Forbidden Heartbeats

[Main story complete. Writing is hard, so please support the official release. The full series costs only as much as a cup of milk tea.]

[Sweet and obedient girl x genteel-looking, wicked, darkly controlling man]

Mixed-race couple with a striking height difference | Foster-home secret crush | Cruel possessiveness | Intense push and pull | Older, fatherly man

The heroine is 20, the hero is 27. They have a seven-year age gap.

1. Li Tang has suffered from a strange condition since childhood: severe pretty-face obsession and possessiveness syndrome. Its symptoms include shortness of breath, blushing, and a racing heart whenever she sees Pei Hanyu. The symptoms will not subside unless she can make him hers.

Later, she moves in with the Pei family.

One day, Pei Hanyu emerges from the shower with a towel wrapped around him. He braces one hand on the counter behind her, trapping her between the glass vanity and his tall frame.

He warns her in a low voice not to come home late.

Li Tang nods obediently, her face burning red.

In the distance, she sees the black tie that should have been fastened beneath the man's Adam's apple, tossed carelessly beside his suit jacket on the sofa.

Late that night, lying in the big bed, Li Tang pictures Pei Hanyu's cold, sharply defined face. She bites down hard on the black tie he had worn and quietly calls his name.

She thinks, I have to make Pei Hanyu mine.

2. Pei Hanyu is widely regarded among the elite as the most exalted and distinguished man, a man of cool restraint who never wastes time on romance.

But on one particularly heavy night, glass bottles shattered across the floor.

Li Tang is carried to the full-length mirror. The man's long, cool fingers lift her chin as he gazes at the girl in the mirror, her cheeks flushed and her eyes misty with tears. His voice is hoarse.

"Li Tang, look carefully."

He is cruel to the extreme, revealing the dark possessiveness beneath his handsome exterior as he takes control of her.

A winding crack appears in the mirror.

3. Later, everyone knows that Pei Hanyu has a little shadow following him around.

Just as people begin guessing at their relationship, news gets out that the eldest young master Pei has reached marriageable age and is accepting the family's matchmaking arrangements.

The young woman he usually dotes on catches his suit sleeve, her eyes red.

"Can you not go?"

A moment later, he calmly pulls her hand from his sleeve. His voice is ice-cold. "What do you think?"

After leaving Pei Hanyu, Li Tang decides she needs treatment for her condition.

She goes to see a psychologist and tries hard to forget Pei Hanyu.

At their first meeting, she is stunned by how handsome the psychologist is.

After hearing about Li Tang's experiences, the psychologist says, "You seem to have a pretty serious case of being lovesick."

Li Tang: "How did this happen, darling?"

Psychologist: ?

Pei Hanyu, at the door: ...

4. Later still, when she and her fiance are preparing to get engaged, she arrives at the venue and sees a painfully familiar figure.

The man is dressed in a suit, tall and upright. His face is as cool and distinguished as ever, but his eyes hold a dark, smoldering possessiveness that will not fade.

"Tangtang said she only loves me."

"Be good, baby. Call me husband."

# The heroine made up the condition during her edgy teenage phase. Please do not relate it to real life.

# At first, the heroine pursues the hero. He appears self-disciplined and proper, but is secretly dark and intensely controlling. It may look like she is chasing him, but he is hopelessly in love with her, the kind of man who would die if she left. Top-tier dog-training romance. There is a brief groveling arc, but not much. The blurb cannot explain everything, so try the first two chapters.

# One-on-one romance. The leads have a seven-year age gap.

Content warning [highlighted]: The hero really is cruel, twisted, and no good. The heroine is flawed and imperfect. This is a melodramatic romance written purely for the CP. Please only dive in if you are okay with that.

Coming soon: My next book, The Butterfly of the Spring God. A stunningly beautiful, socially anxious girl x a cruel, unruly head of a prominent family [Click into my author page and add it to your favorites, please!]

[Marriage first, love later / Drugged first, love later / Stunningly beautiful, socially anxious girl x cruel, unruly head of a prominent family]

Jiang Xiyue is the real daughter of the Jiang family, switched at birth. When she is brought from a water town in Jiangnan back to the Jiang household in the capital, she leaves everyone in the room awestruck.

With gentle, pale eyes, black hair, and white clothes, her extraordinary beauty makes it impossible to look away.

Yet she rarely speaks. Even when she meets her birth mother, she sits by herself in a corner, long lashes drooping softly, like a dignified yet fragile ragdoll cat.

Once they get to know her, the Jiang family is deeply disappointed.

They thought the real daughter they brought home would be elegant and beautiful, with looks that would astonish everyone and make her an asset to the family. They never expected her to be so timid and socially anxious that she could barely say a word.

Just when the Jiang family is at a loss, news arrives that Jiang Xiyue is getting married.

No one knows whom she married. All they know is that a phone call came through to her mother. After taking the call, her mother no longer dared to arrange matchmaking dates for her. She dutifully saw her daughter into a car and said nothing about the identity of her new husband.

The man Jiang Xiyue secretly married is Shen Chaowen, the true power behind the Shen family.

Shen Chaowen had never met Jiang Xiyue before. He never remembered the women at matchmaking banquets, but he remembered her.

She said, "I'm sorry. Actually, there's someone I like. Would you marry me?"

For once, Shen Chaowen stopped in his tracks. His gaze settled on the girl before him.

He raised an eyebrow and looked at her with a sinister gaze. "Why should I agree?"

"Because you need a wife who doesn't like you."

"We get married, and we each get what we need."

It took Jiang Xiyue all her courage to speak to him. When she looked up, she happened to see the man's beautiful, harmless smile, just like she remembered. It made her heart burn.

"All right."

Shen Chaowen's lips curved. His pale eyes were as beautiful and eerie as a venomous snake.

"I'll send someone to pick you up later so we can take care of the paperwork, Mrs. Shen."

*

Before long, Jiang Xiyue moves into Shen Chaowen's villa.

After marrying, they live together and do everything a married couple is supposed to do.

He takes such good care of her that even her socially anxious nature grows more lively. She is like a carefully pampered ragdoll cat, proud and exquisite.

But later, Jiang Xiyue notices Shen Chaowen looking at her with an increasingly sinister, burning gaze, especially at night when they are alone in their room.

"Baby, tell me who he is, okay?"

"Are you afraid I'll go kill him?"

"I won't. Your husband always obeys the law. He wouldn't do anything like that."

"Not going to tell me? Then I'll keep going until you do..."

"My little moon... Baby... Wife..."

Jiang Xiyue does not know what to say. She can only cover her mouth and try to escape.

Because no such person exists.

The one she loves is Shen Chaowen. She remembered him from the moment he rescued her from the floods in Jiangnan many years ago.

Some say she married into the Shen family through scheming and vanity.

The scheming part is true, and so is her desire for Shen Chaowen.

She has loved this man for years, taking one step at a time until she finally reached his side.

Theme: Companionship is the longest declaration of love.