A long-drawn affair with a married tycoon left this ex-model with a fat bank account and investments in properties, but also an empty heart and a scar on her face

She is the other woman. No regrets, she said in an interview with The New Paper on Sunday in 2006.

Well, none until she was unceremoniously dumped in 2010 after spending half her youth being a married man's mistress.

Regret showed through her make-up during the hour-long interview with Ms Melissa Phua. She sums up the life she led since she was 24: "I am cash rich, but the money can't buy me love."

And there is a permanent scar left on the 40-year-old stunner, who looks barely 30. Just as she now desperately wants to hide her tainted life, her long hair covers a 5cm-long scar on the right cheek.

Without betraying any emotion, Ms Phua recalls: "The stupid wife came to our love nest, went ballistic and started smashing stuff. In the midst of trying to beat me up, she clawed my face."

The love nest was a posh condominium apartment in District 9 which the man owned.

After that attack, Ms Phua used it as an excuse to "threaten" the man, who is 29 years older, into calling it quits.

Says the former model: "I saw it as a chance to escape. He had grown tired of me and the frequent sex had slowed down from five times a week to only once in a fortnight."

Two years on, Ms Phua now lives in a terrace house she owns in District 10.

She has investments in two other private properties.

She zips around town in a Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet. When the high roller is not at the local casinos, she's at home watching Korean dramas.

Her ex-lover, whom she met in December 1996 when she was modelling for a lingerie company at his company's function, "provided well" during their time together, she adds.

He used to sit on the board of directors of a multi-national company, but she is unsure of what he is doing now.

Ms Phua's "last-drawn monthly allowance" was $10,000 - that was on top of the platinum credit card "with no limit" she was given and a luxury sports car.

And when she felt like travelling, she could just go wherever she fancied - on first class - and stay at the best hotels in the world.

A significant change in her lifestyle now is that she no longer splurges on the latest designer brands.

That, she claims, was merely a move to stash money away following her mother's advice on her death bed.

Says Ms Phua: "My mother was very upset when she found out that I was kept, but she gradually accepted it.

"The best advice she gave me was just before she died (in 2001) to make plans for my future in case he dumps me."

According to the "relationship agreement" drawn up in 1997, - Ms Phua still keeps a copy - she will lose everything, except the car and whatever cash savings she has, if he suspects her of being unfaithful.

She adds: "That's why I'd charge to my credit (card) things that my friends wanted and give them a 10 per cent discount in return for cash payment."

Ms Phua also invested in gold jewellery and kept it away from him.

She confesses that she has kept a string of other lovers, but would call it off whenever she felt that her ex-lover was getting suspicious.

Since her new life began, Ms Phua has gone through three other relationships, but none lasted beyond 10 months.

She explains: "Somehow, there's still a stigma. I could easily try to keep (the affair) a secret, but I prefer to lay my cards on the table."

Unfortunately, the truth hurts.

Ms Phua says: "Two of them broke up with me shortly after I revealed the truth. It didn't matter that this was history even before we met."

The third boyfriend "struggled for several weeks before coming to terms with it".

Until she dropped another bombshell: she can never have a baby.

A clause in her arrangement with her ex-lover stated that she cannot get pregnant. This prompted Ms Phua to go for a ligation procedure after she moved into their love nest, three months after they met.

She says: "It hurts me whenever I see my friends with their children, when they talk about their kids with such pride."

Like a self-prophecy, Ms Phua repeats her words from her first interview in 2006: "I will be a lonely woman.

"Because by then (now), it'd also be too late for me to find someone who'd love me."

This article was first published in The New Paper.