“I have finished with my presentation, Sir.”

A tall, lean man extends a hand holding a USB drive to another man in a swivel chair tucked behind a lavish desk. The man from the desk takes the device from his fingers and then plugs it into his own laptop. He then lifts his gaze over to the timid man before him and nods.

“Delivered on time as always, Damien. I’m impressed.” His boss inspects the presentation file in his screen and scrolls. “I’m even surprised that with your performance, you have not asked me for a promotion yet.”

The man before him, who was described as timid, fixed his glasses and answered in a meek tone, “I believe you are the one that decides that, Sir.”

“Very well, your work here is done. You may clock out.”

Damien bowed at his boss and then leaves the office and then took off his spectacles to rub his tired eyes. He watched the office clock hanging from the wall and saw that he had gone past the normal overtime. All of a sudden, his drowsiness was taken away when one of his coworkers calls him from afar.

“Damien! Come here! We got some crazy news for you!”

Damien brushed his dark hair with his fingers and rubbed his fatigued nape before approaching his friend. “What is it?”

“Look!” he pointed at his smartphone which aired the national midnight news. Damien wore his eyeglasses again and inspected what the news was.

“What’s that?”

“That’s the CEO! And she’s marrying the prettiest girl! She’s from another department, right?”

Damien gazed at the smiling woman, who sat on a prestigious banquet with the so-called CEO of their company. By the time he saw how she rested her head against the man’s shoulder, Damien’s own world crashed before his eyes.

The male turned pale and his fists tightened. His coworker glanced at him with a concerned face and asked again. “Are you alright?”

“Why are they together?” Damien asked, trying to keep himself calm.

“They’re getting married, I told you!”

Married?

Damien scoffed at the word.

How can she get married with another man when that beautiful girl is in a relationship with him?

That’s right.

Clarissa Norwood was Damien’s beloved girlfriend.

Or at least, that how he viewed their relationship was.

“Look at those food! And that venue too! The reporters are all around and everyone looks so wealthy! I can’t imagine a simple worker from Human Resource Department would marry the CEO right away! Don’t you think that’s crazy? The CEO is proposing to her! I don’t even know why he had to! Surely this girl wouldn’t refuse! I mean… look at how wealthy he is!”

Damien gritted his teeth. ‘I’m going crazy.’ He thought.

“Where is this place at?”

“Why?” his coworker raised an eyebrow. “What are you going to do?”

Damien walked fast towards his desk and started clearing up his things into his own bag. “I was just asking.”

“I don’t know, man.” The other shrugged. “I think it’s called Paradise Resort, though.”

Paradise Resort… that place is only a few miles from where their office was. He could get there just in time to confront his secret girlfriend.

“What are you going to do, man?” his coworker started becoming worried when he saw the agitated expression on Damien’s face. Damien had never been like that.

He was a calm person, the leader of their team. He was most composed and the type to never let his emotions get in his line of work. But this time, Damien looked like he was about to burst.

“Are you going there to have a swim?” he joked to lift Damien’s mood, but was only met with a deathly glare.

Damien wears the strap of his bag and then heads to the exit of the office while his coworker was trailing behind him. Damien stops and then turned his back.

“Don’t follow me.”

“What’s gotten into you, man?” he asked. “You’re not the type to fluster out by a single video. Are you alright? Are you sick from working overtime? Do you want me to call a taxi for you?”

Damien took a deep breath as he understood that his coworker was merely worried about him. He gave him a smile and shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. I am going home.”

“Alright. Be safe.”

He turned his back and marched outside the company and then quickly called for a cab. He enters inside and the driver asks where he was going. “Where to?”

“Paradise Resort.” He didn't even bat an eye and took out his phone to watch the news too.

“Sir, the routes to Paradise Resort have been rented out. We cannot go there.”

“Then drop me off at the closest point. I’ll walk.”

The cab driver nodded and proceeded to drive. As the engine was running, he once again takes a look at the news and observed his beloved girlfriend, Clarissa Norwood along with their boss, Bruce Colton.

Damien’s chest tightened that he wanted to punch something. How can she do this to him?

Damien had given her everything.

Even today’s overtime pay was all directed to Clarissa’s comfortable lifestyle. Everything he did… was all for her.

They had grown up together, and he had even gone through hell to make sure she gets a stable job. But this…

Was this all his efforts amounted to?

His woman, turning her back on him and latching onto a wealthier bastard?

Damien took a deep breath and played the news again, but it was the biggest mistake he ever did. As soon as he played it, Clarissa leaned closer to Bruce and pressed her lips on him for the entire world to see.

The kiss lasted for seconds, but it was like a lifetime of torment for Damien. Clarissa never kissed him the way she did with Damien, nor smiled that genuinely when she was with him.

Damien turned off his phone and looked out of the window to breathe. With a cold voice, he told the driver: “Speed up.”

Damien took out his phone and went to his gallery where browsed through his pictures with Clarissa. They looked so happy when they were children- running in the fields together, joking with each other and laying down in the meadows to watch the blanket of stars in the skies.

The male, who was always calm and collected, suddenly had a tear rolling from his eyes. He was already out of work, therefore, he felt like the need to toughen himself up was no longer necessary. As a team leader, he was always expected to be calm, but he couldn't take it anymore.

He was suffocating. There was not a single word of Clarissa that she would be marrying someone else!

Damien clutched into his bag and took out a small box, which contained a proposal ring he intended to give her tomorrow.  He had planned for them to have a simple date in an expensive restaurant and propose to her there. 

Clarissa was...

the only person that keeps him living. 

And now...

She too, will become Damien's end.