His s*x Tape Exposed, I Leave Him

Chapter 4

The private investigator sent over the link to a tiny, little-known secondary i********: account that almost no one followed. There was no mistaking who it belonged to, Kaye.

As Rose scrolled through the wall-to-wall posts filling the page, every drop of blood in her body froze solid, and she went rigid, cold all over, completely frozen in place.

This account was Kaye's secret little tree hole she'd kept hidden for years. Every word poured out here was the raw, twisted obsession and venomous envy she'd buried deep in her heart all this time.

March 12: I finally did it. I'm now Rose's personal best friend and employee. How ridiculous is that? She just had to keep me close by, forcing me to watch her and Chris be all lovey-dovey every single day. She's definitely doing this on purpose, rubbing her perfect happiness in my face, using my loneliness to make her own life look even better. It makes me sick.

May 5: I just broke up with my boyfriend. I'm absolutely broken-hearted, and what does Rose do? She parades Chris right in front of me, rubbing their relationship in my face. Feeding each other, holding hands, cuddling. She didn't leave a single thing out. She's always been this way, ever since we were kids. She steals all the spotlight, she always has to be one step above me. She's so fake, it's disgusting.

June 2: It was raining today. We left work together. I offhandedly mentioned I was cold, and he immediately pulled his jacket off and wrapped it around my shoulders. I saw it clear as day, desire was burning in his eyes. It wasn't just simple kindness, not by a long shot.

July 4: The power tripped at the office. When the blackout scared him, I grabbed him on instinct in the dark and stole a kiss. He tensed up for a second… but he never pushed me away. I knew right then and there: he'd already desired for me, his resolve was long broken.

August 7: We slept together. Just like I thought, he never really loved Rose anyway. He just stays with her because she's good at running a household. I almost feel bad for my childhood friend, y'know? We did grow up together, after all…

One scathing entry after another, and by the time Rose finished scrolling, every ugly truth was laid bare right in front of her.

A bitter, surreal despair washed over her, nothing about this made sense, and her heart ached so bad it hurt.

She never knew. All the years of open-hearted kindness she'd given Kaye? In Kaye's eyes, every bit of it had just been deliberate showing off, intentional mockery.

Back when Kaye lost her job and hit rock bottom, Rose had begged every contact she had, swallowed her pride over and over, just to claw that high-paying, stable job out for her.

When Kaye's breakup shattered her and left her sleepless, crying every night, Rose dropped every last work project and personal plan just to stay by her side day after day, talking her through the pain, desperate to yank her out of that dark hole.

The best friend she'd given her whole heart to, and the fiancé she'd trusted with everything, they'd twisted every good deed she'd done behind her back, let endless envy and ugly secrets fester, then betrayed her together.

Exhaustion and raw agony crashed over her whole body. Rose's head throbbed like it was splitting apart, black spots danced across her vision, and she nearly crumpled to the floor unconscious.

She dragged herself to her feet by sheer willpower, got into her car, and headed for the hospital. She needed a full checkup, and she needed to calm her fraying, screaming nerves.

She'd just pulled her car around the corner of the neighborhood when a rogue sedan suddenly came barreling straight at her from the side, aiming dead-on for her front bumper!

The thunderous impact deafened her ears. The whole car shook violently, searing pain exploded across her body, and everything went black. Rose lost consciousness completely.

When she finally woke up, the first thing she registered was Chris's bloodshot eyes, wild with frantic panic.

"Rose! You're finally awake! You scared me half to death!"

The car crash hadn't been life-threatening. The hard impact had given her a head injury that knocked her out, and most of her other injuries were just soft tissue bruising.

Chris gripped her hand so tight it was almost obsessive. The panic and fear in his eyes looked so real, there wasn't a single c***k in his performance.

Standing off to the side, Rose's assistant spoke up quietly to add, "President, when Sir Chris heard you'd been in a crash, he raced to the hospital like a madman. He was rushing so hard to get here fast that he got sideswiped badly by an electric scooter, scraped his arm all up, but he didn't even care. He didn't stop to get his wound looked at, just ran straight here the whole way."

Only then did Rose notice the thick gauze wrapped around Chris's arm, and the bright, raw scrape on his knee, swollen and inflamed.

"This little scratch is nothing." Chris waved it off without a second thought, his eyes soft with that same almost obsessive devotion. "As long as you're okay, that's all that matters."

Rose dug her nails so hard into her palm the sharp pain forced her to stay sharp, to not fall for his little act.

"I memorized the other car's license plate. We need to call the police."

"Damn right, we do!" Chris didn't even hesitate, his voice fierce and protective. "Whoever dared hit my fiancée, whether it was an accident or on purpose, they're gonna pay for this!"

But the second Rose read out the license plate number, all the color drained from Chris's face. A flicker of panic and guilt flashed so fast across his eyes you'd miss it if you blinked.

"Rose, just let me handle this. You don't need to worry about it."

A cold heavy stone dropped onto the bottom of Rose's chest. Her voice was steady and unyielding, "No. I'm calling the police myself."

"I said I'll handle it!" Chris' voice snapped hard and cold, stubborn and unarguable. But just as quickly, he softened his tone and gentled her, "You just woke up, you're still weak. You don't need to deal with all this ugly stuff. Just rest up and let me take care of it, that's all."

Right after he finished talking, his phone buzzed again.

After a few short answers, he looked back at Rose with a face full of regret. "The company has another emergency. I have to go sort it out. I'll be back to stay with you soon."

Rose shot her hand up and clamped down hard on his wrist, the last flicker of strained, desperate hope glowing in her eyes.

"Can you stay? My head still hurts so bad... I just need you here with me."

A faint, almost unnoticeable furrow dug into Chris' brow. Irritation edged his voice as he wrenched his hand free from her grip.

"Rose, don't be childish. Work can't wait."

He turned on his heel and strode out, his posture unyielding and final, not a single trace of hesitation or lingering affection in his step.

Rose ripped the IV needle out of her hand right away and slipped after him, silent as a shadow.

There, in the emergency exit at the end of the hospital corridor, Kaye's figure stood waiting plain as day.

Chris stormed forward and grabbed Kaye's wrist hard. Rage and sharp, cold dread burned in his eyes, his voice low and strained with barely contained fury.

"Are you out of your mind? Who told you to hire someone to crash into her?!"

Kaye's eyes flushed red, and tears spilled down her cheeks instantly. Her voice was broken and crazed, thick with bitter jealousy and rage.

"You made me do this! You turned me into this! I'm jealous of her, I can't accept this! Why are you marrying her? Why did you make me get rid of our baby just for her?!"

Chris' face went ice-cold, his voice worn thin and final. "I'll sign the non-prosecution agreement for the driver, and this whole thing will get buried. But that's it, Kaye. Us. It's over. We never see each other again."

"You're lying!" Kaye sobbed, her voice cracking with despair. "You love me! I know you do! Why won't you tell her the truth? Why won't you leave her and give me the honest, proper place I deserve!"

"Enough." Chris looked away, his voice flat and cold. "Rose is my fiancée. Our wedding is right around the corner, and I gave her my word. There's no changing that."

His words came out hard and firm, but the conflict and longing in his eyes shone through clear as day, like he was just trying to force himself to believe his own words.

Kaye stared hard at him, her voice thick with sobs as she pressed, "If... if I was the one who met you first, if I was the one who stayed by your side instead of her... would you have married me?"

The wind in the corridor went dead silent. Rose froze where she hid outside the exit, her heart seized up and stopped cold in her chest.

A long, stretching moment passed.

She watched Chris' thin lips part, and he spoke the word slowly, sharp, and completely clear, "Yes."

That single word crushed the last shred of lingering obsession and hope Rose had left to dust.

She had never seen Chris look like this before. Unspoken, raging love and agony swam in his eyes, every inch of him focused on Kaye, his whole heart wrapped up in her. He only held himself back because he was trapped by duty and a promise of marriage.

That's when it clicked. He wasn't naturally gentle and faithful. He just didn't love her.

Kaye had deliberately hurt her and nearly killed her, crossed every moral line and broken the law, and yet Chris was perfectly willing to cover for her, to forgive her without a single question.

But think back to before, when she'd lost one measly, unimportant work file. He'd given her the cold shoulder for a whole week. It wasn't until she'd begged and pleaded and wrote him a written guarantee that he'd finally, grudgingly let it go.

The difference between being loved and being unloved couldn't be more stark, it's night and day, worlds apart.

With the broken, muffled sound of Kaye's sobs still behind her, Rose couldn't force herself to stay another second. She turned on shaking legs and stumbled away, her heart completely hollowed out, barren and empty.

It was well past midnight before Chris stepped back into her hospital room.

The second he walked through the door, he leaned down and wrapped his arms around Rose where she lay on the bed, his voice dripping with forced softness and a practiced pout.

"Why did you lie down alone without waiting for me? I've been worried sick this whole time. You're being bad."

The faint, unmistakable scent of Kaye's perfume clung to him, curling right into Rose's nose. A wave of crippling nausea and bone-deep exhaustion crashed over her, and she lifted a hand and shoved him away hard, no hesitation at all.

She lifted her gaze to the man she'd loved for years, and there wasn't a trace of warmth left in her eyes, nothing but cold, dead calm.

"Chris. We're done."