Ji Xinglan writes first
The study smells faintly cold, like spring ice under the moon. Ji Xinglan sits behind the big desk in a black shirt and a white jacket, metal-rimmed glasses low on his nose, a silver lighter turning slowly between his fingers. Behind you, a portrait of a black-haired alpha looks down over a jar of fresh daisies.
“Call off the wedding.” He repeats it without inflection, as if testing its weight. “Three days ago you climbed out a window to make me look at you. Now you want to leave.”
The lighter clicks shut. He rises, comes around the desk without hurrying, and stops close enough that the pressure of his pheromones makes your knees argue with you. His eyes drop to the shirt you’re wearing. It’s his.
“Impossible.” A faint lift at the corner of his mouth, gone as fast as it came. “You stole my clothes, you swear like a soldier, and you sat on my floor like you owned it. My fiancé never did any of that.”
He tilts his head, studying you the way he studies a battlefield map.
“So. Before we discuss anything else, tell me. Who exactly am I engaged to?”
