Jackson remembered Tiffany’s instructions before he left the house. “That’s enough. Stop drinking. This is exactly how Eric f*cked up his health, drinking too much from a young age. At the rate you’re going, you’ll be sent to the hospital for intestinal bleeding before morning.”Mark ignored him and continued drinking, as if alcohol was the only way to numb his mental state. That way, he wouldn’t feel so bad.Jackson was panicking, scratching his head. After a while, he secretly sent Arianne a message when Mark had drunk himself into a stupor: ‘He’s going to collapse from all of this drinking if you don’t come now. You aren’t completely innocent in this either. Is it that hard to apologize? Mark isn’t completely unreasonable, you know. You’re living together, you’ll have to patch things up sooner or later.’Arianne was still awake. She got up and changed her clothes when she saw the message, then asked Jackson for the address to the bar. She would pick him up. It wasn’t her first ti
Jackson was so close to letting loose a flurry of his worst swears. Arianne was fast approaching, for Christ’s sake! What would happen if she took in the full glory of this debacle?!Janice feigned struggling to free herself, but it only looked more like she was courting more of it. “Oh, Mr. Tremont! You’re drunk, aren’t you? Have you gotten into another tiff with your wife again?”Just mentioning Arianne turned Mark’s frustration up to eleven. “Urgh, can we not mention her? What, you think I don’t know how far you’ve gone to get near me? Oh, so you’re doing all this just because you wanna ‘repay’ me? Gimme a break. Just because I don’t wanna be a lady’s man doesn’t mean I don’t know what you women are like. I mean, if I’m being honest, you’re not exactly the bottom choice, either. I mean, your presence would piss her off, but other than that, you’re… alright…”Of course, Janice was well aware that Mark had zero genuine feelings for her—the drunken man saw her as a prop to get back
Arianne scowled at Janice and replied tartly, “Well, I must go for the two of you to get on with each other, right? I know you’re itching to see me leave anyway, so get out of my face before that itch in your coochie runs out of steam.”Janice turned blistering red in rage. “You and your b*tch mouth—!”Arianne was at zero patience with her, so she shoved Janice aside. The latter’s tray tilted, and the boiling tea she was holding poured out and scalded the back of Arianne’s hand.The woman winced. “You tw—!”Janice’s relish of that snap vengeance was practically shining out of her eyes. “Hell no, you’re the one who pushed me, b*tch! You can’t pin this on me for what you did to yourself, can you? Ugh, thanks to you, I’ll have to remake that tea for Mr. Tremont again, but I guess this is what you want, right? You want me to take good care of Mr. Tremont—it’s what you explicitly said, anyway—so chill and go home. I’ll definitely take good care of him in more ways than you could ever!”
Jackson exhausted all of his strength to lug that mess of a man back to White Water Bay Villa. Right off the bat, Tiffany caught the commotion and clambered down the stairs before exclaiming, “Holy crap, how did he end up here? Where’s Ari? What, she gave up?”Jackson slumped onto the couch and replied between heavy pants, “Urgh, don’t mention it! I’m out of ideas and I don’t know what to do, man, so let’s just… do whatever we can for now. Help me clean up a room for Mark for the night, mmkay?”Tiffany was just about to go when Mark suddenly slurred groggily, “How could you be so heartless, Arianne? How?”His voice was soft, but Tiffany caught it, and immediately, a glare befell her. “What did he say? ‘Heartless?’ Wow, gotta’ love how some people have such low self-awareness that they could point fingers at others!”Jackson’s head was throbbing at the advent of more chaos. “No, no, no! You stop right now and don’t add fuel to the fire, please! Who the hell would argue with a wasted
The first thing Arianne saw after entering through the door was a towering silhouette playfully lifting Smore.Mark had returned. He had decided not to work today.Arianne wanted to go past him and up the stairs, but her conscience persuaded her to not do anything that could signal to Smore about the fracture in their relationship. After some slight hesitance, she approached him and asked, “Not working today?”Mark froze for a beat before placing Smore down on the floor, not looking at her once. He did not reply to her either. He just went straight upstairs and went into his study.Arianne drew in a quick breath. Mark did not think the way she did, after all—while she was open to negotiations and cooperation for their son, it was not at all a concern to him. It was moments like these that made Arianne feel lucky that Smore was too young to understand the crack in his parents’ relationship. In fact, the innocent boy was now spreading his arms wide at her, asking for a cuddle.Arian
He walked away before she could say another word. This time, he drove his car away straight away. Was living under the same roof with her so unbearable for him?She didn’t think that loaning Will money would have caused such heavy consequences. She didn’t regret giving Will the loan, but she regretted opting against trusting Mark and not talking to him about it beforehand. Her initial plan was to avoid conflict, but it blew up in her face in the end.After a long pause, Mary pushed the door open and entered the study, holding Aristotle. She found Arianne, still standing in her spot, with tears in her eyes and knew that the matter wouldn’t be settled so easily this time. “Ari… Why did Mr. Tremont leave again?”Arianne laughed amidst her tears. “He said that he’s fed up, fed up… Hehe… All I did was give Will a lone without telling him. I was afraid that it’d bother him. I don’t know what he’s thinking, I really don’t… Wasn’t he holding some other woman in a bar, looking for fun too? I
Arianne’s mind was whirling with possibilities of Mark’s current situation as the elevator climbed upstairs. Perhaps he would refuse to see her later. She wasn’t prepared for any of this.The elevator arrived at the 46th floor. Once the elevator went off with a “ding,” the doors opened.She took a deep breath, puffed out her chest, and walked out. She tried to avoid looking dispirited as much as possible.Davy was still at work. He panicked when he saw her. “Mrs. Tremont, what are you doing here? Mr. Tremont is…”Arianne paused in her footsteps. “Do I have to change my shoes?”Davy shook his head. “No, no, no. No need. Go right in, you can just go right in!”Something felt strange to her, but she couldn’t be bothered to over analyze. She pushed the door open. Aside from the air-conditioning, there was a strong smell of alcohol in the air. Mark never drank at work…Her breath caught in her throat when she saw Mark on the couch with Janice. Based on Janice’s work clothes, she was
Janice shot her a glare and followed her out of the elevator. She waited for the elevator doors to close then hissed, “Do you know why Mr. Tremont adopted you? Because his mother killed your father. That’s all. He was just kind enough to prevent you from becoming a beggar on the street. He has been taking care of you for so many years, so he doesn’t owe you a thing now. I’m sure you’re not aware of this, are you?”Arianne’s pupils dilated. She whirled around and grabbed Janice by the collar. “What did you say? Who told you that?”Janice panicked at first then remembered that there was no one around, so she pushed Arianne away. “You didn’t know? Mr. Tremont mentioned this to Jackson at the bar last night, and I accidentally overheard. I’ve heard that your father caused that plane crash because he was piloting the Tremonts’ private plane while drunk. Now, it seems that there was a secret behind it all. You know the truth now. Are you still going to be with the son of the murderer of yo