Chapter 16

1st October 2015: 11:15 am.

I heard him on the phone as I entered; he was too much in a daze to realize that I had entered the room. I went for a walk. He was in the shower for so long and I was just sitting on the bed. Bored. Unable to think. We had never argued for this long. I could make him feel better all the time. I knew how to control him and I understood how his mind worked. He was simple in that domain, but for the first time, I wondered if I was the one that had lost control.

All the effort that I was making for us to be together felt as if it was in vain. He wasn’t even trying. Not one little bit. Why not?

Was he straying from me?

Ted was getting bored of me, as Zhang had warned me about time and time again. He couldn’t get bored of me. I was sexy, fun and everything that a man could desire and more. Also, I had done more than my fair share of making sure that his business grew. I had slept with clients and I’d intimidated them by taking photos and threatening to share them with their wives. There was nothing that I wouldn’t and hadn’t done for Ted and I was going to be damned if I’d let go of him now.

He was mine.

Now and forever.

“Did you have something to do with this?”

He faced me and I could see the anger ripping through his body. His face was red and he was shaking as he spoke and grabbed my shoulders with both hands.

“Fucking answer me!”

“What? I don’t even know what you’re talking about?”

“First the company gets hacked…”

“The one that I have been sacrificing my body, time and everything else just to make you happy? You can’t possible think that I have something to do with that? I told you to get the IT systems sorted. Why would I do that if I was going to hack it? I didn’t even know that it was possible to hack it until you told me earlier.”

I needed to put him straight. It did seem weird that it had happened now, but I put that down to a coincidence, no one would set this up now. He hadn’t told anyone that he was going away until Friday night. Even his supposedly clean, drug-free wife.

“Maybe you rubbed someone the wrong way?” I was pacing, thinking of ways to calm him down and see things from my point of view. It was clear that he was leaving the island. He had to go back home, because of the phone call. If he found out the truth, he would have nothing to do with me ever again and there would only be one solution to that and I wasn’t about to give up now.

No way!

“Now, Barbara’s missing…”

“What did Emma do this time? Take her drugs? That woman! And you still insist on not leaving her. She’s a fucking walking disaster.” I hated mentioning her name. She had the one thing that I craved, the one man that I wanted and he belonged to me. I’d slept with men for his business, with only his face on my mind every single time. I’d do anything for him and what did she do when she went to him each and every night, she took drugs. She was his weakness, one that I had every intention of getting rid of and it was just in a matter of time.

He shook his head. “No someone took her.”

No! I didn’t want him to think that, I needed him to believe that it was her. Every failure in his life was due to her. I was his rock and she brought him down. He blamed himself for her taking drugs, but it wasn’t his fault. He never introduced her to the dealer, she’d managed to do that by herself.

“How do you know?”

I wanted to find out how much he knew, because I had to choose my words carefully. I hated that someone as weak and pathetic as her was Mrs. Rogers. When it should be me.

“I don’t know the details, just that mother said that it was a plan. Then with the hacking…”

He wasn't making sense as he started going around the room and packing his bag, preparing to leave without me.

I picked up my phone, I had to act like the concerned mistress. I couldn’t act as if I had anything to do with it. Not yet. He wasn’t thinking straight. Not yet. He would in time, I would make sure of that.

“Who are you calling?”

He was still suspicious as he stopped and rose his eyebrow.

“My brother, I just want to make sure that our daughter is safe too. Otherwise, there’s something really wrong.”

I wrapped my arms around him and held my breath so tight, hoping that he’ll think that I was innocent in all this.

It just seemed weird that it was all happening at the same time. I would do my own investigation when I got back and find out what was going on with the company. I had visions of us having our life together and it didn’t involve him being penniless. Nothing would be left to assumption. I would get to the bottom of it and become the heroine once again.

“Zhang, it’s me,” I said, relieved that my brother picked up the phone. Ted stopped to watch as I spoke. “What do you mean that she’s not there?”

Ted froze with his mouth wide open, unable to cope with the trial of events. He sat down and watched as I acted out my little rehearsal. I had spent weeks planning this, and everything was going to plan and nothing would get in my way.

“Okay, I’m on my way. I can’t believe this. Zhang, don’t worry, just call the police. Find out anything and keep me in the loop.”

I hung up, I panicked, and started to pretend that I had lost my mind. Emotions that I had never shed in my life rolled out of me like a bolt of lightening.

“Shit, she’s gone too.” Ted just nodded his head as if he couldn’t take any more of this. But one mystery would be solved and then he would love me even more.

I was sure of it, and I smiled as I sat on his lap and hugged him. He squeezed me and said, “Let’s get out of here and find our daughter.”

It was music to my ears. He was coming around, sooner than he’d realized and better than I had hoped for, and the wife had done everything that she was supposed to do. Nothing was going to get in my way of Ted being mine. Nothing.