The wait for boarding stretched on forever. My nerves were serrated edges.
Panic clawed at my insides. Every tick of the airport clock sounded like a countdown to a crash. I jammed my earbuds in, closed my eyes, tried to drown out the world. Huddled on a cold metal bench like a fugitive.
The boarding call crackled over the speakers.
I pulled out my buds. Stood up.
The air in the terminal shifted.
A wave of whispers rippled through the crowd. Sharp, excited gasps from nearby women cut through the mundane airport noise.
I looked up. Disinterested.
And then my entire world went bone-cold.
*Him.*
He cut through the crowded terminal with lethal grace. Charcoal-black suit that looked like armor. Face a mask of cold, unapproachable stone.
Behind him walked a woman in a sharp business blazer. His lead secretary. The one who'd been his shadow for years.
*How? Why is he here?*
My brain short-circuited.
Before I could process the impossibility, my body moved on instinct. I spun around. Turned my back to him. My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought they might snap.
Three years. I'd spent three years telling myself I'd excised him from my soul.
But seeing him now? I realized you don't just "forget" the man who dismantled your life. You don't forget the man who was your first—and your greatest—mistake.
I felt like I was losing my mind.
First the dreams. Then the phantom touch of that night in the penthouse. And now *this.*
He was actually here.
I stood there. Back turned. Fingernails digging into my palms until I drew blood.
I didn't know if he'd seen me. But every cell in my body screamed *hide*. I didn't want to dig up the wreckage of the past.
Then I heard it.
Heavy, measured footsteps. Closing the distance behind me.
The scent hit first. Cold rain and expensive sandalwood.
His silhouette brushed past mine. Tall. Imposing. Radiating power.
He didn't stop. Didn't look back. Just kept walking. Broad shoulders receding into the crowd.
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
He didn't recognize me.
Made sense. I wasn't the same girl anymore. Three years had hardened me. Turned my soft edges into glass. Even my best friend said I looked like a stranger after sophomore year.
A man like him? Brilliant. Elite. Surrounded by a rotating door of high-society women. Why would he remember a penniless student who'd clumsily offered herself to him one desperate night?
I was a blurred memory at best. A footnote.
The thought should have hurt. Instead, it felt like a reprieve.
I let out a bitter, self-mocking laugh. Turned toward the gate in the opposite direction.
I took one step.
He stopped.
Turned his head.
Our gazes collided. The impact was physical.
His dark, abyssal eyes sparked with something ancient. Knowing. He didn't say a word. Just stood there. Watching me. His stare pinning me to the floor.
I froze. Caught in lethal indecision.
Walk over? Play the polite former student? *Hello, Professor Lu.*
Or keep running?
His secretary knew he'd taught me for three years. Ignoring him would be a blatant act of war.
While I drowned in my own hesitation, he gave me one last, unreadable look.
Then disappeared into the jet bridge.
My heart was doing Olympic sprints.
I couldn't tell if he'd recognized the woman I'd become. Or if he was just intrigued by a familiar ghost.
I hated that about him. The layers of calculation. The silence that felt like a trap.
With a cursed breath, I handed over my boarding pass. Stepped onto the plane.
Unaware that the real nightmare was waiting for me in the seat right next to mine.
I didn't think the day could get any worse.
I was wrong.
When I finally reached my row, my heart stopped.
There he was. Sitting in the aisle seat. Right next to mine.
Behind him, his stunning secretary offered me a polite, professional smile. It felt like a death warrant.
Seeing him at the terminal was a shock. Finding him on the same flight was a nightmare.
But seeing him in the seat *literally inches* from mine?
That was a calculated ambush.
He looked perfectly at peace. Leaned back in the plush leather seat. Eyes down on a magazine. As if I were just another anonymous passenger.
My skin crawled.
Every instinct I had screamed *run*. I looked at my window seat—a velvet trap—and turned to Shanni behind us. My voice tight.
"Excuse me." I tried to sound casual. "Would you mind swapping seats with me? I… I've realized I really don't like being by the window."
Pathetic lie. I didn't hate windows. I hated the man sitting between me and the exit.
Shanni glanced at the back of his head. A flicker of hesitation crossed her face. Then she gave me a sympathetic, apologetic shrug.
"I'm so sorry, Miss Xu. I'm afraid I can't do that."
*Miss Xu.*
The way she said my name hit me like a bucket of ice water.
Game over. They'd recognized me the whole time. My attempt to play the stranger was making me look like a fool.
I turned back to him. Jaw set. Forced myself to speak to the man who'd haunted my dreams for three years.
"Excuse me. I need to get to my seat."
He didn't look up from his paper. Just let out a low, smooth hum.
"Do I not have a name?"
My blood boiled.
He was cornering me. Forcing me to acknowledge his existence. To admit that I remembered every agonizing detail of our past.
Three years later, and Lu Zhouyue was still the same. Calculating. Manipulative. Utterly insufferable.
I stood there. Bristling with hostility. Glaring at the side of his face.
A flight attendant tapped my shoulder.
"Miss, the plane is preparing for takeoff. Please take your seat immediately."
I took a sharp, jagged breath. Tried to keep my voice from trembling.
"Mr. Lu… could you please move so I can pass?"
Only then did he slowly lift his head.
Our eyes met.
My heart did a violent, painful somersault.
His gaze was exactly as I remembered. Deep. Restrained. Hiding a dark, stormy intensity that made my lungs feel too small.
He was devastatingly handsome, sure. But no matter how perfect his face was, he would never be the man I wanted.
He narrowed his eyes. Studied me for a long, silent beat.
Then shifted his legs. Just enough to let me through.
I practically scrambled past him. My body buzzing from the brief, accidental contact. I threw myself into the window seat.
Before I could even buckle in, his voice drifted over. Low. Cold. Laced with a dangerous edge.
"I don't recall teaching you to be this disrespectful."
He paused.
"Pretending not to recognize the man who taught you for three years… did I fail that miserably as your mentor?"
Lu was vibrating with suppressed fury.
He'd watched me try to swerve him at the terminal. Watched me try to bribe his secretary for a different seat.
How much did she loathe him? Was his mere presence so toxic that she couldn't even sit beside him for a two-hour flight?
If he wanted a fight?
I'd give him one.
I turned my head. Met his gaze with a smile sharp as a razor. Twice as cold.
"Forgive me, Professor." I spat the word, dripping with sarcasm. "You 'taught' me so many things over the years… I guess I just forgot the lesson on how to respect my elders."
Lu's jaw tightened until the muscles looked like cords of iron.
He was vibrating with suppressed fury.
He knew exactly what she was doing. Weaponizing her words. Turning his "mentorship" into a filthy joke.
He remembered the last time he'd lost control and kissed her. The way she'd looked at him with ice in her veins. *"Professor, you're quite the educator. Do you provide practical lessons in seduction as part of the curriculum?"*
He stared at her. Wanting to break that armor of indifference. Tear away that mocking mask.
I couldn't stand his predatory gaze.
I adjusted my seat. Leaned back. Reached for my earbuds to erase his existence entirely.
Before the music could start, he spoke again. His voice had lost its edge. Replaced by low, guarded curiosity.
"It's not a weekend. It's not a break. Why are you heading to Wen City so suddenly?"
He knew she'd spit in his face for asking. He knew he was leading with his chin. But a desperate, pathetic part of him was still hoping. Hoping that after her world had just collapsed, she might actually lean on him.
I didn't even glance at him.
"None of your business." Four cold bullets.
Even a man with his level of restraint couldn't hide the flinch.
A flicker of genuine hurt crossed his handsome face. Followed by something rare. Jagged. Embarrassment.
He sat there. Frozen. The most powerful man in the city suddenly rendered powerless by a girl who didn't even think he was worth her time.
If any other woman had dared to treat him with such blatant contempt? He would have destroyed her.
But this was Liulian.
For her, he had infinite capacity for endurance. For her, he would swallow his pride until it choked him.
---
The silence stretched.
After a few minutes, I glanced over. Saw the wounded set of his shoulders.
For a split second, guilt flickered. The words had been unnecessarily sharp.
But irritation surged back just as quickly.
I turned my head away. Jammed the buds into my ears. Closed my eyes.
I couldn't be "nice" to him. I *wouldn't.*
Every time I looked at his face, I smelled the suffocating atmosphere of my high school years. The three years he'd spent hovering over me like an inescapable shadow.
I wasn't his employee. Wasn't some socialite clawing for his attention.
I owed him nothing.
---
Exhaustion from the night before finally caught up.
Between the terror for my father and the grief for my mother, my body gave out.
Despite the man sitting inches away, the hum of the engines at thirty thousand feet pulled me into heavy, dreamless sleep.
---
When my breathing finally evened out, Lu Zhouyue moved.
He beckoned a flight attendant. Took a plush blanket.
Unfolded it with a gentleness that would have shocked anyone who knew him in a boardroom.
Draped it over me. His fingers lingering near my shoulder.
As he withdrew his hand, he couldn't stop himself.
His fingers traced the line of my jaw. Brushed against skin pale and soft as silk.
He looked at my face. Quiet. Peaceful. The thorns finally retracted.
A sudden, sharp wave of self-loathing crashed over him.
Pathetic, wasn't it? That he only dared to touch her, to feel her warmth, when she was unconscious.
If she were awake, she wouldn't let him within a mile of her heart.
This was the brutal mathematics of unrequited love.
Because he loved her, even her vitriol and her cold stares felt like a twisted form of intimacy.
But because she didn't love him?
Every touch. Every kindness. Every act of devotion.
Just another reason for her to hate him.