiguous marks on her skin. In his mind, they were enough to prove her love affair with another man. Jack screamed angrily at her, "Emily Bai! Who is he?"

"It's none of your business!" Emily bit her lip, with an inkling of bitterness in her heart, as she dared not to speak out the name of that man. Although she had no intentions of getting back with Jack, she still struggled to gather the courage to tell him the truth.

Realizing that Emily was hiding something from him, Jack struggled to breath; it felt like his heart was being pounded with a heavy hammer. He couldn't believe that the woman he had loved for years would betray him like that.

He stared at Emily furiously, gripping her hand tightly and almost crushing her bones!

"Tell me!"

"Let go of me!" At the thought of the unbridled intimacy shown by Jack and Rose this morning, Emily felt displeased, and so not to be outdone, she just answered, "You don't deserve to know his name!"

"I am going to make you and that man regret this, Emily!"

"My only regret is knowing a scum like you! Why? Why is it okay for you to sleep around, but I can't? I'm learning from you!"

"Are men and women the same?"

"Yes, they are the same to me! I really regret not cheating on you before breaking up with you!" She was grateful that Jack was not the first person she had made love to, otherwise she wouldn't stop feeling sorry for herself.

"You are a bitch, Emily!" Jack's blood boiled with immense fury. The anger in his eyes burned so furiously, it seemed that the flames would almost spread out of his eyes to burn the woman in front of him.

Frightened by his rage, Emily tried to run away, but Jack caught her and dragged her into his car.

"Let me go!" Suddenly, Emily started to have a bad feeling. She struggled to move as Jack pressed her down with his heavy body.

"Bitch! Have you ever been fucked by another man? Damn it!"

Jack completely lost his senses and tore at her clothes like a savage beast!