Wildfire of Passion

At thirty-two, Qin Lan's life is a schedule precise to the minute. Her hot Americano is always unsweetened, she always arrives ten minutes early for meetings, and the ring on her right pinky is a medal of independence she awarded herself. Marriage had once tripped her up, and she'd long since filed love away as a high-risk, unprofitable investment. The night she stepped into a live house to win over a difficult client was the one time her life went off track. The moment the bass pounded into her ears, the woman onstage looked up from her guitar. Her casual gaze swept over Qin Lan's painfully out-of-place business suit, and a playful smile curled her lips. Later, in the darkness of an elevator that had come to a sudden stop, it was this woman's hand gripping Qin Lan's trembling wrist, guiding her through each breath in an impossibly steady voice. And when Qin Lan handed her a contract to “pretend to be my girlfriend at my ex-husband's wedding,” she added just one outrageous condition: One evening a week, spend time with her simply to “waste it.” Ride bicycles in the evening breeze, drink cold beer by the river, and watch the lights across the water go out one by one. Qin Lan had thought it was just a mutually beneficial arrangement. But one afternoon, when Su Ran's brow was bleeding, Qin Lan abandoned a roomful of executives and rushed to the hospital with red-rimmed eyes. That's when she completely lost control. One of them lived by the tick of a clock; the other was born to the wind. Qin Lan thought she was only borrowing a little tenderness to help her get through the day. But before she knew it, she'd borrowed half of the other's freedom and given up the true feelings she'd hidden for far too long. It turned out the best kind of love was never about one person saving another. It was about two people on different paths willingly taking a detour for each other.