His s*x Tape Exposed, I Leave Him

Chapter 5

The words had barely left Rose's mouth when the smile on Chris's face froze solid. "Rose, don't make stupid jokes. You know where my line is drawn."

He'd made that rule clear right from the start of their relationship that no matter how angry they got at each other, they would never throw the word 'breakup' around out of spite.

"I'm not joking," Rose said, her voice heavy with exhaustion. "I know everything. What you and Kaye did."

The second she finished speaking, dead silence swallowed the bedroom, so thick you could have heard a pin drop onto the floor.

After what felt like an eternity, Chris slowly pulled away from her, putting a sliver of space between them. Darkness pooled in his eyes, so thick and stormy you could almost feel the rain coming down.

"Did she put a bunch of nonsense in your head? Rose, don't believe a single word that b***h says!"

Rose's fingers went white at the tips. "Chris, are you really going to keep lying to my face?" She lunged across the room, flipped the laptop open and jabbed at the trackpad, frantic to pull up the explicit video of him and Kaye that the website had hosted.

But the second the link loaded, she froze, completely stunned.

The entire Animal World website had been wiped clean. Nothing was left at all, nothing but a big 'content removed' notice staring back at her.

"That's impossible! It was still here yesterday!" she blurted.

Chris' face stayed perfectly calm. He looked at her like she was a delusional patient, his gaze thick with pity.

"Rose, I know you've been on edge lately, so I was willing to write this off as you just messing around. No matter what you think you saw or heard, that wasn't me. I never cheated on you."

Rose's face drained of all color, and she stared at Chris like she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Of course. He'd done this. Only he had the power to pull strings and get the whole site taken down.

"Why do you even keep putting on this act for me?" Her throat burned, and a sharp squeezing pain clamped down around her heart, stealing her breath. "I got hit by a car. I almost lost both my life and my baby's. Didn't you even care at all? And I know Kaye was behind the hit. I'm definitely going to the police."

"You shouldn't suspect Kaye." A cold glint flickered in his eyes, and his voice snapped with sudden anger. "Kaye's just a little wild, but she would never do anything to hurt you! Rose, I'm disappointed that you'd slander your own best friend like this!"

Disappointed?

Where was his consideration for her crippling despair when he cheated on her behind her back with Kaye?

Rose drew a deep, shaky breath. "Chris, I'm breaking up with you, no question about it. Let's split cleanly and part on good terms."

In an instant, Chris' features iced over, sharp as chilled dagger steel. He snapped his fingers and called in two burly bodyguards, who quickly bound Rose.

"Rose, just calm down. I'll stay home with you these next few days."

"Chris, what the hell are you doing? This is illegal detention!"

"So, what if it is?" Chris let out a cold, mocking snort. "This is way better than letting you run off and make a fool of yourself out there!"

Ignoring Rose's frantic, thrashing struggles, he forced her into the bedroom and locked her inside.

He even skipped going to the company entirely, doing all his work from home just to keep Rose under constant 24-hour surveillance. He fed her every meal by hand, and even insisted on accompanying her to the bathroom.

Rose's heart ached until it went completely numb, and sheer hatred for his cruel, overbearing control burned hotter and hotter inside her.

Then Chris' phone vibrated nonstop. Irritated beyond belief, he tossed the device aside and stormed off to his study.

But before he left, Rose caught a clear glimpse of the messages glowing on the screen, every single one was from Kaye.

Kaye: Chris, are you really going to be this heartless to me?

Kaye: Fine. If you insist on pushing me this far, don't you dare try to control who I see from now on!

Right at that moment, a push notification popped up on the screen, a live stream reminder from the 'Animal World' website.

Rose tapped the notification as fast as she could, and that's when she realized the site hadn't been taken down. It had just moved to a new domain.

Right there on the stream was Kaye, wearing a sleek fox mask, and right behind her stood a man in a white cat mask.

Kaye's voice purred through the screen, "Mr. Rabbit doesn't want me anymore, so I've found a new partner for the night. Let's hope we both have a good time." She wrapped her arms around the man's waist and pulled him into a hungry kiss.

It didn't take long before the two were tangled together, too caught up in each other to pull apart.

A deafening sound of shattering glass exploded from the study.

The next second, Chris burst through the door, yelling over his shoulder, "Rose, you stay here! I have an emergency. I have to go out right now!"

Rose watched him sprint away wildly, her heart leaping straight into her throat.

The moment she lunged to follow him, the two bodyguards guarding the doorway stepped straight into her path.

"Sir Chris gave orders. You can't leave!"

"Get out of my way!" She snatched the fruit knife off the nearby table and pressed its sharp blade hard against her own throat. "If you don't let me out, you'll be carrying my corpse out of this house!"

The two bodyguards exchanged a torn, uncertain glance. In the end, they had no choice but to step aside and let her pass.

Rose's car tore down the road, tracking Chris' location via GPS to catch up to him. Finally, it skidded to a stop right outside that villa gate.

Rose slipped inside the front door, and immediately heard the crash of fists hitting flesh and a sharp, panicked scream echoing from the living room.

There, she saw Chris. His fingers were clamped so tight around the white-cat-masked man's throat it looked like he would crush the life out of him right then and there.

"You bastard! How dare you seduce her? Go to hell!"

He was completely unhinged, gone was all the cool, calm restraint he always showed the world. Every blow he landed was meant to kill, he was so furious he'd have happily carved that white-cat-masked man into a thousand pieces.

Rose's chest seized, like an invisible hand had wrapped around her heart and squeezed until she couldn't draw a single breath.

Even when Chris had loved her more than anything, he'd never lost control like that. He'd always told her he would never solve problems with violence.

So that was the truth. He wasn't incapable of throwing all caution into the wind towards someone. It just had never been her that he'd lose his head over.

"Stop it! Don't hit him anymore!" Kaye scrambled forward, panic-stricken, and wrapped her arms tight around Chris' waist. "That's enough, Chris, stop this!"

Her touch soothed him enough to let him pull back. He snarled and shoved the white-cat-masked man away, then immediately crashed his mouth hard against Kaye's lip.

"Aren't you the one who threw me away?" Kaye laughed with a bitter, self-mocking laugh. "Weren't you going to cut all ties with me for good? So why do you care who I film with now?"

"I said no, and that's final!" Chris' eyes burned red with rage.

"What gives you the right? You already have Rose! Why on earth should I listen to you?"

Chris bit down hard on her lower lip, hard enough to draw blood. "Today I'm going to teach you exactly how to behave."

All the blood drained from Rose's face and ran cold in her veins. She didn't even notice when the cat-masked man came barreling out and crashed into her.

Outside, lightning split the sky, thunder rumbled, and a torrential downpour came crashing down.

But Chris and Kaye were so wrapped up in each other they didn't notice a thing, lost themselves in a frantic, passionate embrace.

Rose clapped her hands over her ears instantly. A childhood trauma had left her terrified of thunder, and every c***k of thunder made her whole body shake uncontrollably.

Once, a brutal storm rolled in. Chris had turned down a multi-million dollar cross-border project just to fly straight home and hold her through the night so she could sleep well.

But tonight the thunder was louder and angrier than it had ever been before. Goosebumps covered every inch of her skin. Yet Chris was completely lost in his pleasure with Kaye, completely oblivious to everything else.

Rose sank down against the doorway, knees pulled tight to her chest, and just watched them drown in their lust. Nothing was left in her chest but icy numbness.

After a long time, she stumbled out of the villa. She let rain and tears stream down her face together.

"Chris... if you'd just told me you wanted Kaye, I would have let you have her."

When they were kids, Kaye threw herself in front of a stone flying straight towards Chris' eye, saving him from permanent injury. When they grew up, it was Chris who saved her life, risking his own to give her one of his kidneys so she could survive. Those two debts of kindness had shackled her for years.

Looking back now, this endless, tangled mess of love and hate should have ended long ago. This time, she would step away voluntarily, to wipe out both debts completely and for good.

Rose dragged one foot in front of the other through the icy, lashing rain, numb all over, completely alone, all the way back to her cold, echoing empty house.