I stared at the message for several seconds.
【Madam, hurry to the company! There is a huge change!】
Another message immediately appeared.
【Boss Co just announced an emergency meeting.】
【Tham Kha Ngon is presenting your acquisition proposal.】
My fingers stopped moving.
That proposal had taken me four months.
Not because Co Thi Group had assigned it to me.
Because I had discovered that a major investment group in Shanghai was preparing to enter our industry, and I wanted Co Thi to seize the opportunity before its competitors did.
For months, I had contacted suppliers, built financial models and revised the proposal until three in the morning.
Only three people had access to the complete version.
Me.
Co Vong Nien.
And yesterday, after insisting she needed to “help organize files”—
Tham Kha Ngon.
I looked at my father.
“I need to go back.”
His expression darkened.
“To save that boy again?”
“No.”
I picked up my coat.
“To see exactly how stupid he’s willing to be.”
When I arrived, the executive conference room was full.
I did not enter immediately.
Through the glass wall, I saw Tham Kha Ngon standing beside the screen in a white dress.
My presentation was behind her.
Even the graphs were mine.
She smiled confidently.
“This cooperation could completely change Co Thi’s position in Shanghai.”
The directors nodded.
Co Vong Nien sat at the head of the table.
He looked tired, probably from staying up all night taking care of his “little assistant.”
But when he looked at her, his expression was patient.
Proud, even.
Then Tham Kha Ngon said:
“I developed this strategy after studying the Shanghai market for several months.”
I almost applauded.
The colleague beside me whispered:
“She told everyone you only helped with data collection.”
I pushed open the door.
Every head turned.
Co Vong Nien stood immediately.
“Tinh Yen.”
Tham Kha Ngon’s smile faltered.
Then she recovered.
“Sister Tinh Yen, you finally came.”
She rushed toward me as though we were close friends.
“Boss was worried because you disappeared without asking for leave.”
I looked at the screen.
“My proposal looks good on you.”
Her face stiffened.
“What?”
I walked past her and stopped beside the projector.
“Slide twelve.”
I clicked.
“Created Tuesday at 2:17 a.m.”
Next slide.
“Slide thirteen. Wednesday, 1:42 a.m.”
Another.
“Financial model revised yesterday morning.”
I looked at her.
“You were at the restaurant with us during all three of those times.”
A few directors exchanged glances.
Tham Kha Ngon’s eyes immediately filled with tears.
“I never said I did everything alone.”
“You said you developed the strategy.”
“I meant the team…”
Co Vong Nien interrupted impatiently.
“That’s enough.”
Of course.
The moment she became uncomfortable, he protected her.
He looked at me.
“The proposal belongs to the company. Stop making this personal.”
I nodded.
“You’re right.”
His expression relaxed.
Then I removed my employee badge.
“That makes this easier.”
I placed it on the table.
“I resign.”
Silence.
Co Vong Nien stared at me.
“Stop acting impulsively.”
“I told you last night that we were breaking up.”
“You were angry.”
“I told you that if you walked out, you shouldn’t come back.”
“You were emotional.”
“And now I’m resigning.”
I tilted my head.
“What excuse are you going to invent for this one?”
His jaw tightened.
Tham Kha Ngon whispered:
“Sister, please don’t leave because of me.”
I looked at her.
“Why would I?”
Then I pointed at the screen.
“You wanted the project.”
“Take it.”
For one second, triumph flashed in her eyes.
She hid it quickly.
I smiled.
“But there’s one problem.”
Everyone looked at me.
“The proposal is useless now.”
Co Vong Nien frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“The Shanghai investment group withdrew its preliminary interest this morning.”
The room exploded.
“What?”
“Why?”
“When?”
Co Vong Nien stood.
“That’s impossible. We received confirmation last week.”
“You received confirmation to enter preliminary negotiations.”
I corrected him calmly.
“Nothing was signed.”
His face changed.
“Who told you they withdrew?”
“My father.”
He stared at me.
“What does your father have to do with this?”
Before I could answer, the conference room doors opened.
My father walked in.
Behind him were three people in dark suits.
The entire board stood.
One director whispered:
“Chairman Song?”
Co Vong Nien froze.
Tham Kha Ngon looked confused.
My father ignored everyone and walked directly toward me.
“You forgot your phone charger.”
I stared at him.
“Dad.”
“What? Your mother said you always forget things when you’re angry.”
Then he turned toward the board.
His expression changed completely.
The affectionate father disappeared.
In his place stood the chairman of Songhua Holdings.
The company Co Thi had spent six months trying to attract as a strategic investor.
Tham Kha Ngon’s mouth slowly opened.
Co Vong Nien looked at me as if seeing a stranger.
“Your father is…”
“Yes.”
I smiled.
“The investor whose market I apparently only helped research.”
My father did not cancel negotiations because of my breakup.
That would have been childish.
He canceled them because Tham Kha Ngon had made a much bigger mistake.
One of the executives placed a printed email on the table.
“Miss Tham contacted our investment team privately at 8:14 this morning.”
She went pale.
The executive continued:
“She claimed President Co had authorized her to renegotiate the equity structure.”
Co Vong Nien turned toward her.
“I authorized what?”
Tham Kha Ngon immediately shook her head.
“I was only trying to help!”
The executive opened another document.
“She also offered us confidential internal projections that were not included in the authorized proposal.”
My former colleague gasped.
Those figures were restricted even inside Co Thi.
Co Vong Nien’s expression became terrifying.
“Where did you get them?”
Tham Kha Ngon began crying.
“From your laptop.”
Silence.
“You left it open last night.”
Last night.
At his house.
While she drank from my wine glass.
While he cooked for her.
She had been copying company files.
His face lost all color.
“You went through my computer?”
“I only wanted to prove I could help you!”
“I trusted you!”
I almost laughed.
Finally.
The sentence had arrived.
Just directed at the wrong woman.
Tham Kha Ngon grabbed his sleeve.
“Boss, I did it for you!”
He pulled his arm away.
She stared at him as though she could not believe it.
Then panic turned into anger.
“You’re blaming me now?”
“Who stayed with me last night?”
“Who called me a little lazy cat?”
“Who cooked for me?”
The room went silent again.
Co Vong Nien looked at me instinctively.
I felt nothing.
That surprised me most.
Not pain.
Not jealousy.
Nothing.
Tham Kha Ngon finally realized everyone was listening, but she was too angry to stop.
“You said Tinh Yen was too stubborn!”
“You said she always wanted to compete with you!”
“You said once she calmed down, she would come crawling back like every other time!”
His face turned gray.
I looked at him.
“So that’s what you thought.”
“Tinh Yen, listen—”
“No need.”
I picked up my resignation letter.
“You’ve explained enough.”
The meeting ended without an investment agreement.
Songhua Holdings withdrew.
Co Thi’s board immediately opened an internal investigation into the data leak.
Tham Kha Ngon was dismissed that afternoon.
But she refused to disappear quietly.
She posted screenshots.
Messages.
Photos.
Every sweet little conversation Co Vong Nien had once dismissed as harmless.
None proved that they had slept together.
That no longer mattered.
They proved something simpler.
He had spent months giving another woman the kind of emotional intimacy he kept telling me I was imagining.
The board did not remove him because he was an unfaithful boyfriend.
They removed him from the Shanghai project because he had allowed a personal assistant unrestricted access to confidential information from his private laptop.
For the first time, his habit of protecting her cost him something that belonged to him.
Three days later, I boarded a plane for Shanghai.
Co Vong Nien came to the airport.
I knew he would.
He stood in front of the security entrance, breathing hard.
“Tinh Yen.”
I stopped.
“Five minutes.”
“I don’t have five.”
“Then one.”
He looked exhausted.
“Nothing happened between me and Kha Ngon.”
I almost smiled.
“You still don’t understand.”
“I stayed because she was drunk.”
“You cooked because she hadn’t eaten.”
“She used our wine glass because you didn’t think it mattered.”
“You let her access your laptop because you trusted her.”
“And when I told you our relationship would end if you walked out that door…”
I looked into his eyes.
“You walked out.”
He swallowed.
“I thought you’d forgive me.”
“I know.”
That was the entire problem.
He had not chosen her because she mattered more.
He had chosen himself because he believed I would always absorb the consequences.
He reached for my hand.
I stepped back.
“What do I have to do?”
“Nothing.”
“Tinh Yen…”
“For once, you don’t have to fix anything.”
I picked up my suitcase.
“You just have to accept what happened.”
His voice broke slightly.
“You really don’t want me anymore?”
I thought about the engraved wine glass.
The breakfast photographs.
The stolen proposal.
The conference room.
Then I realized none of those things hurt as much as they had three days earlier.
“No.”
I answered calmly.
“I don’t.”
Shanghai changed everything.
Not because I became some untouchable heiress overnight.
I had always been my parents’ daughter.
What changed was that I finally stopped hiding from the advantages, responsibilities and future that belonged to me simply because I wanted to prove I could build a life beside Co Vong Nien.
I took charge of the new branch.
I made mistakes.
I corrected them.
I negotiated my own deals.
I stopped wondering whether succeeding too brightly would make the man beside me uncomfortable.
A year later, Songhua Holdings hosted its annual business reception.
Halfway through dinner, a waiter accidentally knocked a glass.
Red wine splashed across my sleeve.
The poor boy went completely white.
“Director Song, I’m so sorry!”
I looked at the stain.
Then suddenly laughed.
“It’s fine.”
He hurried away for a towel.
My mother asked:
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing.”
I glanced at the red wine.
Once, a glass like that had felt like the beginning of humiliation.
Now it was just wine.
That was when I understood what Tham Kha Ngon had really done for me.
She had tried to provoke me.
Tried to take my place.
Tried to make me jealous enough to fight over a man.
Instead, she accidentally showed me something far more useful.
A place that someone else can steal the moment your partner stops protecting it was never a place worth fighting for.
That night, I lost a boyfriend.
She lost a job.
Co Vong Nien lost my trust.
But I?
I finally stopped being the woman waiting for someone to choose her.
I chose myself first.
And after that, nobody ever managed to spill enough red wine to make me forget it.
