He Fired His Secret Heir, Then Begged for His Love novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Vice President of Naps

Su Ye's first day as vice president, with a legal adviser who treats him like a person, ends at the dinner table where he admits he likes him.

On Monday morning, six people greeted Su Ye in the lobby of the Su Group tower, and all six called him Young Master.

He had been an heir for twenty-three years, and he had never once been on time for it.

The receptionist held out a cup of tea.

Su Ye took it, turned, and held it out to the man beside him.

Lu Chen looked at the cup, then at Su Ye.

"It's a cup," he said. "It has a handle. You have a hand."

"I haven't carried my own tea since I was eight."

"Then it's been a long time. Drink it."

Su Ye drank it, because the grey suit and the thin glasses made it hard to argue.

The tea was good, and he resented that.

On the fortieth floor, the vice president's office had a sofa, a view of the river and a desk big enough to sleep on.

Su Ye lay down on the sofa.

"Mr. Su," Lu Chen said, standing over him with the black briefcase. "You have a nine o'clock."

"I'm busy."

"With what?"

"Nothing. It's a full-time job."

"Then I'll write it in your schedule." Lu Chen took out a pen. "Nine o'clock, nothing. Nine-thirty, the supplier contract. It's forty pages, and I know you won't read the last one."

Su Ye sat up.

Nobody had ever put nothing in his schedule.

At nine-thirty he read the first three pages of the supplier contract with his feet on the desk, and said the unit price was too high.

"Why?" Lu Chen asked.

"Because the freight clause is padded. They're charging us for a truck we're already paying for."

Lu Chen turned the page and ran his finger down the paragraph.

He was quiet for a moment.

"That's correct," he said. "The legal team missed it for two weeks."

"I'm very lazy."

"You're not lazy." Lu Chen capped his pen. "You're fast, and you get bored. They're different diseases."

Su Ye opened his mouth to make a joke, found he did not have one, and closed it.

Everyone in his life had called him lazy.

His father had called it a talent for delegation, which was kinder and meant the same thing.

At noon the assistants brought lunch in six boxes.

Lu Chen took a steel lunch tin out of his briefcase and unscrewed the lid.

He ate plain rice with pickled greens at the far end of the sofa.

Su Ye watched him eat for a minute.

"Where did you grow up?" he asked.

"An orphanage, on the east side. Sunrise House. They chose my birthday, so I don't count it." Lu Chen did not look up. "Eat your lunch, Mr. Su."

"Call me Su Ye."

"Your title is your father's decision." Lu Chen finally looked at him. "Your name is yours. I'll use it when you tell me what you want to be called, not what the building wants."

Su Ye put down his chopsticks.

"Su Ye," he said. "Please."

"Su Ye," said Lu Chen, and the name sounded like something that belonged to a person.

At two o'clock they walked to the boardroom, and Su Ye stopped in the corridor to hand his bag to a guard.

Lu Chen took it out of the guard's hand and gave it back to him.

"Carry it," he said.

"Why?"

"Because it's yours."

Su Ye carried it for a short distance down the hall.

Then he noticed his right wrist.

It was swollen and purple where the guard had grabbed it on Friday, and the strap was cutting into it.

Lu Chen saw him notice.

"Give me that," he said, and took the bag off his shoulder without another word.

He carried it in one hand and the briefcase in the other, all the way to the boardroom.

Su Ye walked beside him with nothing in his hands at all and did not feel as relieved as he had expected.

At the boardroom door Lu Chen set both bags down.

"Hold still," he said.

He reached up and straightened Su Ye's tie, which Su Ye had tied crooked in the car on purpose.

His fingers worked the knot into place and pushed it up against Su Ye's throat, firm and quick.

Su Ye stopped breathing for a moment.

"There," Lu Chen said, in the same level voice he used for the freight clause.

His hand stayed on the knot a second longer than the knot needed.

Then he picked the bags up and went in first.

That night Su Ye sat at the long dining table of the Su estate and ate his mother's braised fish without tasting it.

Chairman Su sat at the head, reading a report.

Mrs. Su sat opposite, watching her son.

"You're quiet," she said. "You're never quiet. Is it that man? Shu Fen?"

"No, Mom."

"Good. Your father has a list of everything wrong with him. It's fourteen items long."

"Sixteen," said the Chairman, not looking up. "I added two at lunch."

Su Ye put down his chopsticks.

"I like Lu Chen," he said.

The room went still.

His father lowered the report.

His mother put a hand over her mouth, and her jade bracelet clicked against her teeth.

"Point one," said Chairman Su, slowly. "He is not your husband's employee. Point two. He told you to carry your own tea."

"How do you know about the tea?"

"I have eyes on the thirty-ninth floor." The Chairman folded his hands. "Point three. He has a spine, and you need one. Good. This time you chose well."

"I haven't chosen anything. I said I like him."

"You said it at dinner, out loud, to your parents." Mrs. Su was beaming. "That's a choice."

Her phone was already in her hand.

She tapped a contact, put it on speaker, and set it on the tablecloth between the fish and the soy sauce.

"Lu Chen, dear?" she said brightly. "It's Mrs. Su. Can you bring the supplier documents to the estate tomorrow? I'll make dinner."

There was the smallest pause on the line.

"Of course, ma'am," said Lu Chen's voice. "What time?"

"Whenever you finish," said Mrs. Su, and hung up.

She looked across the table at her husband, and the two of them nodded once.

"He said yes," she said. "Go and clear the room next to Ye's."

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