Lin Shu sat up all night. The last spark in the fireplace died out, and Zhou Yanli still hadn’t come home.
She picked up the phone and called Yu Yu.
“Take me to the hospital.”
It was winter, and it had snowed all night. The trees along both sides of the street were coated in silver frost. The moment the cold air outside touched her, it seemed to seep into her bones.
Lin Shu sat beside Old Master’s bed, pressing a fruit knife with her fingertips as she peeled an apple for him.
“Yanli said you agreed to have another child. That’s wonderful.”
Old Master smiled warmly at his grandson’s wife, happiness crinkling the wrinkles on his face.
“Yes.”
Lin Shu stopped what she was doing.
“Dr. An, the stomach cancer specialist, arrived this morning. I’m planning to arrange your surgery sooner. He can only stay in the country for two days.”
Old Master nodded. “I trust you, Lin Shu. If it weren’t for your connections, I doubt we could have gotten him here.”
Lin Shu’s dark eyes were grave, like sharpened blades. “Don’t worry, Grandpa. He’ll cure you.”
The next day
Zhou Yanli finally came home, looking exhausted.
The moment he saw Lin Shu, his expression changed. But for Wen Xin’s sake, he held back his temper.
“Did you pull Director An away from treating Wen Xin?”
Lin Shu replied coolly, “I brought Dr. An here to save your grandfather’s life, not to save the world while I was at it. If you want to save the woman you love, you can go ask An Qianhe yourself.”
He stared at Lin Shu, dark currents churning in his black eyes. Anger slowly gathered there, as though it could swallow her at any moment.
“Why would you do this? She’s gravely ill. She needs a good doctor.”
Lin Shu met Zhou Yanli’s gaze, her beautiful eyes utterly calm.
Her voice was just as cool.
“Zhou Yanli, be fair. She’s your woman. She has nothing to do with me. How can you ask me to do favors for a woman who stole my husband, and expect me to agree without shame?”
The fact that she hadn’t wished Wen Xin dead already made her generous.
“Lin Shu, Wen Xin only has a year left to live. She gave me up to you for the rest of my life.”
“So you never loved me at all. You think I stole another woman’s man, is that it?”
He’d finally said it. In a roundabout way, he was telling her that he belonged to Wen Xin, not that he was Lin Shu’s husband.
Then what was the man who had lain beside her for the past six years, caressed her body, and sought her out every night?
A teddy bear?
“Don’t be so cruel, Lin Shu. You’ve known about her for a long time.”
Zhou Yanli’s shameless words brought a faint deathly pallor to Lin Shu’s face.
She had brought this on herself. She’d known he loved someone else and had insisted on marrying him anyway.
She deserved it.
Lin Shu closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again.
There was no infatuation or love left in them.
“Read it carefully, then sign it. I’ll have An Qianhe treat the woman you love.”
Zhou Yanli picked up the divorce agreement. With every few lines he read, his brow furrowed a little more.
“You want thirty percent of Zhou Group’s shares, and you want me to pay you twenty million a year in alimony?”
By the eighth line, Zhou Yanli’s expression had turned completely grim.
“You’re giving me Shuangshuang?”
How could she be so heartless?
Zhou Yanli tossed the thin divorce agreement to the floor and stepped on it.
Lin Shu’s lips hurt as his powerful fingertips pressed against them, rubbing hard.
“Mrs. Zhou, I’ve only been gone a few days and haven’t been here to keep you fed. And you’ve already taken it as far as divorce?”
Without caring that the servants might be passing through the living room, Zhou Yanli pinned Lin Shu beneath him, leaving her unable to move.
Lin Shu didn’t struggle as she might have been expected to. She lay motionless, like a piece of wood.
Whenever the two of them had a disagreement, he resorted to this.
Too bad for him—
The desire she felt when she was with him had only ever existed when she still had feelings for him, when she still loved him.
She was a person, not a beast whose only thought was mating.
“Divorce—or Wen Xin’s life. Pick one.”
Zhou Yanli braced himself over her, one hand at her collar, gripping it tight.
His forceful movements had already opened her neckline, exposing the dazzling whiteness of her skin.
Putting aside the history between him and Wen Xin as teenagers, Lin Shu was the second woman to enter his emotional life, and she had been blessed with every advantage.
She was beautiful and intelligent. Most importantly, she loved him with all her heart and had used everything she knew to help him manage Zhou Group.
She was a financial prodigy whom other companies had failed to poach even with salaries in the tens of millions. After marrying him, she helped him, as the newly appointed president of Zhou Group, make the company an industry leader in just three years.
As Mrs. Zhou and his strategist, she had been indispensable. Even now, Old Master was glad he had judged her correctly and chosen a good wife for his grandson.
She was waiting for Zhou Yanli’s answer, but he said nothing.
The living room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. She wasn’t going to keep confronting him for long. She was tired of sharing her husband with another woman and having to play palace intrigue every day.
As he leaned over her, his movements tugged her collar farther open, exposing a broad sweep of skin.
Zhou Yanli’s gaze fell on the expanse of pale skin, and his clear eyes instantly darkened, their expression unreadable.
Their bodies were entwined; there was nothing about them that suggested they were fighting over another woman.
Lin Shu reached to pull her clothes back into place, but as soon as she managed one side, Zhou Yanli tugged the other side down again. In the confusion, her attempts to cover herself only took on the air of coy resistance.
“You used that method to force me to come back just to seduce me. Just as you wanted.”
His gaze suddenly turned savage. He bent down and bit her lips, gnawing at them viciously.
Outside, on a ginkgo branch, a bough snapped under the weight of the snow with a crisp crack.
Inside, the room was thick with heat and haze. Zhou Yanli held Lin Shu beneath him, his hand slowly tracing the curves of her body.
It was daytime. If she let him have his way, it would become a public performance.
“Daddy, are you back?”
Zhou Shuang’s voice came from upstairs. Clutching a stuffed toy, she rubbed her sleepy eyes as she came downstairs.
Zhou Yanli sat there in his immaculate suit, his posture straight and his dignified face calm, as if the passion he had just shown his wife had never happened.
Lin Shu, by contrast, was a complete mess. Her torn clothes couldn’t be put back together, so she could only take the coat from the entryway rack and drape it over herself to hide her disheveled state.
“Shuangshuang?”
Zhou Yanli stood and gently gathered Zhou Shuang into his arms.
“Oh, you’re back. What about Auntie Wen Xin? She’s sick. Did you leave her home alone and run off by yourself?”
Lin Shu gathered her disheveled hair. Her daughter had just woken up, but not a bit of her attention went to her exhausted mother. Instead, she was worried about the woman her father was seeing.
Before Zhou Yanli could answer, Zhou Shuang turned to Lin Shu, eyes wide with anger.
“Did you call Daddy again and make him come home? Auntie Wen Xin is very sick and needs someone to look after her. Why are you so petty?”
Lin Shu’s face was drained of color. Without realizing it, she scratched lines into the leather sofa with her fingernails.
Zhou Yanli stroked his daughter’s head, soothing her. “Auntie Wen Xin is fine. Daddy came back to see you. I’ll go see her in a little while.”
Zhou Shuang nodded. “I’ll go with you to see her.”
Zhou Yanli carried Zhou Shuang upstairs to wash up. As he set foot on the stairs, he paused briefly.
Zhou Yanli’s mocking voice reached Lin Shu’s ears. “See? Even a child is more understanding and considerate than you.”