"What? You are at my door right now?" Rachel asked in surprise.
"Of course! Are you at home or not?" Lea spat.
Rachel pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at the time. It was 10 p.m.—too late for Lea to
be out of the house, at any rate. With a slight feeling of unease, she dropped the call, stood up, and
turned toward Jack. "I'll be right back. Wait for me."
After hanging up the phone, Rachel opened the wardrobe door and took out a suit of clothes. She bit
off the tag with her mouth and looked at Jack. "I need to change my clothes. Can you go out first?"
Jack didn't answer. All of a sudden, he dropped the towel on the table and said in a low voice, "Rachel,
why don't you tell Lea that you're here now and that you'll be living here in the future?"
He heard and understood the phone conversation between the two just now.
Rachel stopped what she was doing and looked up at him. "I...I haven't figured out how to tell her."
"That's just one sentence. How hard could it be?"
Lips pursed, she ducked her head slightly and said in an uncertain tone, "I don't know what to say.
Besides, it's really late, but Lea still came. She must have something to tell me, so I..."
She suddenly stopped, biting her lower lip in uncertainty.
After a while, Jack said, "You don't need to change your clothes. I'll pick Lea up and bring her here."
The sound-controlled light in the corridor would go out every five minutes, so Lea kept stomping her
feet from time to time to keep it turned on.
Even though it was early winter, many mosquitoes kept buzzing in Lea's ears.
Regardless of her own feelings, Lea held Rita in one hand and swatted at the mosquitoes with the
other. She muttered, "Why hasn't Rachel come back yet? It's been so long."
She was considering whether to find a hotel along the street when she heard the "Ding" of the elevator.
Even before the elevator doors had slid open, she exclaimed, "Rachel, you're finally back. I've been
waiting for a long time!"
Her eyes suddenly widened in disbelief. "Jack? Why are you here? If you're here to see Rachel, she
hasn't come back yet.
This isn't too bad, at least now I have someone to wait here with me."
Jack did not reply. He only glanced at Lea briefly and reached out take Rita, who had fallen asleep on
her shoulder.
"Hey! You..." Lea was about to interrogate him loudly when she saw him place an index finger against
his lips and walked back into the elevator. She followed close behind and asked in a harsh whisper,
"What the hell are you doing?"
Jack replied, "I'm here to pick you up. Rachel is with me."
Lea frowned slightly. "Why is she with you?"
However, the question was like a rock that dropped into the sea, sinking to the bottom without a splash.
Without another word, Lea followed Jack, who drove her to another community. As soon as they
arrived, Lea saw Rachel, who was standing at the door and bending down to take some slippers off the
shoe cabinet. She walked up to her and yelled, "Rachel, what's wrong with you? You told me that you
were at home, but as it turned out, you were at Jack's house! Tell me the truth—what's going on?"
Rita was awakened by her voice. Her eyes weren't even fully opened when she started wailing.
"Can't you lower your voice?" Jack glanced at her impatiently and walked toward the baby's room while
patting Rita on the back to coax her back to asleep.
With a puzzled look on her face, Lea pointed at Jack's retreating back and asked in disbelief, "Is he
really Jack?"
He didn't look like the arrogant CEO anymore.
Lea stroked her chin in bemusement and suddenly asked, "Do you think he wants to be a dad?"
"Ha-ha!"
Rachel burst out laughing so hard that she choked on her own saliva. In between coughs to clear her
throat, she gasped out, "You think too much."
He probably was still angry with her.
Rachel thought about it after Jack left her alone in the house. If she were him, she would probably be
even angrier than he was right now.
Lea stared in the direction of the baby's room for a while and then slowly approached Rachel. "What's
going on?" she asked. "I think Jack is being very strange today."
The words were barely out of her mouth when the man walked out of the baby's room. He glanced at
Lea indifferently and said, "Rita is asleep. Be quiet."
Then, he turned around and walked to the study.
"It's like he's a different person," Lea continued. "What happened between the two of you? Rachel,
don't even try to lie to me."
A corner of Rachel's mouth twitched. 'She came to find me in the middle of the night just to gossip?'
"Don't talk about me. Tell me why you're looking for me this late at night," she said.
"Oh, I almost forgot."
Lea slapped her own forehead and said with a grimace, "Rachel, can we live with you?"
Rachel stared at the other woman. "What? You ran away from home?"
She thought that it was a joke, but then Lea nodded her head seriously.
Lea gulped down two glasses of water and said, "I had a horrible fight with Henry, so I left home with
Rita. Rachel, you're the only one that could help me out. You won't be so cruel as to turn me and Rita
away, will you?"
Frowning, Rachel asked, "Why did you quarrel with each other? You've only been back to Ninwell City
for a few days."
"That son of a bitch! I was so blind when I married him!" Lea was so angry that she kept cursing.
She had always been more eloquent than Rachel and could scold people for a long time.
Rachel poured some water into a cup and handed the cup to Lea as soon as the other woman stopped
her tirade to gasp for breath. "Take it easy, and stop cursing. You'd better tell me the reason, or I'll kick
you out as soon as possible."
Lea choked while sipping her water. Her face turned red and pointed at Rachel in disbelief. "Rachel,
you've changed!"
"People can't always stay the same, right?" Rachel quipped with a shrug.
With a sigh, Lea put down the cup and said, "Since my return to Ninwell City, Henry has started going
out daily to drink with his friends. He never comes back before two o'clock in the morning.
Every time he gets home, I smell alcohol all over his body, and he speaks so loudly that he ends up
waking Rita up.
Rita is such an angel during daytime, but she could be quite a handful at night. She never falls asleep
easily. Naturally, I couldn't sleep, either.
I really can't stand it anymore, so I finally took Rita away."
That time, Jack overheard their conversation. After hearing the reason, he took out his phone to call
Henry to fetch Lea and Rita. Bu then, the device suddenly started ringing just as he was about to place
the call.
As soon as he picked up the call, Henry, on the other end, asked in an anxious voice, "Is Rachel with
you?"
Taking his time, Jack crossed his legs and lit a cigarette. Then, he asked indifferently, "Why do you
care about my woman?"
Henry had no idea that Jack was teasing him and thought that the other man misunderstood him. He
was so anxious that he ended up stumbling over his words. "I'm not really looking for Rachel.
I'm looking for Lea and Rita. When I came back, she was not home anymore. I found the note she left.
She's gone."
"What's on the note?" Jack asked.
"It says, 'I'm running away from home.'" With a helpless look on his face, Henry rubbed his forehead
and said, "I called Rachel, but she didn't answer it. You're the only other person I could ask."
Jack stood up and opened the door of the study. He looked toward the direction of the living room and
saw that both Rachel and Lea weren't there. They must have gone to the master bedroom.
He said indifferently, "Both your wife and daughter are here. Do you want to come and pick them up?"
After a moment's silence, Henry said, "In that case, let's talk about it tomorrow. I have a dinner party
tonight, and I have to go out to dinner."
Jack frowned upon hearing the bitter laugh from the other end.
During this period, Jack and his friends were all busy with their own affairs. It'd been a year since the
four of them last met; there was always one person who couldn't make it for one reason or the other.
Henry was the one with the fewest appearances.
Jack asked, "What are you busy with?"
"I'm currently working on a project that couldn't be signed immediately. The client usually requires a jar
of wine when we meet up. Every time, he says that he would talk about business at the table, but he
always ends up not talking about it."
"Did he like the wine that you sent him?"
"Maybe. I had no choice."
Jack wanted to ask Henry to see if he could somehow help out, but then, the voices from the master
bedroom started escalating, and the content of their conversation had become more outrageous.
His face darkened.
So he didn't have the chance to say anything further. He hurriedly hung up the phone, stood by the
door of the master bedroom, and said slowly, "Lea, it's getting late. I'll drive you back."
It would be wise to keep her at an arm's length from Rachel from now on. How could a woman, who
was already a mother of a child, instill such thoughts into someone else so carelessly?
He didn't want to interrupt the conversation between the two women, but he heard Lea's voice clearly
saying, "Men before marriage are totally different from how they are after they marry. Hey, we women
can also make money, and being single is a lot more chic and liberating than being tied to someone.
Why do we have to marry men? We have to take care of them and give birth to their children. Why do
we have to suffer like this? If we really want a child, we might as well just go to an orphanage and
adopt one!"
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