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"Chapter 1 Disillusionment

Tessa wandered into the rose garden, distracted in thoughts, when she heard the thunder boom.

Lightning lit up the path covered in rose petals and revealed strings of footprints.

She made her way up the steps in a hurry, fumbled for the key and inserted it into the keyhole when the door was blown open by the wind.

Among the clothes scattered on the floor, she recognized her fiancé’s jacket.

Her heart gave a lurch.

She stood perfectly still like a statue; blood seemed to drain from her face and limbs.

Winona’s taunting threats from a few days ago was replayed in her head.

“Why don’t you just let Malcom go? It’ll be better for you both to call off the engagement.”

“Why?”

“Because he isn’t in love with you! Stop lying to yourself, Tessa. I’m the one he loves. You should back out with dignity to avoid further embarrassment.”

Tessa stumped into the room with legs as heavy as lead.

The rose garden was Malcom’s gift for her when she came of age at 18.

This gift which brought her so much joy was now where her worst nightmare came true.

She walked on despite herself.

She wasn’t ready to let go until she saw with her own eyes that the man she loved had betrayed her.

“Oh, Malcom…Mm…I love you…I love you!”

Tessa felt she had gone blind all of a sudden and almost fell over. Enveloped by excruciating pain, her soul was being torn to pieces. She felt numb with despair.

She wanted to cover her ears, but her cold hands were shaking, out of control, as she listened to the moaning of the woman in bed with her fiancé…

Why did Malcom have to do this to her?

He could have cheated with Winona in any hotel. Where did he bring her here? Why would he fool around with another woman in the bed where they made love?

Tessa stumbled to the door, holding back the nausea and bitterness in her mouth, her limbs barely in control with acute aching.

And there she saw them, her fiancé and Winona half-naked, locked in an embrace!

Tears filled up her eyes; her heart was aching like hell.

She could taste blood in the mouth and realized she had bitten her lower lip so hard that blood was seeping from the cut. She gasped for air with her hands clasping at her chest, shuddering all over!

A gust of wind swept in from the doorway and knocked over a vase on the bedside table.

The piercing sound of the vase shattering on the floor filled the room.

Malcom seemed to have woken up from a dream. He pushed away Winona and stood up with a jolt.

He caught sight of Tessa’s pale, ghost-like face.

“Sorry for interrupting,” the bleeding tear on her lip seemed eerie against her bloodless face.

“No…no! I can explain, Tessa!” Malcom was panic-stricken.

“Please! No! It’s not what you think!”

He hurried toward a trembling Tessa, stretching his arms to hug her.

“Don’t touch me!” she snapped, devastated.

The lipstick mark on Malcom’s collar and the bite mark on his collarbone destroyed the last shred of her sanity.

She felt blood pumping inside her and sharp shooting pain. Unable to bear it anymore, she blundered out the door.

“Tessa! Tessa!” distraught, Malcom made to run after her.

Winona leapt to wrap her arms around him, and gave a cry as if with final resolve.

“What are you going after her for? It’s not like you still love her. Isn’t it better to end things with her now?”

Those words seemed to wind around Tessa’s neck and all her illusions were shattered at last.

She lunged into the heavy rain, stepping on a trail of broken petals, retching and weeping silently.

Chapter 2 Don’t Make A Fuss

Tessa sat up straight on the sofa, her face pasty and haggard.

“Is that supposed to explain away what happened?”

She held the test report in her hand, thinking how pathetic and ridiculous the whole thing seemed. She imagined her soul floating in midair, observing this farce with indifference.

Malcom had presented her with the test report to explain for what happened with him and Winona the previous night.

It was all a trap to set him up.

How convenient!

“I know how much it hurt you, Tessa. But nothing happened between me and her. You’ve got to believe me!”

Malcom looked peaked with dark shadows under his eyes. It was evident that he was tormented by the incident.

“You saw us yesterday. I stopped then and there…”

“I did see you. I’m not blind,” said Tessa with a raised eyebrow and a stone-cold expression.

“What does it matter? Am I supposed to be thankful that you were only half-naked, that you didn’t go any further than that?”

He had no idea what excruciating pain she endured as her soul was being torn to pieces, taking in the sight of her fiancé making out with another woman.

“Tessa,” said Malcom with agitation, “you know I was set up. I had rushed to the rose garden looking for you… But I mistook her for you.”

Tessa’s heart sank with agony, and she felt her veins were filled with ice!

She had been engaged to Malcom since they were kids.

With these cruel words, he had turned more than a decade of love and hope on her part into a meaningless joke.

She opened her mouth as she felt like coughing her heart out, with her guts tied up in a knot.

She was torn between crying and laughing out loud, “So I should not only thank you for not going all the way with her, but also thank her for saving you!”

She uttered the words deliberately, gazing at him with feigned innocence to deliver the blow.

“You’ve been tricked. And you almost raped the woman who’d saved you! How guiltless and noble she is! Don’t you agree?”

Malcom was evidently irritated by the snarky undertone, “Tessa, I understand you’re mad at me. But could you be reasonable? Winona is entirely blameless in this. It was my fault for not being alert enough. She was only dragged into it…”

Winona, Winona…

His speech left her reeling; her head seemed about to explode.

Why did he speak of Winona’s name with such affection if there was nothing between them?

Well, it wouldn’t matter even if he did sleep with her.

After all, sex could be separated from love.

She felt her stomach churning again. She closed her eyes and let out a mirthless laugh.

“I won’t hold you to the engagement! Let’s just end things here and now!”

Her words pounded on his heart like a giant hammer. He had never thought about breaking up with her.

“Don’t be silly, Tessa!”

“I’m serious!”

“I told you there’s nothing between Winona and me. Why do you have to harp on about it and make a big deal out of nothing?”

Malcom acknowledged that he’d always admired Winona, but there was nothing more than that.

He hadn’t actually slept with Winona. Surely Tessa couldn’t accuse him of betrayal based on that!

Why couldn’t she understand his position rather than threaten to break off their engagement?

She’d heard enough!

Her anger boiling up in an instant, she grabbed a vase nearby and hurled it to the floor.

She let out a roar.

“Get out!”

Chapter 3 Desolation

Malcom’s handsome face flushed with irritation at her outburst.

“You know better than to take this too far. Do you realize how uncouth you appear to be right now?”

As the benchmark for socialites in Oak City, Tessa had always been the embodiment of refinement. Never for a moment would she lose her cool.

Now he was calling her uncouth!

She gave a slight shudder. Something sharp seemed to have been stabbed into her heart; the pain was unbearable.

He wasn’t embarrassed by what he did.

Instead, he was embarrassed at her making a scene of it.

Winona had warned her about making a scene too. Tessa had better not drag this out and bring embarrassment upon herself.

She should just leave them be.

Her fury seemed to have been dampened.

Within an eyeblink, her heart had turned cold.

Tears streamed down her face.

“You’re still my fiancé. Even if you didn’t sleep with her, did you ever think about how I felt when you were spending so much time with her?”

“You said you were tricked. Fine, I’ll believe you. But how could you mistake her for me…” her voice was breaking up, “how could you possibly mistake her for me…”

Even if he didn’t love her, how could he be so cruel to her when they’d grown up together?

Did he really mistake another woman for her?

She felt she was going to die from a broken heart.

“How can you be so heartless?”

Tessa gazed at him with her bloodshot eyes filled with tears. She looked like a fragile doll that’d be shattered at the slightest touch.

Malcom was softened by her tears, which tore open his heart like daggers.

Regretting his behavior earlier, he held her in his arms, “I’m sorry, Tessa. It’s all my fault. Don’t cry… There’s really nothing going on between me and her. Please don’t be mad at me anymore, alright?”

His comfort only added to her sorrow.

He didn’t understand why she kept crying. He thought she was still making a fuss for no good reason.

He had no idea what pained her the most was the fact that he didn’t love her; he’d always treated her like a sister.

She had the naïve idea that if she waited patiently, one day he’d come to lover her rather than think of her as a sister.

But then Winona came into the scene. She captured his heart after knowing him for only a few months.

“I promise I’ll have her transferred to another post when she’s finished the project at hand. I won’t ever get in touch with her again,” said Malcom in a quiet, comforting voice.

“Does that sound good? Please don’t cry anymore, Tessa.”

She wasn’t sure whether to believe him.

She was still in love with him. After all the heartaches he’d put her through, she couldn’t let him go.

Shortly after Malcom left, Winona called Tessa to gloat over her triumph the precious day.

“Are you doing well, Tessa? I tried to warn you earlier. If you had backed out, it wouldn’t have come to that. So did you enjoy the show…Malcom and I put on yesterday?”

Tessa clenched her fists tightly, veins bulging on her temples.

That lewd scene flashed in her mind…

“Do you think he’s into you? He could fall for someone else just as easily tomorrow.” though her body was trembling uncontrollably, she could not let herself appear weak to a woman who was trying to steal her fiancé.

“I didn’t expect a dignified lady like you to cling on to a man who doesn’t love her back!” snorted Winona.

“I guess you can’t bear to be defeated by a girl from a family of modest means.”

She lowered her voice abruptly, “How pathetic of you to hold on to Malcom using the fact that you grew up together!”

“Shut up!” snapped Tessa.

“Oh, are you mad? You know you’re no match to me. The only advantage you’ve got is the engagement between you and Malcom. But it’d be awfully indecent to trap him in a loveless marriage, don’t you think?”

Tessa hanged up, shaking from anger.

Winona’s accusation was sharper than daggers. Tessa wanted to refute her, but she was at a loss for words.

Because what Winona said was true, to some extent.

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