Chapter 139: This Is the Power Behind Him? You Believe That?

Chapter 139: This Is the Power Behind Him? You Believe That?

Li Ruotai sounded anxious, and as though he did not want to be overheard—his voice was kept very low.

“Almost there. Don’t worry.” Li Ruobing said it into the phone with her eyes still on Wu Chen’s, then swiped to end the call.

Her fingers closed around the phone. Her gaze never left him.

Several more seconds of silence.

Then she pulled hard on his tie again, leaned in, and kissed him full on the mouth.

Never mind anything else. Kiss first, think afterward.

She had kissed him a few times before, and he had kissed her as well. But those had been for show, or else provocation traded back and forth.

This was neither.

As she kissed him she let go of the tie and put both arms around his neck, taking the lead entirely. Wu Chen slid an arm around her waist and drew her against him.

A long, long time.

At last she drew back a little and said quietly, “We should go.”

She smiled at him. Then she glanced at the corner of his mouth, touched it with a fingertip, and held the finger up for him to see.

Her lipstick.

She let go of him, crossed to a table, pulled several tissues, and came back. Wu Chen reached to take them; she did not hand them over.

“I’ll do it,” she said softly.

And she wiped the corner of his mouth herself, carefully and in earnest, her gaze moving between his eyes and his lips. The smile on her face was faint, and carried a trace of something alluring.

It was perhaps the first time in her life she had turned that look, that feeling, on a man.

Wu Chen knew perfectly well that she was not trying to please him.

Of course she wasn’t.

She had simply made up her mind. Everything of these past days—and above all yesterday’s Su family board meeting—had brought her to a complete, unclouded understanding of how formidable Wu Chen was. How terrifying. She even had to concede that in certain respects he was far beyond her.

But she was not Su Qingying.

Once she accepted that he was stronger than she was, her most immediate thought ran: Wu Chen is worthy of me. He can be my partner.

It was the mindset of the strong.

And just now, the two of them had finally broken through the last thin barrier between them.

She meant to make things real with him. And she absolutely refused to be the weaker party in it, the one who was controlled.

In a partnership, one side would inevitably be the stronger.

She intended to be the one holding the initiative.

So wiping the lipstick from his mouth with her own hands was, in fact—

Her flirting with him.

Wu Chen understood exactly what was in her mind.

He was hardly worried about “falling” and yielding to her.

If anything, he thought it was going to be very interesting.

“Your makeup’s smudged,” he said with a smile. His hand came up and slid the tissues neatly out of her fingers; he wiped his own mouth and walked toward the sofa.

Li Ruobing’s hand stayed raised a moment where it was. Then she looked at his back and said quietly, “I’ll touch it up. Sit down for a minute, darling.”

She took up her bag and crossed the office, heels clicking, toward the private bathroom attached to the president’s office. The office had not only its own bathroom but a private rest room as well. Sometimes, when she worked too late, she did not go home at all and simply stayed there.

Her makeup was not badly smudged. The trouble was mainly the lipstick that had gone onto Wu Chen’s mouth, and the two of them rubbing at each other back and forth…

A few minutes later she came out of the bathroom and went straight for the rest room.

“I’m changing,” she said as she passed.

“All right!” Wu Chen answered from the sofa, smiling.

A few minutes more.

“Wu Chen, come and do this up for me…” she called from inside.

“Hm? Coming.” He rose and went over.

The door stood ajar. He pushed it open. The room was not large—somewhere to rest temporarily—but it held everything a bedroom would, along with a wardrobe of moderate size.

Li Ruobing stood…