Falling for a Married Woman

[Next Book, Complete Draft Already Written]

You see a rose and call it beautiful. You see a snake and call it disgusting.

You don't know that in this world, roses and snakes were once close friends.

At night, they transform into each other.

The snake's cheeks turn crimson, and the rose's scales shimmer.

Yukio Mishima

New love interest | Forbidden desire | Revenge |

[Polished before posting | Characterization unchanged]

Bottom: Beautiful, strong, and tragic. He disguises himself as a frail, innocent flower, but is actually a cool, aloof beauty who knows how to draw people in.

Top: A paragon of virtue at first, morally bankrupt later. Gentle with the bottom, but a deranged older man to everyone else.

In Central's legal world, everyone knows the tycoon He Tingshen, famed for playing by the rules and valuing loyalty. At a yacht party years ago, his friend raised a toast with his beautiful new wife, Ruan Zhinian. He Tingshen barely even glanced at her. Faithfully upholding the principle that a friend's wife was off-limits, he shut out the Omega with tear-reddened eyes, as delicate as a white orchid in the rain.

Until, a year later, Typhoon Number Eight swept across Hong Kong Island.

Ruan Zhinian came alone, drenched from head to toe, and knocked on the door of He Tingshen's prestigious law firm on the top floor of a building in Central. "Lawyer He, I want a divorce, but he won't let me go." Ruan Zhinian lifted his head, eyes red and pitiful.

Yet beneath the sickly, languid air born of years of rejection by her husband's pheromones, something began to coil around He Tingshen's breath, thread by thread.

He Tingshen lit a cigarette, his brows furrowed. As a friend, he ought to tell them to reconcile. As a lawyer, he never took on difficult family cases where his client had done nothing wrong. At first, he was only acting out of professional duty, trying to help Ruan Zhinian escape in the most dignified way possible, within the bounds of the law. Restrained and proper, he watched the fragile little bird from behind the cold lines of the law.

But he overestimated the strength of his precarious moral boundaries, and underestimated the fatal allure of Hong Kong Island's most beautiful person beneath that gentle exterior.

In countless closed-door conference rooms framed by the night view of Victoria Harbour, whenever Ruan Zhinian's pheromones ran amok and she clutched the hem of his bespoke suit, crying for help without even realizing it, the wall in He Tingshen's heart called "decency" began to crumble, inch by inch.

He began to envy that man for being legally entitled to every inch of Ruan Zhinian's skin in the dead of night. In the verbal duels of the High Court, he began using the sharpest points of his legal expertise to set traps for his former sworn brother, scheming and stopping at nothing to force him to sign the divorce papers. And whenever Ruan Zhinian cried and called him "Big Brother, you're so good to me," the most sordid, despicable possessiveness surged beneath his immaculate suit...

[Bonus Scene]

The divorce case had reached a stalemate. Outside the mansion halfway up the hill, rain poured down. Her ex-husband, drunk and sprawled like a heap of mud, pleaded through the door to his best friend: "Tingshen! Niannian's been avoiding me lately. Could you talk to him for me? I really can't live without him..."

Outside the door, his sworn brother poured out his heart in tears. Inside the entryway, just one door away, all was dark and silent.

He Tingshen was still wearing the suit he'd worn to court that day. With one hand, he gripped Ruan Zhinian's slender waist, pinning the Omega, whose body had gone limp as water on the verge of heat, firmly against the door.

Ruan Zhinian was trembling, his face wet with tears. He pushed at the man's hard chest, clutching his expensive Windsor knot as he struggled to breathe. "L-Lawyer He, he's right outside... Please, let me go..."

"Let you go?" The lawyer, so cool and composed in court, yanked off his tie with one hand. His eyes were red with the madness of desire. He bent down and fiercely sealed those trembling red lips with his own. The pheromones of a top Alpha swept through like a typhoon, swallowing every one of the Omega's sobs.

As his friend's desperate knocks pounded on the door, he bit through Ruan Zhinian's delicate gland with something almost reverent, yet cruel. He didn't know that the fragile, beautiful man obediently tilted his slender neck up in the darkness, a triumphant flush gliding through his eyes.

He Tingshen pressed his lips to his ear, his voice terrifyingly hoarse. "After tonight, I'll be your husband."

(Extra: There is a twist in the plot described above.)

[Reading Guide]

1. The main story is told primarily from the bottom's perspective. The bottom is a crowd favorite, and there are several passages admiring him (this is how I write, so please don't read if you dislike it).

The top is three years older than the bottom: 26 | 29. Height difference: 176 | 192. Both are strong characters.

Main appeal: forbidden tension.

Soapy revenge drama (no spoilers, the target of revenge isn't the top), with a mix of steamy and wholesome moments. Plot and romance are evenly balanced.

2. No pregnancy or childbirth in the main story or extras. One-on-one, both virgins (the bottom never had sex with his ex-husband and only returns the top's feelings; the top is devoted in both body and heart). No secondary couples.

3. See the author's profile for content warnings (I only write, I don't list warnings).

Theme: A cold-hearted person falls in love, and a man in power falls from grace.