Sharon was feeling uneasy as she was about to retire to bed after a long day's work when her cellphone started ringing. Checking on the screen, she discovered that it was Christine, her close friend and business partner, calling. She wondered why she could call when they had just left each other. Was she involved in some kind of accident? She wondered as she clicked on the receiver icon.

"Hello, what is up now?" She asked.

"I can't believe what I have just seen!" Christine spoke from the other end, and paused.

"What! Have you seen a blue ghost, or what?" Sharon wondered, Christine's suspense sending cold chills down her spine.

"No, it is about Max!"

"What is with him?"

"Oh, sweetheart, you can't believe this!" She responded, sighing.

"Believe what? Listen, if your intention is to give me a heart attack, I must say that you are succeeding. Can you go straight to the point, for crying out aloud?"

"You can't imagine who I have just seen with Max, laughing and kissing as they were entering his house!"

"What! Max kissing? No, you are hallucinating!"

"I have just seen them with my naked eyes! I couldn't believe my eyes!"

"Who is the slut he was with?"

"Oh, my God! I don't even feel like pronouncing her damn name!"

"For heaven's sake, who is she?"

"None other than her majesty, the pompous and willy-nilly best friend of yours!"

"Gosh! Don't tell me it is June you are talking about!"

"The one and only! Best friend, indeed!"

"Where are they now?"

"They are in the house. I can even hear their excited giggling. For all I know, they could be romping! I can't believe that you are just seated there! We should bust them and teach the b*tch a lesson. Get your ass here like yesterday!"

"I'm coming, but if this is some kind of joke, I will skin you alive!"

"Since when did I start joking about cheating boyfriends and traitorous best friends? You only need to be here to see it with your own eyes, or with your open mouth because your eyes might find it hard to believe!"

"Okay, don't rub it in! I'm on my way," she said, rushing out of the room.

She stealthily walked down the stairs, intent on not disturbing her mother and grandmother, her only relatives alive. Her father had passed on the previous year after a long cancer illness . She managed to get out of the house without alerting either of them.

The history of her love life with Max flashed in her mind as she approached her car. Its genesis was in high school. Max was that rich kid with money to spend, with little time to concentrate on his studies. His father owned a business empire. Tall and handsome, it could be said that he had it all, except brilliant brains.

The only child of her peasant parents, she had very little to brag about in terms of riches. Blessed with brilliant brains, she worked hard in her studies with the intention of elevating her family status in the social ladder. Though gorgeously beautiful, she never rested her laurels on the physical attractions. She remembered one of her teachers describing her as beauty with brains.

It had been due to her academic excellence that Max had approached her. Lazy with his homework, he had enticed her with easy money to assist him with the assignments. To make it easier, she had formed a study group of four, bringing in her two best friends, June and Christine.

With time, a little intimacy started developing between Max and her untill he confessed his love for her, to the great disappointment to June and many other girls who had been ogling him.

"Sharon, your beautiful smiles illuminate my day and night," he had started. "Your melodious voice is the greatest music to my wandering soul. Only in you I have seen the meaning of true love. It is my greatest desire to bask in your blissful love for the rest of my life. Please, will you be my girl?" He had posed, pleadingly.

Though she had felt similar sentiments towards him, she had been greatly taken aback that he could ask her as there had been many other girls competing for his love.

"What! Is this some kind of joke?" She had asked, greatly surprised.

"No, I'm dead serious. These are the dictates of my heart, body, mind and soul. There are no enough adjectives to describe what I feel for you. Suffice it to say that I love you in an extraordinary way. Please, permit me to be part and parcel of your life!"

"As in forever?" She had asked, giggling.

"Forever and ever more!"

"Oh, my dearest! I love you too!" She had responded, hugging. "But I know that there are many other girls chasing after you, if you ever break my heart, I will make sure that I break yours into a million pieces!"

"Why on Earth will I do such a thing to my sunshine?" He had posed, sealing her lips with a kiss.

"Promise!" She had said after the kiss.

"I, Max, do hereby make an irrevocable promise to love you, and only you, so long as I breath without any prejudice, discrimination or coercion. And that with this kiss, I seal the promise!" He had vowed.

And so started their romantic journey. Theirs was the most coveted relationship not only in highschool, and later in campus, but also in the whole city. As fate would have it, the four, or the quartet as they called themselves, had passed their highschool exams and proceeded to the same college where they did similar courses in Biotechnology.

After graduation, Max had influenced his father to employ all of them in his world class Biotech company. Just the previous year, his parents had perished in a grisly plane crush and he had taken over the running of the multi-billion empire as the only heir at the meer age of twenty five. It was on behalf of the same company that Christine and her had been sent on an innovation seminar abroad for one week.

During her twenty-fourth birthday, the previous week, Max had held a grand ball for her where he had intended to announce their engagement. However, some intervening circumstances had pushed the engagement untill after she had come back from the seminar. She remembered with great nostalgia that it was on that very day that they had made their first love. She still treasured the exquisite, sensational thrills of the moment when she had lost her flower.

"Gosh! How can he betray our love?" She muttered to herself as she stepped on the gas and took off to Max's place.