The Devil's Favourite Obsession

Emily looked at her as though she had just said the most innocent and foolish thing imaginable. ”Even if he were married, he would still sleep around.”

Cixi’s jaw dropped. For several seconds, all she could do was stare at Emily, because the bluntness of the statement had struck her harder than the accusation itself. ”Are you telling me,” she asked slowly, trying to keep her temper from snapping, ”that I would allow Rafael to come near me?”

”He convinced you to drive with him,” Emily accused at once, as though that single fact was enough to build an entire case against Cixi’s character.

Cixi felt something hot rise inside her chest. Emily had ignored her calls, ignored her messages, left her to manage alone in a Palace placed so far from the city that even taxi drivers looked offended when asked to come here, and now she stood there accusing Cixi of accepting the only help available at that moment.

If Emily thought she could throw baseless suspicions at Cixi and expect her to quietly swallow them, then she had come to the wrong pregnant woman.

”Because you were not available,” Cixi shot back, stepping closer with her pregnancy belly as her irritation finally overpowered her restraint. ”Your family built this Palace in the middle of nowhere, Emily. There is no proper transport here. Do you know how much I have to pay whenever I come here? I have to pay extra because the driver has to return without a passenger. And what was I supposed to do when Rafael was ready to take me? Stand outside and wait for the trees to grow wheels? Or was I supposed to construct a cart and buy buffaloes to pull it? If you had answered my calls, I would have asked you for help, but no, you wanted to prove how stubborn you are by cutting all ties with me.”

Emily opened her mouth, but Cixi lifted a finger before she could interrupt.

”And stop talking about Rafael as though I am waiting for him to knock on my door. My heart is only for Cassian, and only him!” Cixi stated, stressing each word while looking directly into Emily’s eyes. Her own face burned the moment the confession left her mouth, yet she refused to take it back. If Emily wanted to accuse her, then she could at least hear the truth clearly. ”You came here to complain about them, but instead of focusing on your own problem, you are complaining about me when I have done nothing wrong.”

Emily’s expression sharpened, but beneath the anger, Cixi saw exhaustion. It softened nothing. If anything, it made Cixi more frustrated because Emily was not a weak woman. She was capable, intelligent, proud, and more than stubborn enough to terrify half the people around her.

”You came for consolation,” Cixi continued, her voice still heated but no longer careless. ”Fine. Then let me give you consolation. Fight for your rights. Stop working and let them handle the crisis.”

Emily stared at her with disbelief.

Cixi did not know much about running a company, and she would never pretend otherwise. She worked at a cafe. She knew coffee machines, rude customers, aching feet, late rent, and how to survive with very little money. But if Emily truly had been handling everything as she claimed, then that meant she had more power than she was allowing herself to see.

”If you are the one keeping everything from falling apart, then stop holding it together for free,” Cixi added. ”And ask your assistant to take time off too. She must be the only person who knows how you work. Let them feel what happens when both of you step away.”

Emily looked genuinely stunned. For once, no immediate insult came out of her mouth.

Then she scoffed, though the sound lacked its usual strength. ”Do you think I have not thought about that? People are replaceable, pregnant girl.”

”Ah,” Cixi murmured, understanding arriving with sharp clarity. ”So that is why you are here.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed. ”What is that supposed to mean?”

”You are angry at yourself because you do not know how to make the situation work in your favour. You are not really asking me for advice because you think I am cleverer than you. You are angry because a girl who works at a cafe cannot possibly give you an idea you have not already considered.”

For a moment, Emily said nothing. Her face remained proud, but her eyes shifted, and Cixi knew she had struck somewhere close to the truth.

”Are you looking down on yourself?” Emily asked suddenly. ”Keep doing that, and soon you will want to jump from a building.”

Cixi bit the inside of her cheek so hard that pain shot through her mouth. The response rose inside her before she could stop it, bitter and dangerous. She wanted to tell Emily that she already had. Not once, but twice.

She wanted to tell her that the world had not even allowed her the dignity of dying properly, because instead she had been given immortality and cursed to witness murder again and again. But those words remained locked behind her teeth.

Emily did not know. Emily could not know. And Cixi had already learned that some truths were so terrible they became useless when spoken aloud.

So she swallowed the ache and forced herself to breathe.

”Sometimes your words remind me of Cassian,” she muttered.

Emily scoffed immediately, pride returning as though it had only been waiting for a chance. ”He might have copied me.”

Cixi blinked. ”I am sure he is older than you.”

”And yet I was the one handling the company,” Emily announced, lifting her chin with shameless certainty. ”Mentally, I am more mature than him.”

Cixi stared at her.

The confidence was so unreasonable that, despite herself, she almost laughed.

While Cixi and Emily continued arguing in the room, Cassian had heard enough from where he sat, out of their sight. Most of their conversation had not interested him. Emily’s complaints, Cixi’s irritation, the family’s business troubles, all of it moved past him without leaving much behind.

But one name refused to pass.

Rafael.

Cassian remained still, his face unreadable, while the sound of that name settled somewhere cold inside him. Cixi had said her heart belonged only to him. He had heard that too. Yet the reassurance did not fully remove the irritation brought by Rafael’s presence in her conversation, her defence of him, and the fact that she had once been alone with him in his car.

His gaze darkened slightly. Rafael was becoming far too frequent in Cixi’s life.