He Fired His Secret Heir, Then Begged for His Love novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Yellow Tab
Shu Fen fires Su Ye at the annual meeting and hands him divorce papers; Su Ye signs without reading the last page, and Lu Chen catches a guard's hand on his wrist.
Shu Fen stopped the annual meeting to fire his husband, and he apologized to the room for the delay.
He did it between the third-quarter slides and the dessert hour, so all two hundred people in the ballroom could watch.
Su Ye was at the dessert table with an egg tart in each hand, trying to decide which one to be loyal to.
"Su Ye," Shu Fen said into the microphone. "Come up here."
Su Ye ate the left tart, because the right one was clearly better and deserved a moment of silence.
Then he walked to the stage with crumbs on his lapel.
"Two years ago I gave you the title Head of Special Projects," Shu Fen said. "Can anyone in this room name one project you finished?"
Nobody spoke.
Su Ye could have named eleven.
Every one was a contract his father's company had signed with Fen Group as a favor to "a family friend."
Su Ye had asked for each favor at dinner and then gone back to his nap.
Shu Fen had never asked who the family friend was.
He had never asked where Su Ye's family lived, either.
He had been told they ran a noodle stall, and that Su was the most common surname in the city.
"As of this minute you are dismissed," Shu Fen said. "And these are for you."
A lawyer stepped forward with a folder.
Yellow tabs stuck out of its edge, one on every page, each marked SIGN HERE.
"Divorce papers," Shu Fen said. "In front of everyone, so no one says I hid it. I'm marrying Li Lu."
The screen behind him changed.
It showed the title slide of Dawn, the project that had made Fen Group a finalist for Enterprise of the Year.
Under it was a photograph of Li Lu in a pale-pink blazer.
She stood beside Shu Fen and looked at the floor.
That morning she had brought Su Ye a cup of tea and a printed copy of the Dawn deck.
She had said he might like to see it before the meeting.
He had flipped through it for a minute.
The footnotes started at fourteen.
He had assumed the printer ate the first thirteen and gone to look for pastry.
"Anything to say?" Shu Fen asked. He was smiling.
Su Ye looked at his husband.
For two years Shu Fen had not once looked up from his phone when Su Ye said good night.
Su Ye had made himself small and funny and easy, because he thought that was how a person got kept.
His chest hurt, and he did not let it reach his face.
"Can I finish the other tart?" he said.
Somebody laughed, and was shushed.
"Security," Shu Fen said.
Two guards came onto the stage.
One of them held a cardboard box of Su Ye's desk things, a mug, a plant and a stapler.
The box was already taped, so someone had packed it last night.
The guard held it out, waiting.
"You're walking me out," Su Ye said kindly. "You carry it."
The guard blinked, and took the box back.
Su Ye had carried nothing since he was eight.
He was not going to start on the worst day of his life.
The lawyer set the folder on the podium and held out a pen.
Su Ye set the egg tart down on the podium, took the pen and signed the first yellow tab.
He signed the second, and the third.
"The last page is only the standard waiver of claims," the lawyer began.
"I don't read the last page," Su Ye said. "It's bad for my digestion."
He signed it anyway, in the blank space, with a flourish.
The lawyer looked at the page, then at Shu Fen, and neither of them said a word.
Li Lu came across the stage while the lawyer was still capping his pen.
Her eyes were wet.
"I'm so sorry, Su Ye," she said softly. "I never wanted it to happen like this."
She picked the egg tart up off the podium and pressed it into his palm.
It was warm and slightly squashed, and he found he was grateful for it, which annoyed him.
"Thank you," he said.
"Take care of yourself."
"I'll try to take care of someone else's problem and call it the same thing."
He turned and went down the stairs.
The guard had his arm before he reached the aisle, one big hand clamped hard above his wrist.
"Walk," the guard said, and pulled.
Su Ye winced.
"I'm walking. I've been walking for two years."
"Let go of him."
The voice came from the back row.
It was a young man's voice, quiet and flat, the kind that did not need to be raised.
A man in a grey suit had stood up between the last two rows of chairs.
He wore thin black glasses and held a heavy black briefcase, and he came down the aisle without hurrying.
He took the guard's wrist in his fingers and turned it, once, until the hand opened.
Then his fingers closed around Su Ye's wrist instead, warm and dry.
Su Ye felt his own pulse jump against the man's thumb, and he did not understand why.
"He is leaving on his own feet," the man said. "I'll see to it."
The guard let go.
Shu Fen called something after them from the stage.
Neither of them turned around.
In the corridor the man released his wrist.
He set the briefcase down, straightened Su Ye's twisted cuff, and picked the briefcase up again.
"Mr. Su," he said. "Lu Chen. Legal affairs, Su Group. Your father sent me."
"My father." Su Ye stared at him. "He knew about today?"
"He knew about the meeting. He didn't know it would be public."
A black car waited at the kerb.
Lu Chen opened the rear door and held it, and Su Ye got in with the egg tart still in his hand.
Lu Chen climbed in the other side and opened the briefcase on his knees.
"I'd like to ask what you signed," he said.
"Everything with a yellow flag."
"The last page?"
"I told you. Digestion."
Lu Chen shut his eyes for one second and opened them again.
"Your father says you start on Monday," he said. "Vice president of Su Group. A desk, an office, and a legal adviser."
"Who is the legal adviser?"
"Me." He put a pen into Su Ye's free hand and clicked it open. "My job is to stop you signing anything unread. I should warn you that I'm very good at it."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend