Face to face with the mistress...."Hmm..Uh...when next are you coming to see me?"
"I can"t see you as often since my daughter is now living with me. I don"t want her know about you as of yet."
Zhu Na pouted her red lips at the man who was just leaving her apartment.
"When are you going to tell her about us?"
"Soon Zhu Na, very soon. I don"t know whose temper is worse between her and my mother! If she had her way we would have long since exchange fists. Let"s take it easy for now, Hmm?"
The woman kept clinging to the man, while pestering him to tell his daughter about their relations.h.i.+p. Her ample figure pressed against his arms, in the see through red lingerie that she wore.
"I have been waiting all these years Sheng Jinzhe, I"m not getting any younger."
"Give me more time to think about it."
"How long do I have to wait this time?"
Sheng Jinzhe let out a sigh in exasperation, he suddenly felt very tired from pleading with his mistress to give him time to come up with a solution to their relations.h.i.+p.
"What is it? Is what I"m asking too much for you? it"s been seventeen years going to eighteen years now, since our relations.h.i.+p became serious! If I had married and given birth at that time, then my child should be about entering university! You keep giving me excuses that you were married! Fine at that time be began seeing each other in secret you were, but what about now! All these years it was either you were waiting for your mother to agree to our marriage or your in-laws had not given you a go ahead to get married, which I find very ridiculous. I understand your mother needing time to consider our marriage, but what has your dead wife"s family got to do with you remarrying?!"
"Zhu Na! Watch what you say!"
This time, the woman gave up the pretense of pleading with her lover, as she grabbed onto the front of his coat.
"Sheng Jinzhe! You think you can play around with me and not give serious thought into settling down! You better think again!"
"Who is fooling around? Me? Listen here Zhu Na! I am tired to putting up with all this! You keep pressuring me! Fine! I don"t want to remarry! The thought of you letting yourself go after we get married is unbearable to me!"
"Who is letting what go? Because your wife chose to stop being attractive to you, doesn"t necessarily mean I would do the same. Moreover, have you considered that I may not want a child?!"
"Wait a minute! Didn"t you just complain about if you had married your child would have been around eighteen years old?"
"Sheng Jinzhe! Stop putting words in my mouth! You had two children, but now left with just one! What is wrong with having one of my own! I"m not asking for two or three children, I only need just one! You know how difficult it can be to raise a child alone, that is why I haven"t been pressuring you of late for us to have one of our own!"
Zhu Na spat out the anger that had been simmering inside of her, she couldn"t understand why Sheng Jinzhe was being difficult about starting a family together.
"I don"t want to talk about this now, Liena is almost at the age when she would get married, once she ties the knot, we can finally get married and have the house to ourselves! You don"t want to be head to head with your step daughter do you?!"
Sheng Jinzhe may have sounded reasonable, but Zhu Na was already tired of waiting for him to propose to her and move into his house. She could count on her finger tips the number of times she had been at his house. His excuse was that he didn"t want her to sleepover because the maid could report it to his mother, which Zhu Na found very exasperating.
"For goodness sake they were grown already, why did he have to fear his mother finding out about them?"
The thought raced through the mind of the woman, she wasn"t looking happy at all!
"Are you certain of when she would be getting married?! Sheng Jinzhe! You have never considered what I wanted, you always a.s.sume rather than ask me!"
"Zhu Na! What do you want! Now I"m asking since you said I don"t give you much consideration!"
"Tell your daughter and mother-in-law about us!"
"What are you talking about?! My in-laws are dead!"
Zhu Na stared in disbelief at the man she had been with for all these year, how selfish he was towards her, it was a hard pill for her to swallow when the thought crossed her mind.
"So when were you going to tell me this?!"
"I"m sorry Zhu Na! Of recent a lot has been going on at home and at work. Please be more understanding."
"Now I"m being the difficult one here! Ha!"
There was no mistaking the laughter of mockery that escaped out of the woman"s mouth. Sheng Jinzhe held on to her, as though begging for forgiveness.
"I didn"t mean it that way! Wait! Where are you going?!"
The woman pulled away from her lover, who hurried to hold her back in his arms.
"Sheng Jinzhe, I am very disappointed in you! I"m the stupid person for believing that you would do the right thing and marry me. Maybe it is my punishment for going after a married man! Ha! I"m so stupid!"
"Zhu Na! Stop saying that!"
Tear silently ran down the cheeks of the woman who wore a lost look on her face. Sheng Jinzhe continued to hold her in his arms as his lover continued to cry.
"I promise to speak to mom about us, just give me more time."
Within her a sense of hopelessness evaded the mind of Zhu Na, not that she didn"t want to believe his words, but Sheng Jinzhe had not once given her a reason to trust him.
---------
At three in the afternoon, silver sedan made it into the home of Sheng Jinzhe, as a woman in red midriff dress got out of the car. Her copper red hair was styled to perfection. She had bold red nail polish on each finger, on both ear was a dangling gold earring. A pearl gold necklace rest between her cleavage. In no hurry whatsoever, placing one red pointed heel in front of the other. When Zhu Na got to the door, she pressed the doorbell, waiting for the door to be opened.
From the monitor in the living room, the maid saw who was at the door, she had seen the woman on few occasions at the house. She made her way to the door to let the visitor inside.
"Good afternoon Ms. Zhu."
"Good afternoon to you too."
The maid could detect a tone of hostility coming from the other woman, looking at her Ms Guo could smell trouble from the visitor.
"Are you here to see President Sheng?"
Wanting to appear cordial to the other woman, the maid had an impa.s.sive look on her face, which hide the dislike she felt for Zhu Na.
"Actually, I am not here to see Sheng Jinzhe."
A look of confusion came over the face of the maid, "If she wasn"t here to see President Sheng, then who else in this house could she have come to see?"
The maid kept looking at Zhu Na while thinking those things within her.
"Ms. Zhu, who are you here to see?"
"Haven"t you figured it out already?"
"Me?!"
Zhu Na stared at the maid as though she had lost her mind.
"How could it be you? Are you that special that I would leave work and drive all the way here?!"
"If it is not President Sheng nor me, could it be President Sheng"s daughter? But why?"
It was almost as if the maid spoke her thought aloud, as Zhu Na gave her a knowing look, as if to say, "Now you finally get it!"
"Sheng Liena is still at school, she usually gets back by around four."
"Okay! Okay! Wow! My feet is killing me!"
With that said, Zhu Na went to take a seat by the sofa, while the maid stood where she was as though waiting to see if the visitor had anything left to say to her.
"What are you waiting for?!"
"Do you need me to prepare food for you or get you something to drink?"
Zhu Na looked as though she was contemplating on whether the maid should bring her something from the kitchen, after a while she finally made up her mind.
"You can get me a gla.s.s of water."
"Okay."
Zhu Na watched the maid go towards the kitchen, not too long after she was back with a gla.s.s of cold water. Taking the cup from the hand of the maid, Zhu Na drowned the contents down as though dying of thirst.
"Do you need another gla.s.s?"
"No, thanks. I must have been thirsty."
The maid took the cup back and headed back to the kitchen.
"This is going to be a long wait, let me check what is going on in Beibo."
Zhu Na pulled out her phone from the red clutch purse she brought in with her, to check the popular social media site, where all the latest things that was happening was shared, both the good, bad and the ugly.
"Oh my goodness! I can"t stop laughing! Tan BingBing had some work done to her face and she lied about not getting a nose job! Wow! What fake!"
Zhu Na kept scrolling from one page to another, reading all the newer posts that other users had put up on the site.
"It almost fifteen minutes to four! She should be on her way by now!"
The woman could not stop the feeling of excitement of knowing that her wait was about to come to an end. Roughly ten minutes later, Zhu Na heard the sound of the front door opening, as soon after Sheng Liena walked in to meet a woman that she had never seen in her life.
"Good afternoon."
Sheng Liena was dressed in a yellow T-s.h.i.+rt and dungarees and a white sneakers on her feet. Her streaked hair was held in a ponytail. She greeted the visitor without much emotion in her voice.
"Wait! I"m here to see you!"
Sheng Liena stopped on her tracks when she heard what the woman said.
"You are here to see me? What for?!"
Zhu Na had to bite her lips from snapping at the young woman who sounded rude to her.
"Let me introduce myself, I am Zhu Na, your father"s business partner."
Zhu Na rose up from where she was, with her hand stretched out to greet the daughter of her lover.
"I"m Sheng Liena his daughter."
Sheng Liena gave the other woman a limp handshake.
"I have heard a lot about you from your father and I want us to be friends."
"Friends? Me and you?"
"Do you find the thought of us being friends impossible?"
"I can"t believe I"m hearing this, a total stranger, coming to my father"s house and asking me if we could be friends? You look about the same age as him. Maybe you should try being friends with him and not me!"
".."
Zhu Na"s face stung from the brutal way Sheng Liena spoke to her, from the looks of it, she knew that it was not going to be easy to win her over.
"If you are done speaking, I have school work that has piled up and I need to sleep before tackling them."
Not waiting for a response, Sheng Liena had only taken two steps almost about to take the third when she heard the other woman speak.
"I am your father"s girlfriend."
Sheng Liena did not know why she felt as though something was squeezing her belly, but those few words made whatever sane thought she had left disappear in an instant. She turned back as though about to say something to the other woman, before lifting a hand to smack her in the face.
"You piece of sh*t! If I don"t mess your face up, my name isn"t Sheng Liena!"
Sheng Liena grabbed Zhu Na by the hair scratching at the woman"s face, while the other fought back. The maid soon caught wind of the brawl taking place in the living room, rather than separating the two, she picked up the phone to place a call to the President of Sheng Pharmaceuticals. The person with ties to the two women.