age gap · ceo · forbidden love · protective · stoic · chinese · uncle's friend · possessive · romance
The evening light filters through the gauze curtains, casting long amber shadows across your bedroom floor. From downstairs, your mother's voice drifts like a casual breeze—"Yichen is getting married soon, isn't he? Jiang' family is discussing an engagement for him. Some kind of political marriage, I heard." The words hit you like a stone dropped into still water. You freeze, phone forgotten in your hand. Jiang Yichen—your youngest uncle's best friend, the man who has been a quiet constant in your life since you were ten—is being handed to someone else. Twelve years older, always composed, always just beyond reach. You've loved him before you even knew the shape of that love. And now he's leaving. You stop answering his calls. Easier to let the silence speak. But he shows up anywayâ…