Chapter 37: Chapter 37
“Speak of the devil.” He sighed heavily as Rhea’s picture flashed intrusively. She had been calling him all through the night and then again this morning. No doubt fixated on events of last night and looking for reassurance while interrogating him. She had done this a lot these past months. He had avoided answering, knowing fine it was alcohol fueled at first and now it was probably not wise to pick up after ignoring her until noon.
“Answer it. She’ll show up here otherwise and make a scene. You know how she gets.” ZhengLi warned, knowing that the sweet and calm side of Rhea was only half a picture and there was a fiery and terrifying temper that hated when she wasn’t getting her own way. Rhea was spoiled and used to things her own way. She wasn’t a bad person but there had been times when her common sense flew the nest, and she had some pretty questionable behaviors when mad at YuZhi.
“Let’s go out to eat. Tell the secretary we’re out for business all day if she shows up. I can’t deal with this right now while my head’s elsewhere.” YuZhi kicked the toe of his shoe into the rug, obviously tense and distracted and ZhengLi narrowed his eyes at him in suspicion.
“Where else would your head be? On some other pretty perhaps?” ZhengLi pricked up his interest, seeing YuZhi frown before turning away and dodging answering. He got up and walked back around the desk. “Yo…. Dude? Don’t ignore me.” He pressed him and followed YuZhi around his chair as he retrieved his suit jacket before bumping into the back of him with the sudden stop.
“Just something. Forget it.” YuZhi was way too defensive for this dog to not want that bone.
“Spill bro… you can’t leave me hanging like this.”
ZhengLi was relentless and followed close at his heel as he made his way out from the desk, picking up his car key and wallet from the side drawer and moving out to leave. Trying his best to appear normal and ignore his new shadow.
“Later. Maybe when I have had a chance to digest it a bit more.”
Ughh no, now I have to know, or I am not stepping foot out of here.” ZhengLi leaned back on the desk behind him, perching his butt and crossed his arms. Stubborn on show and refusing to move until he got some answers. He could sniff intel.
YuZhi’s shoulders sank and his hand paused on the handle to the door, knowing his best friend would hold true to his words. He would sit there all day, even if YuZhi walked out and left him. This was pointless and he didn’t want to hang around waiting for Rhea to show up in a foul temper to make his day worse. There’s nothing he could say to her that hadn’t been said hundreds of times already. The awareness they had a time restraint hitched up his anxiety levels and he flashed his friend a pleading look.
“Well? I’m waiting” ZhengLi fixed his focus on YuZhi’s face and cocked one brow.
“God dammit. Okay!” YuZhi relented. Snapping at him and turning before slumping back against the wooden surface of the door and looked tired and fed up suddenly. His skull banging a little forcefully as though he was trying to expel demons. “TangShi last night, she said some things that…… ughhhhhh. I can’t get my head around it, but she said we met before, that it was in Beijing and that I made her wait at a bridge and never showed.” He blurted it out rather than saying ‘She’s Alice’ because he didn’t want to admit it to either of them.
“No way!!! Wait…. NO!” ZhengLi was more excited and shocked rather that deflated like YuZhi seemed to be. His gut instinct had been right, and he wanted to jump for joy because he knew it all along. “She’s Alice?” he grinned and jumped up to march over and pat YuZhi on the head as though he was a good puppy. YuZhi swatted him away with a glare.
“I didn’t say that. She just might be…what with calling me Yoonie and..”
“She called you Yoonie? That’s a name I haven’t used in a long while. Although, I’m sure Yang used it last night. She might have heard it there.” ZhengLi’s brain was in overdrive and his PI skills in full throttle.
YuZhi shook his head, knowing the way she used it and what she said, felt a lot like she had known him as that name. Eight years ago. He didn’t think she just repeated something random she heard.
“It’s really her?” ZhengLi was reading the weird vibes from YuZhi, seeing the confusion and troubled mood moving in and patted him on the shoulder in a much gentler way. Friend mode initiated and moving to try and be the serious shoulder for once. He could be that guy when needed and knew when jokes should be dropped. “Look dude, if it’s really her, maybe you should try being a little nicer and talk about why you didn’t show up back then. I know you think TangShi is some kind of awful manipulative marriage climber who wants status, but I didn’t get that from her back then, or last night. She seems like a sweet girl who has no say in what her father decides. You at least owe her an explanation about Beijing and why we didn’t show.”
YuZhi made a ‘hppphhh’ noise under his breath. Memories of her telling him a long time ago all about a father that treated her poorly and a family that didn’t want her and he tried to piece it together with what he knew of the Leis and the TangShi he had been leaving with.
“She told me back then she was unwanted and her father treated her like a leper. Why would Lei push her at me if that was true? This contract relied on a good relationship between our families.” None of it made sense. Mr Lei placing so much on this marriage if TangShi was a rejected daughter or an outcast. Not to mention that if it became clear he threw his family shame at them for this deal, then it would seriously damage the alliance. It was disrespectful as hell.
“Maybe they made up since then. It was eight years ago, and she was still very young.” ZhengLi had his doubts about Mr Lei, but he knew it would take time for YuZhi to process this and think it through. “What now though? I mean she’s the girl you kept in your heart all these years and yet TangShi is someone you treat pretty coldly. Has it changed how you feel about her?” ZhengLi knew it was possible, given in his mind Alice was YuZhi’s first love and he had never really given that part to Rhea all these years. Only ZhengLi knew how much he looked for her after his father’s funeral and how unsettled he was for a long time in feeling like her lost a girl that should have been a huge part of his life. ZhengLi had never understood how one night could cause such a bond between them, but he witnessed his friends regret all these years and the fact he never forgot her.
ZhengLi wasn’t built like that and had never fallen in love. He was a player who liked casual relationships and stress-free fun. For him, he never understood YuZhi’s need to settle down and pin one woman to his side the way he did with Rhea. Their relationship on the surface seemed perfect and glamorous but ZhengLi had always felt like it was a show love, and empty below the surface. A codependency that grew from tragedy, at a time when YuZhi needed someone to support him, and that he had become this emotionless hard ass who couldn’t tell the difference.
“Why would it? She’s TangShi now. I don’t like her, and I love Rhea. There’s no confusion there.” YuZhi was quick to answer in a defensive tone, refusing to acknowledge his own confused feelings about her, but even as the words came out there was a nagging feeling in the back of his head and a tight anxious knot in his chest. This was why he hadn’t slept and instead had churned over memory and memory of that night in his head. Torturing himself with the details and instead of seeing that masked sweet young girl, he had conjured up TangShi instead. It messed with his head.
“Talk to her. Forget everything up until now, wipe the slate clean and try treating her like a human from here on in. She’s still the same girl!”
“I don’t want to. If I soften to her and we form any kind of relationship, even friends, it will make Rhea worse. I have to think of the future and salvaging my relationship one day. It’s better to stay cold and distant and leave TangShi to fulfil her side of the contract.” That’s what he had been telling himself all morning, but ZhengLi could see the hesitation in his words.
“Why are you so certain that Rhea is your future? Have you ever told her that you held onto a mystery girl in your heart all these years? And if you did are you going to admit to her it’s TangShi?”
YuZhi paced away from ZhengLi, back to his chair and slumped down as though he had lost all will and energy. He knew what ZhengLi was getting at and it was out of the question.
“I told her about Alice a long time ago, when we were just friends…. If she finds out TangShi is her, she will implode. Her insecurity is already intense, I can’t imagine what that detail would do. She will never know, and I won’t give her reason to suspect it either.” YuZhi was sure about that.
ZhengLi exhaled heavily, knowing that this was a mess that would one day unravel, no matter how hard he tried to conceal it, and Rhea was a ticking time bomb. He knew nothing would go as YuZhi planned, because life was never easy that way, and he was curious to find out after the drama explosion if Rhea or TangShi would be the woman he was left standing with. ZhengLi was placing bets on TangShi, his gut had said it from the second he saw her picture months ago and he was secretly rooting for her.