Cree grasped Qiao Ruo's hand firmly to ease her nervousness as he travelled back to drop her off at the office.
"I'll be late tonight," she informed him.
He didn't let go of her hand and taunted her playfully. "I hope I can have my answer tonight."
"Brother Ye!"
She turned red as she saw Yueling headed their way, having finished lunch at the cafe downstairs. Did Yueling know Cree?
"Mei," he greeted, and to her surprise, he smiled amiably. Apart from when he was with her, Qiao Ruo had yet to witness such a genuinely happy smile from Cree. It signified the girl was no ordinary friend to Cree, contradictory to what he had told her. Cree hardly smiled when he was out with her, and the fact that he had smiled when he was not Ye Qi, made her uneasy.
Suddenly she recalled having heard that nickname before. 'Mei' was the person he had greeted over the phone when she was almost naked with him, and he had told 'Mei' that he was busy and didn't have time.
It turned out 'Mei' was such a young and pretty girl, and it made her green-eyed with envy. What if after she left the company and Cree took over, he and Yueling spent much time in the office together doing overtime work? If it reached the point where they were both bare and needy, would he have slept with her?
She flushed away her weird thoughts. She didn't want to think about the possibilities of Cree with Yueling at that moment, and dashed into the building, shielding her teary eyes with her sleeve.
Qiao Ruo bawled her eyes out. Though she acknowledged she was acting possessive about Cree, Qiao Ruo hadn't expected to be facing a rival so quickly, and a competitor that appeared to be younger and prettier than she was!
Her thoughts were disrupted abruptly by a few knocks on the door. "Who is it?" she called out.
"Ruo-jie (Sister Ruo), are you alright?"
At that juncture, Qiao Ruo had wished she could take her anger and frustrations out on the girl who was enquiring the obvious, but reminded herself that she was in her workplace and she had to behave most professionally. She calmed herself by taking a few deep breaths and counted to ten, before walking out of the toilet.
She didn't want the girl to realize she had just cried like a baby, so said she caught some bug, and was all of a sudden, feeling sick. One more week, she told herself, and she would depart this place. But why was she now reluctant to leave?
"I'll go to the employee resting room," she said. "Can you work on your own?"
.................................................................................
Hours later, while everyone returned to their respective homes, Qiao Ruo was still burdened with tasks that she had set the tightest deadlines by which she had to have completed. Work was strenuous and overwhelming, and she realized she needed to take a break to preserve her sanity.
She wasn't interested in thinking what Cree was up to after she had seen him smile to Yueling and as being not in the right state of mind, she immediately switched off her phone and hailed a taxi to one of the most bustling bars downtown, the Standard Bar.
Her heart throbbed in her contemplation that Cree might have been childhood lovers with Yueling, and perhaps she had just been a companion. Although they had physical intimacy with each other, it bothered her how indifferent he was with Yueling. He had dropped his icy-cold demeanour just at the mere sight of her. She wanted to be unique to him, but with Yueling around, she just felt like an extra. She was like a film star who had lost the limelight to a rookie star. An aura of hopelessness lingered about her. She was defeated.
