Rise To Stardom: My Villainess

*Click. Click. Click*

Hundreds of lights flash while countless high definition cameras seem to endlessly snap photos of a tall, slender woman. Her long, wavy amber-colored hair flows down to her waist. She has just walked out from the terminal which houses the VIP exit gate that is specifically made for celebrities like her. Immediately, fans and the media alike were all fighting over the opportunity to get close to the woman, but their aggressive determination is to no avail. Thanks to the airport's security officers' careful assistance, she can leave the terminal with no difficulty.

Stepping out of the airport, Ember Wang removes her dark-tinted sunglasses. Her curled lashes are accentuating her peach blossom eyes. The golden flecks of her eyes seemed to get brighter when the sunlight reflects on its irises. Happiness is clearly painted on her almost flawless-like face as she observes the surroundings around her.

"Finally, I'm back," she murmurs to herself while slowly taking in the beauty of her dear country.

"I see you standing there,

Icy eyes staring back at me.

The love we once shared,

Has now vanished without a trace."

Her recent title song "I see" is suddenly being played on her diamond-encrusted X-phone. Snapping out of her daze, she searches through her black Birkin for the gadget. She then later pulls it out, taking a glimpse of the caller's ID.

Zio-ge 💖💖 is calling…

A smile immediately makes its way up to her beautiful face upon receiving the call. She answers after a second, swiping her phone to the right. "Looks like someone misses me, huh?" the girl cheerfully exclaims to the person on the other line. Her enthusiasm though ceases when she is strangely met with silence instead.

"Zio-ge, is something wrong?"

Her voice softens as she begins to get nervous. Thoughts filled with negativity illegally flow into her mind. She tries to ignore those thoughts, not wanting to spoil her good mood with worries and concerns. To her relief, her fiancé finally answers with his alluring, deep baritone voice.

"Go directly to my house. I have something to tell you," he says in an empty tone before suddenly cutting off the conversation without as much as a farewell to say.

With the call abruptly ending, Ember is left confused and lost by her fiancé. She looks down at her phone, quiet and pondering.

For him to respond like that, Alessio seems to be really in a hurry for her to meet up with him. Did he really miss her that much? She forces a smile on her face. Allowing that excuse to drift inside her mind, she feels cheerful once again. Without any more thoughts in her mind, she enters her Hercedes Pens car, which was just recently brought to the airport by one of her father's secretaries.

_____________________

Graciously stepping out from her Hercedes Pens as she arrives at her fiancé's property, she gently shuts the door behind her before sauntering towards the entrance of the huge, extravagant mansion. She is happy to be back. However, she is also feeling a little puzzled and lost by how empty the mansion feels right now. Normally, there would be butlers and maids ready to assist her; but right now, there are none.

The stuffy atmosphere makes the feeling of her heart all the heavier than what she has anticipated. Ember Wang brushes the feeling off with her as she whispers to herself that she was just being too paranoid for no reason, but the back of her mind knew that something must have happened.

Ember slowly makes her way towards the mansion, entering. The sight of a quiet, empty mansion just like she has expected and felt earlier greets her. No one. There is no one. The lady does not leave the residence though as she heads straight to Alessio's office, assuming that he's there since he's quite a workaholic.

And now, she is in front of the door of his office. Her hand is calmly resting on the doorknob for a while now. She is supposed to be happy and excited, but the strange feeling of heaviness that she carries within just seems to drown her over and wash away all those joys. Exhaling and twisting the knob, she suddenly stops upon hearing a fit of laughter behind the door.

Huh?

She stiffens, suddenly feeling nervous at the unwanted thought that immediately dawns on her. But giving her thoughts a benefit of the doubt, she pushes the influx of thoughts at the back of her mind. Opening the door to her fiancѐ's office, she then sees a sight that gave her the shock of her life.

There, in front of her, is a rather small girl tightly clinging to the arm of her beloved fiancé. Batting her long lashes that highlights her innocent almond-shaped light brown eyes, her luscious short blonde hair freely bounces on her shoulder as she merrily laughs with Alessio Xu. She appears to be close with the tall young man who is unusually smiling down at her right now.

His green eyes are gentle and twinkling.

The woman wordlessly stands as the scene of betrayal unfolds in front of her very eyes. Doubts and excuses are flooding her mind as their close interactions from the past make everything all the harder to believe. As the truth of his betrayal finally sinks in, anger and disgust instantly harden her already breaking heart.

Expecting for Alessio to greet her with love, but all she received is disappointment from coming here. She would have easily forgiven him if he said anything─ even half-meant excuses would be enough as long as he gave her a reason.

Silence reigns inside the room while she continues to stare at the two. It takes quite a while before that girl notices her presence. Gasping, she pulls away from the man. The smile on Alessio's handsome face falters once his jade eyes land on his fiancee's figure.

Ember inhales, struggling to maintain her composure. Her gaze is completely on the girl, whose honey brown eyes started to get teary. She couldn't tell if it's fake, but it seemed real. Ember would have almost commended her for her acting skills if not only for the situation they were currently in.

"Who is she?" she asked first, calmly; but upon seeing the girl take a step back to hide behind her fiancé, Ember gets ticked off.

Alessio is only silent, staring at her with a blank expression. She just can't believe this; why is he not saying anything? Why is he not pushing her away? Ember curls her hands as she lets the irritation overcomes her.

"Alessio, answer me! What the hell is a woman doing over here?!" she finally explodes, cursing without any filters. With her uncensored words, Ember made the girl's tears fall from her honey doe eyes.

Alessio doesn't answer her question. Instead, he wraps his arms around that girl as if to comfort her. She almost gasped out in disbelief when her fiancé glared at her, holding that girl so tenderly as if she's made of glass.

"This is my woman that you're talking about. Have some respect!" he angrily bellows at her like she isn't the one whom he is engaged with.

"I─ I'm so sorry!" the woman sobs so sadly; it can make someone think that she's the one who is being wronged.

Ember starts to quiver in rage as she stares at that girl before her.

'Tsk! She's acting as if that young man over there isn't another woman's fiancé that she has been seducing,' the amber haired lady scoffs at her thought, slowly having the urge to slap the woman who is acting like a child right now. 'But I should give him the chance to explain.'

Maybe this is just all a misunderstanding… Maybe.

She feels sadness, disappointment, and anger as she solemnly gazes straight at her fiancé. Can she really forgive him? She will as long as he gives her an explanation─ a reasonable explanation.

"Why?" she asks.

Stepping forward as if he was a knight protecting his beloved princess, he answers, "That has nothing to do with you. She is my woman, and she has every right to be here."

The tone of his voice is so cold that it can instantly scare someone to death. But Ember isn't just anyone. She is his fiancée; and rather than being scared, all she felt was even more heartbreak.

'I may have been away because of touring, but I have always been loyal… I guess he doesn't share the same sentiment, huh?'

Staring at his cold green eyes, she can no longer see the warmth it held, which she has grown accustomed to from their childhood years. Instead, it is directed towards that woman and not towards her anymore. Ember cannot accept this; she cannot. How can a woman so weak seduce her fiancé?

As rage finally takes over her rationality, she sidesteps Alessio, moving past him, as she raises her hand in the air to give the girl what she totally deserves. A harsh sound is heard throughout the room; the hand and skin are roughly making its contact. The smacking sound suddenly cutting through the air.

*Slap*

"You bitch!" he screams.

'Bitch? Who would have thought that love of my life who was supposed to protect me never really cared? And now, I know why.'

Alessio has a hand protectively wrapped around the crying woman. 'The real bitch of the century if you asked me.'

'Acting like an innocent girl when she's, in fact, nothing but a s.l.u.t. Just some normal girl who thinks that just because she's poor and innocent, some rich guy will automatically fall to her feet. And that he did. My fiancé of fifteen years fell for her just like that.' Ember and Alessio are never going to marry for love. But she learned to love him, and he said that he was starting to learn that too.

...until she came along.

"Bitch? Is that so?"

Ember gives out a cold smile as she repeatedly nods her head to herself as if her fiancé has not just cursed her out for some woman that wasn't even his fiancé.

She almost wants to laugh; she almost wants to laugh in disbelief from all this stupid revelation. Biting her lips so harshly that it is so close to bleeding, she grins to hide the sadness hidden within the depths of her alluring golden eyes.

"Do what you want, but don't expect me to give you my blessings. I won't be THE Ember Wang if I don't make you guys suffer," she says to them. Her tone is devoid of emotions as she continues to coldly smile at them.

"I see you standing there,

Icy eyes staring back at me.

The love we once shared,

Has now vanished without a trace.

But what should I do,

When all I need is you-"

The phone suddenly disrupts the ongoing silence inside the office. Opening her black-colored Pirkin bag, she skims through it to look for the phone that is continuously ringing. Once she has her hold on the gadget, she catches a glimpse of the caller's id. Her grin widens more at the identity of the person who just called. She intentionally raises her phone higher for the other two persons in the room to see. "Well, well, well… Auntie is calling," she informs them; her tone is almost filled with nonchalance.

"You─" Alessio's rudely cut off with the harsh slam of the door.

*bang*

And the woman is no longer there. Without even letting him finish his words, his fiancée left him just like that. Alessio emotionlessly stares at the door while he has his hands yet still wrapped around the other girl.