Silk Dresses and Gentlemen

Yuan Ning was twenty when she found out she was an illegitimate daughter. After the legal wife made her move, the home she'd thought was warm fell apart.

Sent to New York for high school at sixteen, she now found all her bank cards frozen, her apartment seized, and her mother, back in China, thrown out of the house.

The homes and jewelry the mother and daughter had enjoyed all these years had never belonged to them.

And Yuan Ning's designer couture and platinum bags? Sorry, they were all marital property belonging to someone else.

Overnight, she went from a sheltered young lady to a homeless drifter.

"Your mother can't support your studies in New York on her own. Why don't you come back to China? Whatever happens, you can ask your father for more child support."

Yuan Ning shook her head. "Mom, I want to get my old life back. No, I want an even better one."

Click. She hung up and looked toward the brownstone mansion at the end of a promenade in Brooklyn Heights. It sat quietly beneath the lush canopy of trees.

It was a mansion even her father couldn't afford. She headed toward it.

"Elias is the most gentlemanly man on the East Coast. Wynne, I heard you studied fashion management at Parsons. I'm so glad you've agreed to become his wardrobe consultant."

Wearing the only Dior suit she had left, to show off the taste that proved she was born for high society, Yuan Ning shook Mrs. Van den Berg's hand. "Theodora, I look forward to working with you."

"I promise, the two of you will get along wonderfully."

At their first meeting, Elias really was an old-school gentleman, a rare sight in New York.

As Theodora had said, "We raised Elias from childhood according to the strictest aristocratic etiquette."

He had elegant, refined features, golden-brown curls, snow-white skin, and captivating blue eyes.

Yuan Ning thought he would be easy to deal with.

"Miss Wynne, have you used this brooch?"

Yuan Ning hadn't expected him to notice that she'd borrowed it for just two hours.

"I, I had an important banquet, so I borrowed it. I'm sorry, Elias."

But she hadn't expected his gentlemanly demeanor to change.

"Elias, no, you can't choke me just for that. Gasp, gasp, gasp."

Yuan Ning had come here with a plan. She wanted to maintain her former lifestyle and appearance, moving through high society without anyone noticing that she'd gone bankrupt. She had to use every resource available to her.

He let her go, and she clutched her throat, gasping hard.

"I'm terribly sorry, Miss Wynne. I didn't think I'd do that. As an apology, will you accept this brooch?"

He pinned the expensive diamond brooch to her chest with his own hands. She'd discovered how to get something out of him.

She began to try again and again, and to get what she wanted each time.

"Elias, you really are the most gentlemanly man on the East Coast."

"You're welcome, my Wynne. You can get off my lap now and put your dress back down."

*The male lead is a gentleman

*The two remain evenly matched from beginning to end, and the heroine won't let herself get hurt (the story has just a tiny bit more context than the blurb)

*The heroine didn't know she was an illegitimate daughter before this. She won't return to China to fight over the family fortune; she has her own world and career. Please don't criticize the story over the illegitimate-daughter angle

*The setting is based on the year 2000

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My Swan Lady

Ye Yanan fought her way through the affiliated high school of the Southern Dance Academy and made it into a top dance company. She's considered the only white swan ever to fly out of their town.

Her mother has plenty to talk about at the mahjong table. Her daughter was exceptionally talented from a young age, and when she graduated from elementary school and entered the Southern Dance Academy's affiliated high school, the family didn't spend a cent. In fact, they were even given a scholarship.

That was a resounding slap in the face to the relatives who said, "Ballet is expensive. Why bother, with your family's circumstances?"

But the relatives don't know that Ye Yanan has been a background performer in the dance company for three years. She's twenty-one this year. If she still doesn't make it, she'll spend a few more years in the company before retiring, probably ending up back in town as a children's dance instructor.

So when the man everyone called her "sugar daddy" appeared, it was hard for Ye Yanan, a small-town girl who'd studied hard and danced her way forward, not to fall for him.

The man said:

"Would you like to dance at center stage? I can help you."

To a frustrated young woman, his voice was like a siren's song, poison wrapped in honey, full of teasing, temptation, and enticement.

She said she was willing. She wanted it!

The man simply sat quietly in the audience, always keeping the distance between a dancer and a spectator.

At the company's year-end performance that year, she became the lead in Giselle.

"Nannan, I saw you on TV!" Her mother's call came through the phone, which she'd accidentally put on speaker. Her voice carried clearly to the man.

This was the first time she'd met him, rather than speaking with him through messages passed along by others.

He was a middle-aged man who looked like he had a family. It was obvious what he wanted from her.

Ye Yanan had left her small town and seen a lot of the world, so she'd learned how things worked.

She bent down, bringing her young, fair face close to the refined, distinguished man, hoping to light his cigarette for him.

The man calmly moved his hand away and pointed toward the stage.

At the time, she only half understood.

Later, he took her to a Sotheby's jewelry auction in New York and bought her a pair of emeralds the size of pigeon eggs.

She didn't dare accept them.

But he said, "Set them in your pointe shoes. I want to see you dance, my swan lady."

Back at his hotel suite, she followed him and nervously reached for the buttons of his shirt, trying to fulfill her "obligation."

The man slowly stroked the back of her neck, his gaze seeming to admire a work of art he'd made with his own hands.

"Don't do anything unnecessary. Just dance well."

Ye Yanan awkwardly pulled her hand back, but she wanted more.

"What if one day you don't want to support me anymore, sir?"

Chen Wangjin frowned and awoke from his sleep to find the young woman lying on top of him. He could never have imagined that one day he would be "at her mercy."

"Ye Yanan, what are you doing?"

The young woman looked pleased with herself. Her lips were wet as she proudly claimed credit. "Sir, you're not old at all."

Before dawn, Chen Wangjin had no choice but to call his stern, unsmiling mother. "Mom, are you free sometime soon?"

"What is it?"

"You should try going to see a ballet."

*The heroine thinks the male lead is helping her in exchange for her young, beautiful body, but in truth, he's only her mentor and can't bear to see talent like hers stuck in the wings.

*The heroine came from a small town and has no connections, so it's difficult for her to succeed. She doesn't become the lead through nepotism. The male lead only gives her a fair chance to earn success through her own ability.

*By the time the heroine makes a move on him, she's already in love. It isn't a transaction.

*Male lead is a virgin, 29 when he appears, and eight years older than the heroine.

*The male lead took in his late older sister's daughter, his own niece, so the heroine thinks he has a family.

Theme: Let everything in the world serve me