Chapter 34: IF YOU DARE LAY A HAND ON MY ROSE

The other Omegas had all come with dates of their own, and the gentle pull of other tables and other conversations eventually drew them away one by one, with promises to use the WeChat details they had collected. Bai Feng was called away by one of the event coordinators with the apologetic expression of someone who had not finished the conversation they wanted to be having.

"I will find you again before the evening is over," he said to Guiying, with the certainty of someone making a statement rather than a suggestion.

"I will be here," Guiying said.

After another hour the room had reached that particular point in the evening where the energy shifted from structured to loose, conversations overlapping, the string quartet playing something warmer than before, the remaining dessert plates being cleared by servers who moved with slightly less precision than they had at the beginning of the night.

Guiying felt the warmth of the room settling in the way warmth did when you had been inside for too long.

He leaned toward Liuxian. "I am going to get some air."

Liuxian looked at him. "The balcony at the east end is quieter. Stay where the staff can see you."

Guiying nodded and slipped away from the table.

The balcony was exactly what he needed. Cool air, the city spread out below in its evening light, the noise of the ballroom reduced to a muffled hum behind the glass doors. He stood at the railing and let the breeze move through the long blonde hair and the white satin and felt himself settle.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

Just a moment.

Then he heard footsteps behind him on the balcony.

He did not turn around immediately. He waited, the way he had learned to wait, reading the quality of the footsteps, the weight of them, the pace.

Then the person spoke.

"Beautiful night."

The voice moved through him like ice water.

He knew that voice. He had heard it in his sleep for five years. He had heard it in the nightmare three days ago, close and inescapable, and had not been able to move. He knew the particular texture of it, the surface warmth that sat over something entirely cold, the calibrated pleasantness of a man who had spent his entire life learning to sound like someone worth trusting. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Shen Zihao was standing behind him on the balcony.

Guiying did not turn around.

He looked at the city below, at the lights spread out in the dark, and breathed through his nose slowly and carefully, and reminded himself of every single thing that was true right now.

He was not in that house. He was not twenty eight years old and running out of exits. He was Tang XiaoYu. He was wearing a pheromone blocker. His hair was blonde and his eyes were hazel and there was no reason, not a single reason, for the man behind him to recognize him.

He turned around.

Shen Zihao was exactly as Guiying remembered him.

Tall, handsome, the kind of handsome that had always been his most effective weapon. He was dressed well, carrying himself with the easy confidence of someone who had walked into every room of his life and found it waiting for him. His smile was pleasant and immediate, the one he deployed on strangers, the one that had fooled Guiying for approximately three weeks before the reality of who he was had made itself impossible to ignore.

He looked at Guiying with the particular attention of a man who had seen something he found interesting and had decided to pursue it.

"I do not think we have met," he said. "I would have remembered."

"We have not," Guiying said.

His voice came out steady. He was distantly surprised by that.

Shen Zihao stepped slightly closer, the move casual and deliberate at once. "You are here with Liu Liuxian?"

"I am," Guiying said.

"Mm." Shen Zihao looked at him with that surface warmth, that calibrated pleasantness. "And yet you are out here alone. That seems like poor planning on his part."

"I wanted air," Guiying said. "I have it. I will be going back inside shortly."

He moved to step around Shen Zihao toward the door.

Shen Zihao shifted, not dramatically, just enough to suggest that moving around him was going to require an acknowledgement of the fact that he was there.

"There is no rush," he said. "The night is long. Stay a while."

Guiying looked at him.

And for the first time since turning around, he let himself look. Really look, with the full weight of everything he remembered, everything this man had done, every night, every morning, every moment in that house that he had spent trying to make himself small enough to survive. He looked at Shen Zihao’s face, the pleasant surface of it, and felt something settle in his chest that was not fear.

It was hatred. Clean and cold and entirely his.

"I do not think so," he said pleasantly. "Goodnight."

Shen Zihao’s smile did not waver but something behind his eyes shifted. He was not accustomed to this. Guiying knew that. He had never been told no by someone he had decided to pursue and he did not know what to do with it except push harder.

"You are very cold," Shen Zihao said. The pleasantness in his voice had thinned slightly. "For someone so pretty."

"Cold is a kind word for what I am feeling right now," Guiying said.

Shen Zihao looked at him. The smile had gone now, replaced by the expression underneath it, the one Guiying recognized from five years of mornings and evenings and everything in between. The particular tightening around the eyes, the jaw setting, the way his shoulders changed when his patience had reached its limit.

That flare. That familiar, terrible flare.

Guiying saw it coming and did not move. He held his ground and looked at Shen Zihao with the cold, unwavering gaze of someone who had already died at this man’s hands once and was not afraid of him anymore, and watched Shen Zihao’s hand rise.

Then a voice cut across the balcony like a blade.

"If you dare lay a hand on my rose, Shen Zihao."

The voice was quiet. Quieter than a threat had any right to be. It carried the particular weight of someone who did not need volume to communicate the full scope of what they were saying.

"This country will not be big enough for the two of us."