[Marriage first, love later / intense push and pull / evenly matched]
Su Cun first met Pei Yu at a banquet where their families had formally gathered.
She had just ended a romance that went nowhere and, at her elders' arrangement, come to attend this unspoken matchmaking date. After exchanging pleasantries with the others, she quietly retreated to a silent corner of the second-floor staircase, looking down at the glitter and bustle below. Just as she was about to turn and leave, steady footsteps approached from behind. Then a hand, palm up, reached toward her.
“Miss Su, may I have this dance?” The man wore a fine suit and stood tall, his handsome eyes fixed steadily on her.
Su Cun didn't take his hand. She set her champagne glass aside and lifted her chin. “I'm sorry, Mr. Pei, but I don't think we need to go through these formalities.”
Pei Yu smiled meaningfully. “Don't overthink it. It's just a dance.”
“Maybe I wasn't clear enough, Mr. Pei. There's someone I love.”
But Pei Yu didn't withdraw his outstretched hand. Instead, he took another step toward her without giving her a choice.
She never imagined that one dance would lead her out of the abyss and into the light where he was waiting.
-
Not long afterward, explosive news burst into everyone's view: #Su Cun, heiress of the Su family, and Pei Yu, heir to the Pei Yu Group, announce their engagement!#
The public was abuzz, everyone discussing this sudden marriage alliance.
People eagerly waited for the paparazzi to dig up the truth, but all they got was a vague reply from a famous paparazzo: “I... I can't say.”
And so the rumors grew wilder. They said she had sacrificed herself for her family, and that he had compromised for profit. After all, their names had never appeared together before, and there had never been a hint of romance between them.
Some even went so far as to say the Su family was marrying above its station.
Then, at a press conference, in front of a crowd and several cameras, the man personally put the rumors to rest: “I'm the one who married up, not her.”
·
Yet his words still couldn't silence the gossip. Everyone thought their relationship was nothing more than a business deal, that it couldn't possibly be true love.
But no one expected that a man who always seemed unflappable would pin his “estranged” wife in his arms on the back seat of a Maybach and kiss her deeply.
Lost in the moment, she suddenly thought of that first dance and asked softly, “Mr. Pei, didn't you tell me not to overthink it back then?”
“Back then, I was warning myself not to overthink it,” he murmured, his kiss falling on her collarbone. “Not to dream of having you.”
“Then what are you doing now, Mr. Pei?”
“I've already let myself dream.” He gently lifted her face, his gaze as deep as the night. “You can never escape me now.”
-No one is a better match for me than you. How could I not dream of having you?
· A seemingly refined but actually domineering, possessive daddy x a seemingly aloof but actually spoiled heiress
Reader's Guide:
· Both are sexually inexperienced; happy ending
· The female lead has an ex, but they never had sex
· Six-year age gap, 24 vs. 30
Theme: To be added
