Exposing the Charade of Deep Affection (PDF)

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 We Have No Proof

After saying that, he got in the car and drove off.

It took me a few seconds to realize that he was angry.

I did nothing but thank him. What did that have to do with whether we were married or not?

I didn’t bother to dwell too much on it. Instead, I went back to the office and continued working

overtime. Now that my father was ill, I supposed that things would begin to pile up at the Conner

Group, and I would soon be busy.

I reached the Conner Group’s office.

No sooner had I reached the door than I heard giggling from inside.

As I opened the door, Rachel Martin, who was sitting on the couch holding a tablet and watching idol

TV series, looked up at me. At the sight of me, she put down the tablet and pushed the lunch box on

the coffee table to me. “Where have you been? Didn’t we say I’d bring you lunch today? The food is

cold.”

I sat down next to her, opened the lunch box, and said as I ate, “My dad is hospitalized. I went to the

hospital.”

She frowned. “Rudolf is hospitalized? What’s wrong?”

“Advanced liver cancer.” I opened my mouth and found it difficult to swallow the food.

“Advanced liver cancer? How so?” Rachel paused and looked at me. “You…”

“I’m fine.” Afraid that she might say something sappy, I beat her to it. I said, “People die every day. You

and I will die someday, too. It is only a matter of time.”

She clicked her tongue, moved her butt, got closer to me, and said, “Stop it. I’m not going to comfort

you. I’m just saying that at this point, you should get along well with Rudolf and stop quarreling about

what happened back then.”

I pressed my lips and lost my appetite. I put down the fork, leaned back on the couch, and stared at the

ceiling. “Does it really not matter what the truth is?”

She sighed, “If only we could find the man who took you away that year so that he could tell the police

that you and he did not elope, but he picked you up at the station in the name of Ashley and lured you

to the border. Yet now he is nowhere to be found, and we’ve got no proof at all. What can we do?”

We had no proof.

Five years ago, I was eighteen, and I graduated from high school. Because I yearned for South Afeoria,

I applied for Deston City University, where Ashley was studying as a postgraduate, with full

expectations.

On my enrollment day, Rudolf was busy with work, and Eileen was also busy, as she had to attend to a

sick elder in the family, so they asked Ashley, who was in Deston City, to pick me up at the station.

Yet instead of Ashley, a swarthy man came to pick me up. He said that he was sent there by Ashley

and asked me to go with him.

Of course, I wouldn’t go with him. Yet Ashley called me, saying that she was tied up at school and

could not leave. She told me to follow him and that he’d take care of me.

That day, the man claimed that he wanted to familiarize me with Deston City, so he took me around

Deston City for a long time, and we ate a lot of tasty food. I figured that he was Ashley’s friend, so I let

my guard down. When he asked me to go with him to the hotel to get something, I went with him

without thinking, not noticing the remoteness of the hotel at all.

It was exactly because I took the initiative to walk into the hotel. When something happened to me

later, everyone felt that I was easy. They figured that I deserved it more or less.

“Tabatha, you really don’t remember what happened to you in the hotel?” Rachel interrupted my

thoughts and looked at me. “Back then, when your parents and I found and went to the hotel, the owner

said that you had been lying in the room with that man for several days. And when you left, you were

even carried by that man. The owner said you were so easy at such a young age…”

There was no surveillance or recordings of what had happened, and everything was confirmed by other

people’s words. I pressed my lips, finding it hard to defend myself. I looked at her and said, “I was

unconscious after we entered the hotel.”

She sighed helplessly, “The police have been looking over and over and still can’t find any proof

backing up your story. They can’t prove that it’s Ashley and that man who deliberately lurked you.

There’s no call history on her phone, and you lost your phone. The point is that the guy ran off, and

there’s no evidence that Ashley crossed paths with him before. More importantly, what was her

motive?”

What was her motive?

I shook my head. “That’s what I am confused about, too. We have been sisters for 18 years. I didn’t get

it. Why would she do that?”

“Maybe … the Conner Group?” Rachel looked at me. She said seriously, “Your parents have only two

daughters, you and Ashley, and a business as big as the Conner Group will certainly be yours in the

future. In fact, I always think that your parents are closer to you. When you guys are together, Ashley is

always like an outsider. Perhaps she wants to get rid of you so that when your parents die, the

company will be hers alone.”

Could that be the reason?

I pursed my lips, pondered for a moment, and said, “If she is that ambitious, why has she been out of

the office for so many years?”

Rachel shrugged. “Beats me.” Material © NôvelDrama.Org.

Since I couldn’t figure it out, I stopped pondering. I looked at her and said, “Thank you for lunch.”

She tutted and frowned. “You are asking me to leave so soon? I barely got here. You’re the most

realistic person I’ve ever seen.”

I smiled, “What else do you want to talk about?”

She blinked and sat next to me. “Tabatha, I’ve never asked you this. In the six months after you were

taken to the border, was it true that you were forced into the red-light district as Ashley said?”