He Is CEO/Actor, She Is Actress novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Part That Went to the Maid
At the Lu Pictures gala Wenxin's promised lead goes to Madam Gu's niece and she is cast as the maid; she follows Haoran to his suite and offers herself for the part, and he tells her to take off her wedding ring.
Gu Xiaotong's name was read out as the lead of Letters Under Snow in front of the whole ballroom.
Wenxin kept smiling, because the cameras had swung to her table.
Hundreds of guests had come to the studio's spring gala, and every one of them was filming the stage.
The studio's CEO stood at the lectern in a black suit with one hand flat on the cast card.
He read the list in the same level voice he used for everything.
"Su Min, the spy who loves the wrong man, will be played by Gu Xiaotong."
The applause came in a wave.
Wenxin kept her hands folded on the white tablecloth, the left one on top.
Last week Madam Gu had told her the part was hers.
She had said it over soup in the hospital room, with her son asleep in the bed behind them.
"Haoran can't refuse family, dear," Madam had said, and patted her wrist. "Say nothing to him. Let him hear it from me on the night."
Now Madam sat two chairs away in jade silk, clapping politely.
She had written the place cards herself, with her left hand, her letters leaning backward. Wenxin's read: Daughter-in-law Tang.
"Tang Wenxin," the CEO read, "will play Ah Zhu, the maid."
Somewhere behind her, someone laughed.
Madam leaned over and squeezed her hand.
"Patience," she whispered. "Something always goes wrong at the first announcement. I'll fix it at the table read."
Her smile was warm, and her gold bracelet clicked against Wenxin's wedding ring.
Wenxin looked at the stage.
Lu Haoran did not look at her.
She was twenty-five. She had played a corpse, a waitress, a nurse and a girl who screams in a lift.
She had grown up in the staff annex behind his family's house, the housekeeper's daughter, and she had become an actress for one reason.
That reason was standing at the lectern, thanking the sponsors.
Xiaotong caught her arm at the edge of the dance floor, pink-cheeked, still holding her trophy card.
"Wenxin-jie, I swear I didn't know," she said. "I thought it was yours. Everyone said it was yours."
"It's not your fault," Wenxin said.
She meant it. That was the worst part.
Xiaotong had pinned her into this gown backstage an hour ago and lent her the earrings, saying Wenxin's ears deserved better than studs.
Wenxin took the earrings off and put them in Xiaotong's palm, one at a time.
So she went to find Haoran.
The backstage corridor smelled of hairspray and cold coffee.
Haoran came off the stage with his assistant behind him, loosening his tie, and stopped when he saw her.
"Not now," he said.
"Now," Wenxin said. "Or I walk back out there and ask the cameras why the housekeeper's daughter gets to be a maid."
His assistant looked at the floor.
Haoran looked at her for a long moment. Then he took her elbow, steered her into the service lift and pressed the top floor.
Neither of them spoke on the way up.
His suite was dark except for the city, laid out in lights along the river below the window.
He took off his cufflinks and set them on the table, one beside the other.
"Sister-in-law," he said. "Madam will be wondering where you are."
"I want Su Min."
"The part is cast."
"Then cast it again."
"On what grounds?" he said, without turning around.
Her hands were shaking, but her voice was steady. She had spent five years learning to do that on cue.
"At every family dinner for three years you have looked at me, and then looked away," she said. "I'm done pretending I didn't see it."
He turned around.
"Say what you mean, Wenxin."
It was the first time he had said her name in months.
"Give me the part," she said, "and I will sleep with you."
The room was very quiet.
She had loved him since she was eighteen and had never once been brave enough to say so. She was brave now, about the wrong thing, and she knew it.
Haoran crossed the carpet slowly.
He stopped close enough that she could smell the wine on his breath.
He did not touch her face. He took her left hand and turned it over in his, and looked at the ring.
"And your husband?" he asked.
"He's asleep," she said. "He's been asleep for three years."
Haoran's thumb moved once over the gold band.
"Then take it off," he said.
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