Exposing the Charade of Deep Affection (PDF)
Chapter 6

Chapter 6 We Have No Proof

After saying that, he got in the car and drove off.

It took me a few seconds to realize that he was angry.

I did nothing but thank him. What did that have to do with whether we were married or not?

I didn't bother to dwell too much on it. Instead, I went back to the office and continued working overtime. Now that my father was ill, I supposed that things would begin to pile up at the Conner Group, and I would soon be busy.

I reached the Conner Group's office.

No sooner had I reached the door than I heard giggling from inside.

As I opened the door, Rachel Martin, who was sitting on the couch holding a tablet and watching idol TV series, looked up at me. At the sight of me, she put down the tablet and pushed the lunch box on the coffee table to me. "Where have you been? Didn't we say I'd bring you lunch today? The food is cold."

I sat down next to her, opened the lunch box, and said as I ate, "My dad is hospitalized. I went to the hospital."

She frowned. "Rudolf is hospitalized? What's wrong?"

"Advanced liver cancer." I opened my mouth and found it difficult to swallow the food.

"Advanced liver cancer? How so?" Rachel paused and looked at me. "You..."

"I'm fine." Afraid that she might say something sappy, I beat her to it. I said, "People die every day. You and I will die someday, too. It is only a matter of time."

She clicked her tongue, moved her butt, got closer to me, and said, "Stop it. I'm not going to comfort you. I'm just saying that at this point, you should get along well with Rudolf and stop quarreling about what happened back then."

I pressed my lips and lost my appetite. I put down the fork, leaned back on the couch, and stared at the ceiling. "Does it really not matter what the truth is?"

She sighed, "If only we could replace the man who took you away that year so that he could tell the police that you and he did not elope, but he picked you up at the station in the name of Ashley and lured you to the border. Yet now he is nowhere to be found, and we've got no proof at all. What can we do?"

We had no proof.

Five years ago, I was eighteen, and I graduated from high school. Because I yearned for South Afeoria, I applied for Deston City University, where Ashley was studying as a postgraduate, with full expectations. On my enrollment day, Rudolf was busy with work, and Eileen was also busy, as she had to attend to a sick elder in the family, so they asked Ashley, who was in Deston City, to pick me up at the station. Yet instead of Ashley, a swarthy man came to pick me up. He said that he was sent there by Ashley and asked me to go with him.

Of course, I wouldn't go with him. Yet Ashley called me, saying that she was tied up at school and could not leave. She told me to follow him and that he'd take care of me.

That day, the man claimed that he wanted to familiarize me with Deston City, so he took me around Deston City for a long time, and we ate a lot of tasty food. I figured that he was Ashley's friend, so I let my guard down. When he asked me to go with him to the hotel to get something, I went with him without thinking, not noticing the remoteness of the hotel at all.

It was exactly because I took the initiative to walk into the hotel. When something happened to me later, everyone felt that I was easy. They figured that I deserved it more or less.

"Tabatha, you really don't remember what happened to you in the hotel?" Rachel interrupted my thoughts and looked at me. "Back then, when your parents and I found and went to the hotel, the owner said tha you had been lying in the room with that man for several days. And when you left, you were even carried by that man. The owner said you were so easy at such a young age.......”

There was no surveillance or recordings of what had happened, and everything was confirmed by other people's words. I pressed my lips, replaceing it hard to defend myself. I looked at her and said, "I was unconscious after we entered the hotel."

She sighed helplessly, "The police have been looking over and over and still can't replace any proof backing up your story. They can't prove that it's Ashley and that man who deliberately lurked you. There's no call history on her phone, and you lost your phone. The point is that the guy ran off, and there's no evidence that Ashley crossed paths with him before. More importantly, what was her motive?" What was her motive?

I shook my head. "That's what I am confused about, too. We have been sisters for 18 years. I didn't get it. Why would she do that?"

"Maybe... the Conner Group?" Rachel looked at me. She said seriously, "Your parents have only two daughters, you and Ashley, and a business as big as the Conner Group will certainly be yours in the future. In fact, I always think that your parents are closer to you. When you guys are together, Ashley is always like an outsider. Perhaps she wants to get rid of you so that when your parents die, the company will be hers alone."

Could that be the reason?

I pursed my lips, pondered for a moment, and said, "If she is that ambitious, why has she been out of the office for so many years?"

Rachel shrugged. "Beats me."

Since I couldn't figure it out, I stopped pondering. I looked at her and said, "Thank you for lunch."

She tutted and frowned. "You are asking me to leave so soon? I barely got here. You're the most realistic person I've ever seen."

I smiled, "What else do you want to talk about?”

She blinked and sat next to me. "Tabatha, I've never asked you this. In the six months after you were taken to the border, was it true that you were forced into the red-light district as Ashley said?"