17
There was another re
Jax Ryder was only nineteen, and his career was at its peak.
My marriage with Alex was not yet over.
If our scandalous relationship were truly exposed, it would only become a stain on his fife.
But this was a trivial reason, not worth mentioning.
So I didn’t say it, just sat in the car, watching his figure completely disappear from my sight.
Then I pulled a cigarette pack from my pocket and lit one.
I didn’t smoke it, just watched it burn quietly between my fingers.
The rising wisps of white smoke blurred my vision.
The choking smell of cheap tobacco seemed to drag me back many years.
My biological father was a truly repulsive man.
He used his passable looks to marry into the Harding family, yet he couldn’t resist cheating on his wife outside.
Afraid of being discovered, he found a woman from a massage parlor
– my mother.
21:41 Tue, 26 Aug
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I was discovered by Isabella, the eldest daughter of the Harding family, right after I was
born.
My father knelt, weeping and begging for forgiveness, and only then was he able to
return to the family.
I grew up with my mother in that tiny massage parlor, located in a cramped, rundown apartment building.
While I did my homework at an old table, my mother and her clients were separated from
me only by a curtain.
Sometimes she would call me in to get her a glass of water to soothe her hoarse voice.
She didn’t really pay much attention to me, spending all her time at the mahjong table
when she wasn’t with clients.
No one at school liked me. They would deliberately whisper in front of me.
Saying I was just like my mother, that I’d caught some kind of dirty sickness at a young
age.
It’s hard to find a precise word to describe those days.
But whenever I think of the past.
The first image that comes to mind is that window glowing with cheap pink light, and the dark, lewd stares of those coming and going clients that fell upon me.
My desire and ambition were greater than anyone else’s. I was desperate to climb higher, and higher.
For that, I would pay any price.
A cigarette burned out in my hand. I was startled back to reality by the falling ash.
I dialed Maya’s number.
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“The final phase of the stock acquisition plan begins tonight.”
