The door clicked shut, and the question Zhang Wei left behind began to expand.
It filled the space between us, cold and shapeless at first, then hardening into something with edges. Business, or a woman? It wasn't a question.
It was a blade designed to separate one thing from another. To categorize the hurricane of the last hour into a column on a balance sheet.
I stood there, my dress still clutched to my chest, the warmth of Yichen's skin still singing on mine. The silence was a physical thing, pressing against my eardrums. I waited for him to crumble. To calculate. To put his shirt back on and become the CEO, to look at me and see the liability.
He did not crumble.
He turned from the door. The fury on his face wasn't hot anymore. It had cooled into something absolute. A terrifying resolve. He looked at me, and his gaze didn't waver.
It didn't doubt. It saw me—disheveled, half-dressed, holding the fabric of my life together with trembling hands—and it did not flinch from the complication.
"He wants to know why I'm here?" Yichen said. His voice was low, stripped of all pretense. It was just sound, and truth. "I'll show him."
He walked toward me, not with the predatory intent of minutes before, but with a deliberate, grounded purpose. He stopped in front of me. He didn't touch me. He just looked.
"We are attending the gala tonight," he stated. It wasn't a suggestion. It was a declaration of war, and he was naming me his ally.
"Together. Not hiding in the shadows. Not as a secret. As husband and wife."
The words should have felt like a trap snapping shut. Instead, they felt like a door swinging open onto a precipice. It was madness. It was surrender to the very scrutiny that could destroy him.
"Yichen," I breathed. "That's what he expects. It's the confrontation he's forcing."
A faint, dangerous smile touched his lips. It didn't reach his eyes. "No. He expects me to choose. To prioritize. To hide you away to protect the business, or to sneak you out like a shameful secret to protect you. He does not expect me to walk into the center of his territory and declare that I refuse his choice. That I have both. That you are my business."
He reached out then, finally, and took the crumpled dress from my numb fingers. He let it fall to the floor. His hands came up to frame my face, his touch shockingly gentle after the violence of his words.
"Are you with me?"
It was the only question that mattered. Not the father's. His.
I looked into the storm of his eyes, at the boy who'd been cruel out of grief, at the man who was choosing ruin over retreat, and I found my answer in the steady beat of my own heart.
"I'm with you."
The preparation was not like in the movies. There was no soft music, no laughing. It was a silent arming.
Zhang Wei returned two hours later, his face an impassive mask. He carried two garment bags, one long and black, one shorter and severe. He hung them in the closet without a word and placed a velvet box on the desk.
"The gala will begin after the welcome cocktail hour around nine," he said, his voice toneless. "Your father and brother will be seated at the high table. The entire senior leadership is present."
Yichen, now showered and shaved, nodded from where he stood by the window. "And the press?"
"A curated list. Business outlets. No tabloids." Zhang Wei's eyes flicked to me, a quick, assessing glance. "It will be contained to the correct circles."
He left, and the silence descended again, thick with intention.
Yichen unzipped the smaller bag. Inside was a tuxedo, pristine and sharp as a knife. He dressed with his back to me, each movement efficient. The donning of the jacket was like a soldier putting on armor. When he turned, he was transformed. Not into a stranger, but into the fullest, most potent version of himself. The CEO. The heir. The weapon.
"Your turn," he said, his voice soft.
I took the long garment bag into the bathroom. Inside, wrapped in tissue, was not a dress. It was a statement.
The fabric was a deep, liquid emerald, the color of a forest at midnight. It was backless, held up by a delicate whisper of silk at the neck. It fell in a single, severe column to the floor, a slit revealing leg almost to the thigh. It was not beautiful. It was powerful. It dared you to look, and then it dared you to call it pretty. It was the exact opposite of a wallflower.
I put it on. It fit as if I had been born wearing it. The silk was cool against my skin, the drape heavy with purpose. I looked in the mirror and did not see Hua, the woman who was dumped in a headline. I saw someone else. Someone who walked into fires and didn't burn.
I opened the door.
Yichen was waiting. He had opened the velvet box. Inside lay a necklace, not of diamonds, but of raw, uncut emeralds strung on a fragile-looking platinum chain. They looked like pieces of a shattered, beautiful world.
He came to me without a word, lifting the necklace. His fingers brushed the nape of my neck as he fastened it. The stones lay cold against my collarbone, their weight immediate and real.
"There," he murmured, his breath warm on my ear. "Now you're armed."
We didn't speak in the elevator. We didn't speak in the back of the sleek, black car. We simply existed side-by-side, a shared current of electricity humming between us. Our hands lay on the seat, not touching, but I could feel the heat from his skin. We were two sparks flying directly into a powder keg.
The Grand Ballroom was a cathedral of ambition. Crystal chandeliers dripped light onto a sea of black ties and shimmering gowns. The air buzzed with the low, sophisticated murmur of important people making important deals. The clink of champagne flutes was a percussion section to the melody of classical strings. It was a beautiful, gilded cage.
We paused at the entrance.
Yichen offered me his arm. I took it. The silk of his jacket was smooth under my fingers. I felt the solid muscle of his forearm beneath.
"Ready?" he asked, looking straight ahead.
"No," I said honestly.
"Good."
We stepped forward.
It didn't happen all at once. It was a wave. The people nearest the door fell silent first, their conversations trailing off into startled inhales. That silence rippled outwards, a shockwave moving through the room. The murmur died. The clinking stopped. Even the musicians seemed to falter for a half-beat.
Every head turned.
I felt the weight of hundreds of eyes. I saw recognition dawn, then confusion, then avid, naked curiosity. I saw my colleagues from my department, their mouths agape. I saw my supervisor's eyes widen almost comically.
And at the far end of the room, on a raised dais, I saw the high table.
His father sat in the center, a glass of water in hand. He did not look surprised. He looked deeply, profoundly interested, like a scientist observing a predicted reaction. Beside him, Yiran froze, his fork halfway to his mouth. His face drained of all color, then flooded with a violent, mottled red. The hatred in his eyes was a tangible force across the crowded room.
Yichen did not hesitate. He did not slow. He walked us through the parted sea of people, his stride long and assured, his posture a masterclass in defiance. His grip on my hand where it rested on his arm was firm, anchoring. He was not dragging me. He was presenting me.
We reached the foot of the dais. The silence was now absolute, brittle.
Yichen's father looked down at us, his expression unreadable.
"Father," Yichen said, his voice carrying effortlessly in the hush. "You asked why I was here."
He didn't wait for an answer. He simply turned, plucking two champagne flutes from a passing waiter's tray. He handed one to me. His fingers brushed mine, a secret signal.
He raised his glass. Not just to his father. To the entire, staring room.
"To the company," he said, his voice clear and sharp as cut glass. "To its continued success." He paused. The pause stretched, taut and dangerous. "And to new beginnings." His eyes swept the crowd, then landed squarely, deliberately, on his father's stony face. Then they cut to Yiran, who looked as if he might shatter. "Some of us," Yichen finished, his voice dropping into a more intimate register that somehow carried even further, "are brave enough to choose ours."
Then he did the most provocative thing of all.
He looked at me.
Not a glance. A look. His gaze softened, the hard edges melting into something that was for me alone. A private universe in the middle of the public spectacle. He inclined his head slightly, just for me, and took a sip.
The room erupted into sound. Not applause, but a frantic, buzzing gossip. A thousand whispered questions.
I lifted my own glass, my eyes locked with his, and drank. The champagne was crisp and bitter on my tongue. It tasted like victory, and like doom.
The next hour was a blur of excruciating politeness. We were a gravitational anomaly. People orbited us, drawn by the gossip, offering stilted congratulations, their eyes crawling over me, over the necklace, over the way Yichen's hand never left the small of my back. He was a wall of cool, impenetrable civility. He introduced me simply. "My wife, Hua."
The words, said aloud in this context, were detonations.
I smiled until my face ached. I nodded. I said "thank you." The emeralds felt like ice against my burning skin. I needed a moment. Just a moment to breathe air that wasn't thick with perfume and judgment.
"I'm going to the ladies' room," I whispered to Yichen during a lull.
His hand tightened momentarily on my back. "Two minutes. No more."
I slipped through the crowd, feeling the eyes follow my progress. The relative quiet of the marble-lined hallway was a relief. I pushed into the luxurious, empty restroom, leaning against the cool sink, closing my eyes.
The door opened.
I didn't need to look to know who it was. I could feel him. The anger came off him in waves, sour with expensive scotch.
"Well, well," Yiran's voice slurred from behind me. "The chosen one."
I turned. He was leaning against the door, blocking it. His tuxedo was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot.
"Let me pass, Yiran."
"Or what?" He pushed off the door, swaying slightly. "You'll call your husband?" He spat the word. "You think this changes anything? That little display? You're a trophy he stole to piss me off. A shiny toy."
"Get out of my way."
He moved faster than I expected, closing the distance. His hand shot out, fingers clamping like a vice around my wrist. He yanked me toward him. The raw emeralds of my necklace bit into my skin.
"You look ridiculous," he hissed, his breath foul in my face. "Dressed up like a whore in stolen gems. You think this makes you one of them? You're a hobby. A distraction. When he has to choose between his precious company and you, you know what he'll pick. He's just like my father. And you?" He laughed, a brittle, ugly sound. "You'll be left with nothing. Again."
With a final, vicious wrench, he shoved me back. My shoulder hit the edge of the sink. The clasp of the necklace, weakened by his tug, gave way. The string of emeralds snapped, scattering like green tears across the marble floor with a sound like falling rain.
He stared at the broken stones, then at the red mark his fingers had left on my wrist. A flicker of something—not regret, but satisfaction—crossed his face. "Oops," he mumbled, and stumbled out, leaving the door swinging.
I stood there, trembling, staring at the wreckage at my feet. I took a deep, shuddering breath. I fixed my dress. I did not pick up the emeralds. Let them lie there. Evidence.
I walked back into the ballroom. My wrist throbbed. My neck felt naked and cold.
Yichen was across the room, listening to some older executive, but his eyes were scanning. They found me the second I appeared. His polite smile vanished.
He excused himself with a curt nod and was at my side in seconds. His gaze swept over me, a rapid, thorough assessment. It missed nothing. The empty space at my throat. The way I cradled my wrist. The wild, hunted look I couldn't quite suppress.
His face changed.
All the careful control, the polished civility, evaporated. Something ancient and deadly rose to the surface. His eyes went dark, flat. The temperature around us seemed to drop ten degrees.
He took my injured wrist with shocking gentleness, his thumb brushing over the beginning bruises. His touch was a contrast to the ice in his eyes.
Without a word, he took my elbow and guided me, not toward the dance floor or another group, but out of the ballroom. He didn't look back.
He steered me into a dim, deserted hallway lined with portraits of forgotten hotel founders. The distant music was a ghost here.
He stopped. Turned me to face him. He cupped my face, his hands warm against my cold cheeks. His eyes were no longer flat. They were a blizzard.
He leaned close. His voice, when it came, was lethally quiet. It was not a question. It was a demand for a name.
"Who. Did. This."