Chapter 12: Suspicion

Xu Yu caught the familiar scent of cedarwood lingering on him, and the taut strings of her nerves loosened ever so slightly.

His knee pried her legs apart, and his large hand gripped her slender waist tightly.

Seizing the moment when he let go of her lips, Xu Yu drove her high heel into him, pushing him away.

Her voice was low and warning. “Do you know whose room this is?”

“Wen Han’s,” Shen Liangyan replied, a half-smile playing at his lips, the corners of his peach blossom eyes lifting. “Are you afraid?”

She felt his rough thumb tugging open the zipper at her back.

The next second came humiliation. “Dressed like this—aren’t you just trying to seduce me?”

His words laid bare her hidden, shameful intentions, and Xu Yu flushed with mortification and anger. She couldn’t deny it—she had dressed this way to provoke Wen Han.

Her skirt was hiked up, and a sharp pain shot through her neck. The graze of his teeth along her pulsing veins sent waves up to her brain.

Xu Yu struggled. “What’s gotten into you?”

Pinned against the door, her slender waist was clamped in his grip and lifted, forcing her legs to wrap around him.

She was trapped, unable to move.

Suddenly, footsteps approached from outside.

“Liangyan, where are you?”

Xu Yu and Shen Liangyan locked eyes. She clenched his shirt, mouthing: Let me down!

Panic overwhelmed her.

Shen Liangyan carried her toward the bed.

Xu Yu’s sharp nails dug into his arm.

The door handle gave a small rattle.

Shen Liangyan pivoted.

With a muffled thud, Xu Yu found herself sitting inside the wardrobe.

Wen Han’s expensive dresses brushed against her face.

The wooden doors were shut tightly.

Pitch blackness surrounded her, a chill seeping over her skin, the zipper at her back still open.

The door opened, and Wen Han’s puzzled voice came through the wardrobe.

“Why is the door locked?”

Shen Liangyan replied, “I just rested in your room for a bit. You won’t mind that I lay on your bed, right?”

Wen Han was clearly delighted. “Of course not! If you’d stay the night, I’d be even happier.”

Her tone carried a hint of flirtation.

“There’s a board meeting tomorrow morning. Next time.”

Wen Han pouted, “Oh? Then you owe me.”

Fumbling with the zipper at her back, Xu Yu pressed a hand to her chest.

She heard their unsteady steps heading toward the bed.

The sound of clothing brushing together seemed magnified a thousandfold in the darkness.

Xu Yu closed her eyes. If there were a peephole in here, she thought wryly, she’d be witnessing a scandalous scene.

Leaning back among the clothes, she accidentally drifted off.

When she woke again, bright light flooded her vision.

Shen Liangyan’s peach blossom eyes looked down at her, insolent and roguish.

His tie was undone, the top buttons of his shirt open, revealing his alluring Adam’s apple.

A vivid red mark lingered at his collar.

A mocking smile played at his lips. “So comfortable you lost yourself?”

Xu Yu blinked sleep from her eyes.

She tried to crawl down the slope of piled clothes. “Pull me up.”

The cramped wardrobe left her legs half-numb and unsteady.

“Get out yourself.”

Instead of helping, he stepped back, veins standing out on his wrists as he slipped free from his shirt cuffs, brows raised in challenge. “Half a minute. Wen Han will be back.”

Xu Yu ignored her numb feet and stumbled out, hurrying away.

Just as she reached the staircase, Wen Han called out behind her.

“Big sister, why are you running?” Wen Han’s graceful figure quickly caught up to her. “Why’s your skirt so wrinkled?”

She was standing so close that she could easily catch the scent on Xu Yu.

Xu Yu held her breath, her palms damp with sweat.

Tension and excitement knotted inside her.

After her recent entanglement with Shen Liangyan, their scents were now mingled on her.

Would Wen Han notice?

“You never wore perfume before, big sister. What’s different today?” Wen Han circled around her, narrowing her eyes. “And it smells a bit like men’s cologne.”