Chapter 1

Five years.

The first thing Xiao Yu did when he saw me was drop to one knee in front of everyone at the kindergarten gate and lift the hem of my skirt.

I have to start this three minutes earlier.

· · ·

It was a summer morning. I was crouched at the kindergarten gate, fixing my four-year-old's backpack.

"Mom." Xiaoshuo tipped his face up. Sweat beaded on the tip of his nose. "Can you be the first one here to pick me up today?"

"I can." I straightened the strap on his dinosaur backpack and ruffled his hair. "Go on. Don't be late."

He took off toward the doors, then halfway there he spun around and waved, two little fangs flashing.

I waved back, smiling.

Then I turned—

Thud.

A Rolls-Royce hit me.

"Hit" was generous.

It was a tap. Like someone knocking on me with a knuckle.

I still went off.

Oh, so a fancy car means you get to drive like that? Eyes growing out of the back of your head?

School gate. No swearing.

I sucked in a breath, ran every curse word I had through a filter, and swapped them for the daytime-TV version.

The door opened.

Cold air came out first. Then a leg.

Dress pants. Leather shoes. Crease sharp enough to cut. The uppers were clean enough to use as a mirror.

Click. The door shut, low and heavy, and the cluster of chattering parents next to us shrank by half a head.

Someone sucked in a breath.

Someone whispered, "Isn't that—"

The rest of it got swallowed whole.

I looked up. The second I saw that face, my brain went white.

Xiao Yu.

Five years. The man I thought I would never see again in this lifetime.

He was taller than five years ago. Thinner, too.

A custom suit sat on his shoulders like it had been built there. He was cold the way something is cold when you just pulled it out of a freezer. The sun overhead couldn't warm him.

He stood there backlit and didn't move. Just pinned me with that stare.

I'm done.

He recognized me.

I turned and walked. Fast. Like something was behind me.

A hand closed around my wrist.

"Let me see where you're hurt."

The voice above my head was clear and cold. Same as five years ago. Exactly the same.

"I'm not—I'm not hurt." I yanked. It didn't do anything. "Mr. Xiao, your car didn't touch me. I was in the way. I'm sorry. I'll get out of your sight right now."

He didn't answer.

His thumb, though, dragged slowly across the inside of my wrist.

That was the old move. The one he used to use when he was talking me down.

One stroke, and half my body went numb. Every hair stood up. A thin current climbed from the base of my spine all the way to the back of my skull.

Five years.

Five years of composure, and one finger of his took the whole wall down.

"Move again," he said, leaning in, voice so low it was almost against my ear, "and I'll kiss you in the street."

My head snapped up.

Morning rush at the kindergarten gate. Parents dropping kids off. The woman at the breakfast stall. Commuters tearing past on e-bikes. Every pair of eyes swung over at once, like someone had flipped on a row of searchlights.

The woman at the stall had her spatula up. Half an egg was still stuck to it. She'd forgotten to flip it.

I didn't need a mirror. I knew my ears were red through.

I stopped moving.

Xiao Yu let go of my wrist.

I thought he was going to let me leave.

The next second, he went down on one knee.

"What are you—"

Long, knuckled fingers lifted the hem of my skirt.

His fingertips still held the cold from the car. The second they touched my knee, I almost came off the ground.

"Xiao Yu!" I hissed it through my teeth. "Have you lost your mind?"

He didn't answer. His fingers slid down my calf and stopped on the outside of my knee.

There was a scrape there, about the size of a fingernail, beading blood—from his car, just now.

I saw it clearly. His lashes flickered.

That one flicker, and the ice that had sat in his eyes for five years cracked. I heard it. A thin, clean split.

I reached to push my skirt back down. "It's nothing. I'll put some iodine on it when I get home—"

"Ah!"

The world tipped.

He scooped me up at the waist and I slammed into a chest that smelled like cold air and a faint thread of tobacco.

My arms went around his neck before I thought about it. By the time I caught up, my nose was against his collarbone.

The mole was still there. Same place.

Every time he used to refuse to stop, I would bite down on that mole. Hard.

"Xiao Yu! Put me down!"

He didn't hear a word. In front of the whole street, he folded me into the passenger seat, one hand braced on the door frame, the other dragging the seat belt across.

Click.

The buckle snapped home, sharp as a verdict.

"Sit." His face was tight. "Hospital."

"Xiao Yu." I drew a breath. "I'm not—"

"Not what?"

He knew exactly what.

"..."

I shut my mouth.

"I have a very important client at nine-thirty."

"Address."

"What?"

"The address of the meeting." He started the car. The Rolls-Royce slid onto the main road like it had never been anywhere else. "I'll take you after the hospital."

"..."

Fine.

I gave him an address.

A fake one.

The AC was cranked too low. Goosebumps climbed my forearm.

Xiao Yu reached over and turned it up two degrees.

The motion was so easy it was like these five years had never happened. Like we had never split at all.

I didn't say anything. I turned my face to the window.