Volume One, Chapter 7: A Tender Kiss

She suddenly felt a surge of excitement. Was this really the CEO’s wife the assistant had just called her about?

The receptionist smiled, red lips curving as she said, “Madam, Assistant Qin asked me to bring you upstairs. This way, please.”

Zhou Xianyu smiled back at her. Her clear, limpid eyes were bright as crystal, and when she looked at someone, it seemed as though her whole heart belonged to them.

The receptionist’s heart thudded wildly. No wonder the CEO always seemed so stern and aloof toward women. With such a beautiful wife at home, of course he wouldn’t spare a glance for anyone else.

Zhou Xianyu’s fingers tightened slightly around the thing in her hand. The object was obvious enough, and the impulsive idea that had brought her here suddenly made her nervous. Gu Qichuan seemed not to like sweets. What if he said he didn’t want it later?

Fortunately, she still hadn’t told him she had come. She had worried that calling him on a whim might interrupt a meeting, so she had called Qin Tan first.

As Zhou Xianyu stepped into the private elevator reserved for the president, her mind wandered aimlessly, and she failed to notice the receptionist beside her watching her with growing excitement, nearly screaming in her heart.

Ahhh, Miss Zhou is gorgeous! She looks even better in person than in photos, sob sob—

She did not need to guess how lively the staff group chat would become later. Those women who had once coveted the CEO should really see Miss Zhou. The two of them were simply made for each other, a perfect match.

When they reached the floor, Qin Tan was waiting just outside the elevator to greet her. It had been a long time since she had seen him.

He still looked much as he always had in her memory, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, refined and gentle, always greeting people with a three-point smile that made them want to strike up a conversation. He handled everything with perfect propriety, impossible to fault.

Seeing Zhou Xianyu, Qin Tan smiled and greeted her. “Madam, the CEO is still in a meeting. I’ll take you to his office to rest for a while.”

Zhou Xianyu lifted her gaze toward the meeting room at the end of the corridor and gave a soft reply. “All right.”

Gu Qichuan’s office, like the man himself, gave off an air of steadiness and chill. Black, gray, and white dominated the room, making it seem especially solemn and imposing.

She sat in Gu Qichuan’s special chair, lightly rocking it back and forth, and placed the box Aunt Chen had packed on the desk. The box was pink, strikingly out of place amid the surroundings.

Then she glanced down at the bright yellow dress she wore and could not help but laugh a little. She, too, did not belong in this office.

On an impulse, she looked at his computer—and saw a very familiar photograph standing beside it. In the picture was her, smiling brilliantly.

She froze slightly. In the photo, she looked about sixteen or seventeen, her shoulder-length black hair falling behind her, her fair cheeks lit with a joyful smile as she chatted with a girl beside her.

The building in the background was familiar as well. It was from the time in high school when she had gone with her teacher to France to take part in an international creative painting exchange competition.

Because the memory was so vivid, she recognized the setting at a glance.

The photo had been taken long ago; it looked as though it had already been in its frame for years. But when had this picture been taken? And how would Gu Qichuan have had it? Had he known her back then?

...

The meeting room door opened from within, and Gu Qichuan came out. His sleeves had been rolled up slightly, revealing a stretch of wrist. He glanced at the watch there, his manner restrained and deep.

Qin Tan, who had been waiting outside, quickly went to meet him.

“President Gu, Madam has come to see you.”

He deliberately stretched out the final syllable, and as expected, saw Gu Qichuan’s brow pause, his expression halting in mild surprise. “She’s here?”

This was her first time coming to the company to see him, wasn’t it?

Gu Qichuan’s mood suddenly lifted. Concealing the faint ripples in his eyes, he said in a softened voice, “You can get off work first.”

With that, he walked straight toward the office. When he pushed the door open and stepped inside, the figure within was still a little dazed, lifting her eyes to meet his gaze.

The man’s usual coolness melted into warmth the moment he saw her. He walked toward her and casually draped the suit jacket that hung over his arm over the back of the chair she was sitting in.

“Were you bored?”

Seeing her, he did not ask why she had suddenly come to the company to find him, nor why she had been looking at his computer. Instead, he first asked whether she had felt bored.

Zhou Xianyu blinked. Her heart was beating in a strange, erratic way. She lifted the photograph she had been studying in secret for a long while and looked at him with mischievous eyes shining like colored glass. “How... do you have a photo of me from high school?”

There was a fleeting daze in Gu Qichuan’s eyes. It had been a long time since he had seen her so vivid and alive.

Before Zhou Qianqian had returned, before the Zhou family’s finances had gone wrong, she had been just like this as well—delicate and radiant, like a little princess held high above everyone else, envied by all.

Gu Qichuan could not help leaning closer. His gaze lingered on her smiling face, his eyes lowered, and his cool fingertips could not restrain themselves from brushing against her skin.

Zhou Xianyu felt the broad warmth of his hand against her cheek. Her lashes trembled lightly, and as their eyes met, it seemed as if invisible currents were surging between them. Her breathing grew乱 for a moment, and she quickly averted her eyes in embarrassment.

“You...”

Gu Qichuan drew closer and closer, his breath brushing past the slightly reddened tip of her ear. His voice was low. “You want to know how I came to have this photo?”

The picture in Zhou Xianyu’s fingers was taken from her the next second. She stared at him in astonishment, and he let out a clear, muffled laugh in his throat. His left hand, unable to suppress its instinct, lightly stroked her cheek. “Guess.”

Zhou Xianyu widened her eyes. “How can you be like this?”

Gu Qichuan concealed the ripples in his eyes. They deepened into darkness. He had restrained himself for a long time just now, only barely keeping himself from kissing her. He did not dare gamble—did not dare gamble on whether she would avoid him, whether she would retreat into the past and hide from him again.

This... was already very good.

Who knew that Zhou Xianyu would become more and more reckless? She rose from the chair to snatch back the photograph from his hand, refusing to hold back with her words either. “Secretly hiding my photo... Gu Qichuan, you’re such a pervert.”

She had said it on purpose, all because he had just teased her.

Seeing her lunge toward him, Gu Qichuan instinctively raised his arm, the photo pinched between his fingers. Even on tiptoe, Zhou Xianyu could not reach even the edge of it.

She grabbed at the photo with one hand and braced herself against his shoulder with the other. At last, panting, she lowered back onto her feet. Frowning, she was just about to say something when the man in front of her caught her waist and pulled her even closer.

Gu Qichuan’s reaction had been entirely instinctive. With her throwing herself into his arms like this, how could he endure it without drawing nearer?

Her clear eyes were beautiful and moving, veiled by a flicker of shyness and panic.

He placed the photo into her hand. Then he cupped her cheek, emotions surging in his eyes, his breathing growing hotter and hotter. Standing so close, he looked at her, his thin lips drawing nearer and nearer, as if filled with hesitation and tentative restraint.

Zhou Xianyu’s heart pounded furiously, tinged with a trace of panic. Her eyes were half-lowered beneath her dark lashes, shimmering with a radiant sheen.

His breath approached inch by inch, carrying possession and invasion, but she was startled by the wanton, predatory hunger that flashed across him in that instant and leaned back slightly.

Yet it was precisely this unconscious retreat that made the lurking man clamp a hand around her waist.

His gaze deepened into darkness, his palm fitting more tightly to the curve of her body. Then, without warning, his kiss came down hot and soft.