Two Jilted Tycoons Married at the Scene novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Nine O'Clock

They register at nine, Fang kisses his new husband for the cameras, and a gold invitation to the cheaters' engagement party arrives with a deposit on Fang's own card.

The Pudong registry opened its window at nine, and Fang Yue was first in line in yesterday's shirt.

He had not slept.

He had spent the night on a sofa in a spare suite of the Lu Riverside.

His husband-to-be had worked at the desk in perfect silence.

"Names," said the clerk, without looking up.

"Fang Yue."

"Lu Zhenyu," said Lu, behind him.

The clerk looked up at that.

She looked at the black coat and the steel watch, and then at Fang's creased collar, and she opened her mouth.

"Stamp it," said Lu, pleasantly.

She stamped it.

Two red books slid across the counter, and that was all it took.

Outside, the steps were full.

Somebody had tipped off the press, and they stood in a black crowd with their microphones held out.

Behind them, in a purple tracksuit and flip-flops, Fang's best friend and COO, Wen Jiaying, was waving both arms.

"Fang Yue! I came to witness! Or to bury him!"

"Wen," Fang said, and he could not help grinning. "It's done."

"You texted me at three a.m. that you were marrying the hotel," said Wen.

"I know," said Fang.

"I thought you were drunk. Were you drunk?"

"No."

"Congratulations, then. Tang's notice is served," said Wen. "I walked it into his office at ten to nine."

She grinned.

"He signed the receipt himself, the idiot."

"What notice?" said a reporter.

"The gift of five percent of Fangshun reverts in thirty days," Wen said, loudly. "The engagement is dead."

At Lu's shoulder, a thin man in a grey suit bent his head.

He had been standing there since before Fang noticed him.

"The designer's notice was signed for at eight-thirty, at the Riverside front desk," said Lu's chief of staff. "Three percent."

"Thank you," said Lu.

The reporters surged.

"Mr. Lu! Mr. Lu! Is it true you married Fang Yue the morning after your engagement ended?"

"Mr. Fang, are you a gold digger?"

"Is it a revenge marriage?" shouted someone at the back.

Lu lifted one hand, and they went quiet.

Fang had not known a man could do that without a gavel.

"My husband sleeps in my bed," said Lu. "Ask anything else."

The crowd roared.

Fang's ears went hot, and he heard himself say, under his breath, "That's a lie."

"Page nineteen," Lu murmured. "Clause seven. Affection in public, for the cameras."

"That's not in the draft I signed," Fang said.

"It was added at three this morning. You were asleep."

"I was not asleep, I was furious," said Fang.

"You were snoring."

Fang opened his mouth to argue and saw forty lenses pointed at it.

All right.

He was loud.

He had always been loud.

He had shouted down a customs officer in Wuhan at twenty and a port union in Ningbo at twenty-five.

He took two fistfuls of Lu's coat and kissed him.

It was meant to be quick and ugly and photographed.

Lu's mouth was cool, and for a moment he went still against Fang's.

Then a warm hand came up under Fang's jaw and tilted his head.

Lu kissed him back with the same dry patience he used for everything.

His thumb pressed under Fang's ear.

Fang's knees did something he would have denied under oath.

The flashes went off in a white storm.

When Lu let go, one corner of his mouth had moved.

"Noted," he said, very quietly, and the crowd went mad.

In the car the partition rose, and the city slid by behind tinted glass.

Fang sat against his own door, as far from the husband as the seat allowed.

He scrubbed his mouth with his sleeve.

"Read clauses seven to nine," said Lu. "Aloud, please. I would like you to hear yourself agree."

Fang took the tablet.

"Seven. Affection in public only." He cleared his throat. "Eight. Separate bedrooms."

"Go on."

"Nine. Either party may end the marriage when the merger closes, or after one year, with courtesy."

"With courtesy," said Lu.

"What does that mean?" Fang asked.

"It means no throwing vases."

"I've thrown one vase in my life," Fang muttered.

"You nearly threw it at my fiancé."

"I nearly threw it at mine," Fang said.

Lu looked out of the window.

The corner of his mouth moved again.

Without turning his head, he reached across the seat.

He rested his left hand on Fang's thigh, flat and warm, just above the knee.

Fang froze.

"The driver can see us," said Lu.

"The driver is staff."

"The driver talks to the other drivers."

Fang felt the heat of that palm through his trousers, high up the inside of his leg.

"Public," he said, hoarsely.

"A car is public."

"It has a partition."

"It has a driver," said Lu, and did not take his hand away.

The courier caught them at the first red light.

A boy in a silver vest rapped on the glass with a gold envelope.

The driver lowered the window two fingers' width.

Lu opened the card and read it without any change in his face, and handed it over.

It was from Ning Boyuan, the rival investor who wanted both their companies for himself.

The card read: Mr. Ning Boyuan requests the pleasure of your company at the engagement of Mr. Tang Shuo and Mr. Lu's former fiancé.

Below it said: Saturday, eight o'clock, the Grand Ballroom of the Lu Riverside Hotel. No hard feelings.

Fang read it twice.

"They're engaged," he said. "To each other. They're throwing a party. In your hotel."

"Booked on the designer's staff rate," said Lu. "It stands for thirty days. I did say noted."

"I was kinder to my ex-girlfriends when they left!"

Fang's phone rang in his lap, and it was Wen, still in her flip-flops.

"Boss," she said, flatly. "I'm looking at the corporate card statement."

"And?" Fang said.

"There's a deposit from last night, eleven forty," said Wen. "Three hundred and eighty thousand yuan."

"For what?"

"A ballroom."

Fang closed his eyes.

"Whose card?" he said, although he knew.

"Yours," said Wen. "Ending 4417."

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