Jiang Nuan had no idea when she had started crying.
The tears simply flowed, and she was too late to stop them—or too exhausted to try.
She had been busy all morning. She was just one code away from finishing the file when Lu Shiyan had to return at that exact moment.
Then she had crawled under the desk.
And somehow, that was how things had ended up like this.
The overwhelming sensations came in waves, washing over her reason and draining away the last of her strength.
The fingers she had been gripping tightly around the edge of the desk finally went slack.
The afternoon light swayed across the room.
But she no longer had the strength to look.
All she could see was the man’s sharply defined hand resting on the desktop beside her ear.
Jiang Nuan drew a breath, turned her head, opened her mouth, and bit down hard on Lu Shiyan’s hand.
Her teeth sank into the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. She used every ounce of strength she had, even tasting a faint trace of blood.
Lu Shiyan didn’t so much as frown. He didn’t pull his hand away, simply letting her bite him.
Jiang Nuan released him. Her voice was hoarse and tinged with tears.
“I…I’m hungry.”
She had said she was hungry just when Lu Shiyan was pushing her to the edge of the cliff, leaving her nowhere to retreat.
It was so embarrassing.
But she really was hungry.
For breakfast, she had only managed half a small bowl of porridge, one boiled egg, and a little stir-fried food.
After an entire morning of intense mental work, along with the prolonged…experience, her stomach had long since been empty.
Lu Shiyan looked at the redness around her eyes and the tears clinging to her lashes. His Adam’s apple bobbed once.
With the hand she had bitten, the deep imprint of her teeth still visible, he gripped her waist and turned her around to face him.
“You didn’t eat?”
“Don’t—”
Jiang Nuan’s tears immediately began flowing even harder.
This man hadn’t…
The tears slid down her cheeks. She raised a hand to wipe them away, but he caught her by the wrist.
Lu Shiyan lowered his eyes and studied her tears for a moment. Something even more dangerous surfaced in his gaze than what was already there, but he forcibly suppressed it.
His thumb brushed over the corner of her eye, wiping away the tear.
“What do you want to eat?”
Jiang Nuan sniffed. “Egg tarts.”
After saying it, she secretly let out a sigh of relief.
She figured that since Lu Shiyan had asked what she wanted to eat, it meant he was letting her go.
Carefully, she tried to get up, sliding down from the edge of the desk. She planned to find a glass of water first and, while she was at it, steer the situation back from this inexplicable direction.
She had only risen a little when an arm hooked around her and pulled her back.
Jiang Nuan opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
She didn’t dare sit up straight and could only lean at an angle against his broad shoulder.
Lu Shiyan didn’t let go.
He stood, walked around to the other side of the room, and sat down on the sofa again.
Jiang Nuan, sitting in his lap, was now completely speechless.
Lu Shiyan activated his terminal, dictated a long order, and then told her, “It’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
His hand slid down the length of her hair, a gesture that carried a hint of reassurance.
“I’ll have it brought over as quickly as possible.”
Jiang Nuan had no time to say anything.
The afternoon glow spilled into the room. The light and shadows stretched into a hazy blur, as if she were asleep but not asleep, awake but without any sense of boundaries.
Every now and then, a single thought would weakly rise to the surface of Jiang Nuan’s mind, only to be submerged again by a more violent wave.
Egg tarts.
She really was hungry.
…
No one knew how much time had passed.
“Ding—”
At last, the delivery robot arrived outside the door. It gave a soft chime that, at that moment, sounded like the voice of heaven itself.
*
Jiang Nuan emerged from the inner bathroom. Her undried hair was still damp, and the corners of her eyes were faintly red.
By the floor-to-ceiling windows in the outer room, Lu Shiyan was taking the food out of the robot one item at a time and arranging it on the meeting table.
Egg tarts, pasta, salad, mushroom soup, and even a small piece of pan-seared steak.
Jiang Nuan stood at the bathroom door and stared at the table full of food.
…She hadn’t been that hungry.
The moment she stepped out, Lu Shiyan’s gaze darkened slightly.
Jiang Nuan noticed and immediately gathered her clothes around herself, wishing she could repack herself from head to toe.
Her expression complicated, she glanced at the sofa, then at his desk.
She felt that this office was no longer usable.
When her gaze passed over the sofa, the leather cushion still seemed to retain the indescribable warmth from earlier. Jiang Nuan decisively looked away and turned toward the other side of the room.
There was a chair there that looked fairly normal. At least it hadn’t been contaminated.
Jiang Nuan bent over, gripped the back of the chair, and heaved.
It didn’t move.
She changed her position, grabbed both armrests, gritted her teeth, and tried to lift it.
The chair rose a few centimeters off the floor.
…Who kept a solid-wood chair in an office?
Footsteps approached from behind.
Lu Shiyan walked around her. With one hand, he picked up the chair by its back as easily as if it were a bag of documents and placed it in front of the meeting table.
She walked over and sat down, lowering her head to rub her aching wrists.
Steam curled from the food on the table. The aroma of the egg tarts reached her nose first. The flaky crust and cheese were a perfect match.
She lowered her head, hesitating over what to pick up first.
The next second, a golden egg tart appeared before her.
Jiang Nuan looked up in surprise.
Lu Shiyan stood in front of her, holding the egg tart in his right hand, while his left hand was spread beneath it to catch the crumbs. He brought it to her lips.
His posture was so natural, as though he did this every day.
Jiang Nuan’s brain stalled for a moment.
Before today, she had never imagined Lu Shiyan feeding her in any situation.
Yet it was happening. The egg tart was right by her lips, its fragrance filling the air. His hand remained steady, without the slightest hint of urging her on.
She opened her mouth and took a bite directly from his hand.
The flaky crust shattered between her teeth, while the rich, creamy cheese melted across her tongue.
It was delicious—much better than KFC!
The tension between Jiang Nuan’s brows eased. Without realizing it, she leaned forward and took a second bite.
The corners of Lu Shiyan’s lips curved upward slightly as he moved his hand closer.
Jiang Nuan chewed, her cheeks puffed out a little, and felt that perhaps life wasn’t quite so terrible after all.
As she chewed, she studied Lu Shiyan.
The man was fully dressed, his shirt buttoned all the way to the top. Other than his tie being slightly crooked, there was no sign whatsoever of what they had just been doing.
“What are you looking at?” Lu Shiyan asked, using a tissue to wipe a few crumbs from the corner of her mouth.
“I’m looking at how you do something bad without even taking off your clothes,” Jiang Nuan muttered.
Lu Shiyan’s hand paused. His brown eyes fixed on her.
“You want me to take them off?”
“I didn’t say that! Don’t make things up!” Jiang Nuan nearly choked on the egg tart.
“Next time, I’ll accommodate you,” Lu Shiyan promised in an even tone.
“Who wants you to accommodate me? Shut up!” Jiang Nuan was so angry she wanted to bite him.
The next second—
“Beep—”
The access-control system sounded.
Jiang Nuan stopped chewing.
Jiang Ce appeared in the doorway, his shoulders nearly filling the frame. He was carrying a large bag and speaking as he walked in.
“Jiang Nuan, there’s a shopping street near the Investigation Bureau with lots of delicious food. I bought—”
His words came to an abrupt stop.
His gaze fell on the table.
Lu Shiyan held a half-eaten egg tart in one hand, his left palm spread beneath it to catch the flakes of pastry. His fingers were still near Jiang Nuan’s lips.
Jiang Nuan had half a mouthful of egg tart stuffed in her cheeks, frozen in a slightly forward-leaning posture.
The two of them turned toward the doorway at the same time.
Jiang Ce stood there, holding a bag, his expression as if someone had pressed pause.
Lu Shiyan stared at him impassively.
Jiang Nuan struggled to swallow the half-mouthful of egg tart.
Then she remembered. While writing her files earlier, she had worried that if she finished and went out to eat, Jiang Ce—who would be returning first—wouldn’t be able to get inside, so she had given him her access card.
At least Jiang Ce had gone to browse around the commercial district first.
Otherwise, if he had come back early and pushed open this door, what he would have witnessed wouldn’t have been the Governor feeding her, but…
