TangShi-4

Not only would TangShi be forced to wed this young master, but it looked like he would be forced to push his love life to the past to fulfill his end of this bargain. He clearly had a lover, and she looked like someone who wouldn't let go easily. The name Cheng was a known name in that city, and TangShi wondered at why he wasn't already married to her if he loved her deeply enough to date for at least three years.

TangShi choked on her own salvia and coughed violently; a new sensation slicing her heart that wasn't quite like any pang she felt before and suddenly weird and angsty. Her eyes straying back to his hand in Rhea’s and it almost suffocated her as she closed the webpage and tossed her cell aside. Refusing to acknowledge the rising hurt in her body.

She knew it was stupid to still harbor anything from five years ago, and the chances are it wasn't even him at all. She had only seen him wearing a black mask over a third of his face, she didn't know him at all. It was beyond stupid to feel jealousy, resentment or whatever this was.

And the only token of that night she still had was hidden deep in her box of keepsakes back home in Shanghai. A stupid pressed rose he had worn in his lapel, wrapped in a colored ribbon which was imprinted with some sort of crest all over in small repetition, she had never seen before.

Despite how much he had hurt her that night, her silly sentimental self had saved that stupid flower in the pages of a heavy book, and then later laminated it into a useable bookmark so it would never fall apart. She had no idea why she did it. Other than to serve as a reminder to never trust any man, not even one with pretty green eyes, a soft smile, and a warm hand that made you feel like everything was going to be okay. Wolf in sheep’s clothing. That's what he was, and she wouldn't forgive as long as she lived.

TangShi picked up her cell once more and opened her email app with the heaviest of moods. Her eyes swimming once more because she knew what she had to do now was inevitable. She pulled up her tutor's contact with slow motions. Her friend, her mentor, who had welcomed her so openly and made her feel like she was finally home when she arrived and began typing in the message she did not want to write. Her soul dying a little with every letter appearing on the screen.

She would have to forfeit her scholarship as she had no idea how long before her father let her go again and she knew that without a doubt, once married she would have no freedom for fear she would bring shame to his name. She would have to let go of the little dorm room that had become her haven, and return to a city she always felt like she never belonged in. To a life she was never part of and play the ruse of good daughter to a noble house.

She wouldn't be welcomed home with open arms, and she didn't expect it either, but at least she would be going back to where Linlin was, and that was the only positive.

She missed her childhood best friend when she moved out here. It had broken her heart to say goodbye at the airport to the only real family she had ever known and knew that if anything could keep her going, help her through this, then it was Linlin. She was loyal, and kind, and would never let her face any of this alone. She had held her up for so many years and been her rock for as long as she could remember.

Daughter of a notable family, a budding rising jewelry designer in her own right and always the life and soul of the party. Linlin would be the one thing that made going home not as devastating as it seemed. The diamond in her darkness!

She sighed as she finished typing her resignation email before sending it out into the web with a lost and desolate weight in her chest. She scrolled to her friend's number and started to compose the text that she knew would be the next step on returning home.