Tan Cheng x Luo Jiayi
The cocky king x the girl of his dreams
Tags: Older man/younger woman | Childhood friends | Marriage first, love later |
Luo Jiayi's first kiss was wagered to Tan Cheng by accident.
Winner takes all. He gave her no chance to wriggle out of it, messaging her right on cue to remind her to come upstairs.
With sweaty palms, Luo Jiayi reached for the handle and carefully pressed it down.
The man inside turned his head, holding a bottle of Perrier beaded with water.
Seeing her, he smiled and tossed out a soothing remark that only made his intentions more obvious.
"What are you afraid of?"
As he teased her, Tan Cheng casually knocked the bottle against the kitchen island. With a pop, it opened, and the bubbles rushed to the top. As if sensing what was coming, he poured it into an empty glass just before it fizzed over.
His control was astonishingly precise.
Just like the way he had once traced the curve of her lips with clean fingertips.
Never crossing into her mouth, yet stopping only after the most intimate touch.
One moment, heaven. The next, hell.
Luo Jiayi secretly swallowed her runaway heartbeat and brought her attention back to the game she had just lost.
Tan Cheng happened to glance sideways at her.
"Come here."
"Close the door behind you."
-
After discovering that his nominal younger sister had someone she liked, Tan Cheng silently lit a cigarette and downed the shimmering liquor in his glass. He suddenly thought of the zero-sum games he had occasionally witnessed in the business world.
He abruptly decided he no longer wanted things between them to remain so bland.
He wanted their lives to intersect in some other way.
In the carefully orchestrated wager, he naturally came out on top. Luo Jiayi was the first to lose her nerve and wanted to ask him to put an end to their unhealthy relationship.
In the dark, Tan Cheng took her icy fingertips and ignored what she had just said. Turning his head, he placed a far more significant stake and murmured against her ear, "Guess. Can we both win this game?"
"What are we betting?"
She was trapped within arm's reach of him and knew she had no real say in the matter, so she could only ask along with him.
"A relationship protected by law."
While this relationship lasts, I bet you'll fall in love with me.
-
One day after their marriage, Luo Jiayi found an old, yellowed photograph in the inner pocket of Tan Cheng's suit, close to his heart.
It captured a moment from their youth, when she had smiled brightly for someone else.
He had stood in a corner where she never noticed him, silently preserving a moment that did not belong to him.
On the back of the photograph, the black ink had faded to deep blue.
Only the feelings of his youth had never changed.
[Tu es l'amour de ma vie.]
[The love of my life]
To Tan Cheng, Luo Jiayi was a younger sister with no blood relation and little familial affection, as well as the bright, silvery moonlight shining in the depths of his shadowed heart.
Tips:
* The heroine likes someone else at first, but doesn't become obsessed with him.
* The heroine's perspective is marriage first, love later; the hero's perspective is a secret crush coming true.
* Both leads are sexually inexperienced, and the hero only ever loves the heroine.
* Blurb archived on August 28, 2026, and updated on September 6, 2026.
Theme: Beyond flirtation, there is us.
