Chapter 5: The Wrong Ballroom

The Grand Ballroom of the Lu Riverside held three hundred guests, and on Saturday night it held all of them.

There was an ice sculpture of two swans.

Above the stage hung a heart of white light with two initials in it.

G and T.

Fang Yue stood in the doorway in a navy suit with a jade bracelet under his cuff.

His husband's hand was warm in his.

"Smile," said Lu, without moving his lips.

"I'm smiling," said Fang.

"You are showing your teeth."

"That is a smile," Fang said.

Heads turned down the length of the room.

A heavy, handsome man in a cream dinner jacket crossed the floor with both arms open.

Rings flashed on every finger.

"The groom and the groom!" said Ning Boyuan, so everyone could hear. "Brave boys! Come, come. No hard feelings."

"Ning-shushu," said Lu.

"Zhenyu, I held you on my knee."

"You held a bid for my father's hotel on your knee," said Lu. "Where is the host's microphone?"

"Ah, the boys want to give a speech."

Ning laughed and led them to the front, and three hundred people leaned in.

In the first row, small and upright and in dark green, sat Shen Yunzhi with her bag on her lap.

She gave Fang one look and said nothing.

On the stage, the designer and Tang Shuo stood in white suits, and Tang's glasses gleamed.

The designer took the microphone.

"We are so grateful to the hotel family," he said, softly. "Some people are loud. Some people are simply heard."

Tang bent his head and smiled.

"Yue," he said, into his own microphone, with great warmth. "Thank you for coming. I know it cost you."

The room laughed, politely.

Fang let go of Lu's hand.

He walked up the steps, and nobody stopped him, because nobody could believe it.

He took the microphone out of Tang's fingers.

"Hello," said Fang. "I own the card."

The ballroom went very quiet.

"You'll want to know what it cost," said Fang.

He pulled a folded sheet from his inside pocket.

"I'm going to read it. I'm a logistics man. I like a delivery note."

"Yue," said Tang, sharply.

"Line one. This ballroom, deposit, three hundred and eighty thousand."

Somebody laughed in the third row.

"Line two. Champagne, ninety-six cases, eight hundred and ten thousand," Fang read.

He turned the sheet.

"Line three. Two white suits, tailored, one in the wrong size, a hundred and forty."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Two Jilted Tycoons Married at the Scene from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.