Chapter 142 Emma

Chapter 142 Talia
Amber ravaged her fingers through her hair. She was getting ready to play this role. 

“Well,” she sighed, smiling. It was one of her persons and would still do the work she would have done. 

Amber didn’t break her rhythm. She continued as she was, offering smiles where needed, adjusting details, moving from one client to the next steadily, as if someone didn't just shift her focus. 

Nearly forty minutes passed before the woman reappeared from the fitting room. In her hands was a neatly arranged stack of chosen pieces, and on her face sat a calm, assured expression that Amber knew well, the unmistakable look of someone who had already made up her mind long before trying anything on.

“I’ll take everything I tried,” she said smiling widely, flipping her hand over her hair. 

Darla had just began calculating right away. Her fingers moved quickly, before stepping close enough to Amber to murmur, “One hundred and sixty-two thousand. Give or take.”

Amber gave a slight nod, already moving. Without a word, she made her way behind the main counter, taking over the transaction herself.

She did it occasionally, stepping in personally for the bigger transactions, for clients she was intentionally cultivating a relationship with, or simply when something about the moment made her decide to pay closer attention.

Without rushing, she brought up the invoice on the register and angled the screen just enough for the client to see clearly. 

Her eyes were a massive glow. “Ready when you are.”

The mystery beauty unzipped her Bottega bag and retrieved a card, placing it on the counter with a soft, deliberate click. A proud wink followed. 

A billionaire heiress. A billionaire's wife. Anyone.” Amber was already concluding in her mind. 

It was a matte black American Express. No numbers screaming across it, no visible limits. 

A big authority in plastic form. 

The kind of card that didn’t come easily. 

Amber lifted the card from the counter, her body wacking with an intense joy she was trying to control. But when her eyes closely looked, her fingers went lose. She edged her brows, looking up at this woman. All the ecstasy cruising her nerves failed. 

Amber held this card for a second longer than necessary, her gaze still steady on the embossed name on the front. She didn’t react further right away. 

Archer A. Calloway. 

Her husband's card. One she has never got access to. 

The mystery beauty winked at her, flapping her palms in question. Amber smiled, blinking fervently and shaking her head. 

“Wooh, I'm amazed!” The mystery lady, believing her, smiled. But her heart tumbled. She was no longer herself. 

Amber was trying the hardest to hold herself together. 

“If I react like this, she'd hide things from me.” She thought. 

The soft background music continued to flow through the boutique speakers without interruption. 

Somewhere behind her, Darla let out a light laugh at something a client had said. 

Even the white orchids at the entrance remained exactly as they were, fresh, flawless, and carefully arranged, as if nothing in the world had reason to disturb them.

But her…… 

She felt like she was the unluckiest woman in the room. 

She slid the card into the machine.

While the system processed the payment and she waited for the approval screen, her breaths were held steady.  

She should have been creating a chaos here but what of her other clients. It would certainly drive them away if she did this. She'd lose more information and also clients. 

Her memory drifted back quickly, back in time. A blurred image on her husband's phone screen. Fourteen months ago. It had been buried, not until now. 

Amber got distracted, her hands and fingers began to shake. She had to roam between items on her table to prevent people from noticing. 

The scenario played clearly now, as if it happened just yesterday. 

She had once picked up Archer’s phone by accident while hers was charging, only to have the screen light up and reveal an image before it locked again. 

It had been quick, almost too quick, but unmistakable: a woman caught in soft outdoor light, laughing at something just out of frame, completely unaware she was being seen like that.

Archer had been home then. His cordial, loving nature had prevented her from reading any meaning to this. 

“Maybe his staff at the company or a relative I don't know.” She had dismissed it that way. Archer never gave her reasons to suspect he might be cheating, so she never used to check his phone. 

But now, this woman was slowly linking to her past with a clicking resemblance even though the picture didn't stay long in sight. 

One thing led to another. 

Archer always talked of a particular woman from his company all the times. How she was loyal, caring, diligent and hardworking. One day he returned home late, when she asked, he had told her it was a colleague’s birthday, just a casual group outing, nothing more. 

The same woman he always spoke of. 

They never made any sense to her until now. 

She had made the choice to believe him, deliberately, not questioning whatever he told her because he was the best husband in the world. 

But now…. 

Her world was crumbling. Even her mind was startled with zillions of thoughts. 

“What do I do now? Oh God!” She mumbled against her lips. She wanted to leave and head back straight to her husband to ask this but looking at the clients present, how could she leave them? 

Everything happened in a matter of few seconds but in her mind, they dragged like in eternity. 

She exhaled heavily the payment approval flashed on the screen. Amber didn’t hesitate. With hands trying to suppress trembling, she tore off the receipt and set the moment aside as neatly as she had everything else.

She'd definitely visit it after here. 

“Amazing selections,” she said, sliding the bag across the counter with composed ease. “Especially the ivory jacket, the cut will sit very well on your body.”

The woman, still unsuspecting of Amber, took the bag with an excited smile, edged with some sense of superiority. 

“My husband has excellent taste,” she added, glancing down at her phone for a brief moment. “He was the one who told me about this place, actually.”

“Did he?” Amber's eyes widened. 

She'd thought this woman came here by mistake, she'd believed she didn't know she was the wife of the man who'd given her this card but now her thoughts were nothing but illusions. 

Archer knew what he was doing. “An indirect way to tell me he doesn't wants me again? Urghh?” Amber said with her look but the naive mistress couldn't tell. 

She was still grinning from ear to ear. Amber's hands fisted under the table and her breathing became even more clenched. 

“I'll deal with him! I'll deal with him!!” She kept repeating to herself. Amber's eyes flinched from empty space to this mistress and back to space. 

Her lips curled into a tight smirk, one the mistress interpreted as a blush. 

“I really need to get more info,” Amber thought to herself. 

She pushed a fake excited smile. “Such men are really rare. They want you to be so beautiful. Most would be envious of other men adoring you outside.”