1 The endlessly tragic life of Emma Huang

Emma Huang thought she might be the unluckiest person alive. Her whole life had been cycle of misfortune, struggle, misery, and then a bit of luck to give her hope before plunging back into misfortune, starting the whole cycle over again.

Although spiral might be a better word, Emma reflected where she sat with her head in her hands. Because even though a little luck would always remedy the situation somewhat, she always seemed to find herself worse off after. Yes, her life could definitely be best described as a slow but inevitable downward spiral.

Rubbing her temples she let out a long groan. The sound echoed around the thankfully sparkly clean bathroom where she was currently hiding. Yes, she, Emma Huang, was hiding in the employee bathroom of a swanky Hong Kong night club.

Although she liked to think of herself as a fierce and fearless woman, who would always stand her ground, she felt that this time, she had a a good reason to cower in the bathroom like a frightened rabbit. Because how often was it that an imposing and very possibly dangerous man, who was very likely used to getting his own way, the owner of the night club, that also happened to be her boss made it clear that he would like nothing more than to have you as his woman? Oh, and there was the little detail of him possibly being involved in organised crime.

Emma felt that even a fierce and fearless woman was allowed to hide in the bathroom for a few minutes when faced with such a situation.

'So this is it', she thought quietly to herself. 'This is the next misfortune that is thrown at me.'

Thinking back it shouldn't really be that surprising, because hadn't she just thought that very morning that things were turning around for her? She had been amazed to discover that she had a decent amount of money in her bank account, a week's worth of food in her fridge, and had just passed her latest exam in nursing school with flying colours.

Looking back now, Emma realised that she should have known better that to allow herself to hope. She should have taken it as a warning that things were about to get worse, because they always got worse. That was her life, just when she dared to hope that she had finally stabilised her life, another disaster came crashing into it. It was the endless cycle that was her life.

Emma Huang grew up in a wealthy family. Although she wasn't particularly loved or wanted, she went to the best schools, had her meals cooked by first class chefs, lived in a mansion, and had enough pocket money to buy whatever she wanted. Emma knew that she had been more fortunate than most, but at the same time couldn't say that she had a particularly happy childhood.

The only skills she had learned from her mother were how to mix cocktails, how to dress like a lady, and how to extort a lot of money from you cheating husband when you divorced him.

Even before her mother had scarpered off abroad with her big pile of divorce settlement money, leaving a teenage Emma behind, her mother had always been distant with her. Still, borderline indifference was preferable to how her father treated her. Emma's father never looked at her except to criticise and had an impressively large vocabulary of nasty comments about everything that was wrong with her.

Knowing that there were so many people in the world who were worse off that herself, Emma kept herself from wallowing too much in self-pity. Yeah, sure, her mother abandoned her, her father found fault in everything she did, her half-sister once attempted to run her over with a car, and her younger half-brother tried to pimp her out in order to make friends with the sons of more powerful and influential families, but you couldn't have everything.

Sometimes Emma thought her life would make an excellent novel: a young girl, abandoned by her mother, wronged by her family, disowned, and betrayed, fallen low, only rise like a phoenix from the ashes of her life to exact revenge on all those who had wronged her. Really, it only needed her ex-fiancé cheating on her with her sister to make the plot perfect. If Emma ever had time, she would definitely write that novel.

Sadly, in real life, Emma never seemed to rise from the ashes. She only fell further and further into the firepit. And who wanted to read "The endlessly tragic life of Emma Huang"?

Emma reflected, as she sat there on the toilet contemplating her life, that if her life really was like a novel, this moment would have been the great turning point. The moment where the handsome male lead appeared to swoop her of her feet.

Sadly, her boss, did not fit that description at all. Sure, he looked every part the dark and dashing stranger. He was tall. He was handsome. And he was very likely filthy rich.

But while it was all fine and good to romanticise organised crime bosses in novels, Emma did not think that being the woman of such a man in real life would be much fun. More especially, because there was something about Mr. Long that made her skin crawl.

Until she met him, she did not think it was possible to dislike a person on instinct. Moreover, she couldn't think of any particular reason why she should dislike him so very much. It was simply dislike at first sight. His gaze made her shiver and his touch made her skin crawl.