The Brother I Betrayed - Chapter 4

While I stared at the portraits in disbelief, a tall, burning-hot body suddenly pressed against my back.

Xie Yan wrapped his arms around me from behind, locking me against him as though subduing an enemy. One hand caught my chin.

“You’ve seen them. Tell me what you think.”

I couldn’t see his expression, and his unreadable tone gave me no clue what he was feeling.

But all these portraits couldn’t possibly have been painted in a day or two.

Now I knew for certain that Xie Yan was nowhere near as cold and rational as he’d pretended.

He hadn’t let go of our past at all.

I just didn’t know whether he’d painted me again and again because he was obsessed with an enemy, or because he couldn’t forget an old love.

Unable to work out what he truly wanted, I settled for a vague answer.

“What I think… is that you’re quite good at painting. If your official career falls apart, you could sell portraits for a living.”

Xie Yan gave a short laugh. “Wishing misfortune on me again?”

I forced a smile. “I’m complimenting your work.”

“Insulting me, wishing me ill, and still playing dumb,” he said mildly. “You can’t be very sincere about asking for my help.”

That was the trouble with letting someone get a grip on your one weakness. I shut my mouth at once and didn’t dare snap back.

Yet my silence only displeased him more.

“Do you care so much about that useless husband of yours? Will you swallow any humiliation to protect him?”

Speaking was wrong. Silence was wrong too.

He was simply looking for a fight, wasn’t he?

I frowned. “If you can’t stand me and want revenge, say so. Why go through all these elaborate games?”

“I can’t stand you? I want revenge?” Xie Yan laughed outright in anger. “Xie Shu, you really have no heart.”

The room spun.

Xie Yan seized my arm, caught my waist, and pressed me down on the desk strewn with paintings.

At last, I had a clear view of his face.

Three years had passed. His skin was darker, and a deep scar had appeared behind the ridge of his brow.

That scar erased the last of his old boyishness, a testament to how hard he’d fought for his current position.

“Looking so closely? Does this face seem strange to you? Have you forgotten it entirely?”

I didn’t deny it. I only said:

“You were the one who said we’d never see each other again. Now you’re blaming me for forgetting what you look like?”

Xie Yan lowered himself over me. His cold eyes fixed on mine like a wolf’s.

“Yes. I said it. It’s all my fault.”

“But I warned you never to let me see you again. Why did you have to walk straight into my trap, A-Shu?”

His hot breath brushed my face like the summer wind from that year when everything went astray—stifling, restless, unsettling.

Before I could speak, he bent his head and bit hard at the mouth that never seemed to do anything but spit venom at him.

He held the back of my neck in an unyielding grip, refusing to let me turn away. Between our mouths, he ground every rule of propriety and morality to pieces.

This gentleman, so rigidly proper since childhood, tore apart his respectable disguise and took liberties with another man’s wife without restraint.

The cool incense in the air regained the scorching heat of my memories.

As the air grew hotter and heavier, Xie Yan turned his face aside, abruptly ending a kiss that could only be called rough.

“Do you understand what I want to do to you now?”

My limbs were numb. I lay back across the desk, unable to sit up or speak.

Beneath me, sweat dampened the paintings and blurred the ink. Above me was a ferocious beast steeped in desire.

Having tasted only a little, the beast gently wiped the sweat from my forehead.

His words, however, were as overbearing and absolute as his touch was tender.

“This is what I want to do to you.”

“A-Shu, I can save them. But you’ll have to give me yourself in exchange.”