Forced by fate – Destined to be his Wife

“Mr. Leng, Mr. Kim, the board members are all getting seated. This way.” The young secretary showed the men to the door of the long hallway of the room that was assigned for today’s meeting and yet ZhengLi held back. They had arrived at MinXo Corp to discuss a plan that had been in the works for a year and taken a half hour to get here.

“Yo, hold up a second. I have a really weird feeling that I should drop Linny a message. Something feels off.” ZhengLi pulled out his cell phone, not caring that they were seconds from their appointment because it felt urgent suddenly and he couldn’t logically explain why. Wandering off to the side while YuZhi waited for him, checking his watch and feeling for his own phone to scan his messages. TangShi had left him a good luck text for his meeting and he smiled, happy at seeing her name, as he slid it back in his inside pocket. In no rush to get inside that room just yet.

ZhengLi walked back to him seconds later, frowning and slid his own cell away. A furrowed brow of concern etching his face and he seemed distracted.

“What’s up?” YuZhi asked, his own nerves and gut tight today but he assumed it was related to his stressful job for the next two hours. He was presenting the planned project to the board that needed financing and he was sure they would turn it down if he didn’t do a good job. It was a collaboration on an international scale an important one for Leng group to finally seal the deal.

“Ringing out. She loves to torture me and get me worried about her. I just have this insane feeling I need to talk to her right this second.”

“Dude, you said you had a fight. It’s all it is. She’ll be ignoring you and letting you sweat. Send her some flowers and a sorry text then take her for dinner later. You need to romance her a little more and get used to feeling like shit when your girlfriend is angry with you.”

ZhengLi relented, shaking it off and fell back in line with YuZhi to continue. The two men walked forward along the hall at a leisurely pace, readying themselves and adjusting ties and smoothing down lapels. Keeping their voices low when talking about personal issues and ZhengLi sighed heavily. Exasperated with her not answering his call when he was this uptight and not able to shift it out of his head. That niggle of gnawing concern was only getting worse.

“I know. My family still haven’t given up on this marriage date thing. Arranging my fucking life. I can’t even refuse as my mom is hitting me with emotional blackmail.”

“If Linlin finds out you have been having dinner with the woman your family chose for you, she will cut your balls off.” YuZhi raised a brow and smirked, imagining the gruesome ways Linlin would react if she caught him on a marriage date. She would freak out and probably make it that ZhengLi would never father children.

“Why do you think I’m holding off telling her. She’s been really sensitive lately and I think she knows something. She saw me with Mia and I brushed it off, but she has been a moody nightmare since. Picking fights for the dumbest things and storming off, like this morning.” ZhengLi had been tolerant of her ups and downs all week after she brought Mia up, too guilty to tell her straight that his family was pressurizing him to marry someone of a similar status. Not sure how to navigate this when offending the Hwang family was not an option and he was trying to get himself dumped.

Before Linlin he had no intention of ever marrying anyone and had happily played along on dates and making woman reject him indefinitely because of his playboy ways. The issue was he now wanted his family to accept Linlin and he knew her social status and family wealth wouldn’t be enough to convince his parents of the match. They were small fish compared to Yutian Corp and his mother was heavily leaning on him to court Mia and give her a chance. He had no idea how to tell Linlin and was hoping Mia told her family she rejected him soon so he didn’t have to.

As they got to the door it was opened by a waiting assistant standing outside and YuZhi nodded and smiled as they passed. His own gut swirling suddenly and he too got that strange sensation he should call TangShi. Glancing back at ZhengLi with a matched expression to his grim one and swallowed hard.

“What is it?” ZhengLi muttered under his breath and followed him into the room, sensing his hesitation and change in mood, but YuZhi only shook his head and tried to ignore it.

“it’s nothing.” He had given her a driver and guard, so she was fine and ZhengLi was passing on his stupid stress. If there was an issue they would call him directly.

Focusing on the task at hand, he swallowed it down, unsure why he felt like this. Blaming ZhengLi for stirring up his concern and pushed it aside before sliding into the seat meant for him. ZhengLi did the same, taking one last glance at his phone by pulling it discreetly up inside his jacket and seeing no returned calls or messages, he pushed it back down.

The meeting got underway; a screen presentation playing while YuZhi stood and delivered his speech. Going over financial projections and fine details and laying a solid case down for the moving forward with the plans for this collaboration. ZhengLi sat back listening, tapping his foot on the floor with impatience as all the information and data he helped compile flashed in front of him and yet he couldn’t focus at all. His mind kept wandering back to this feeling of something being off and he checked his cell discreetly a dozen times. Tempted to reach out to TangShi’s bodyguard or driver to pass a message on.

His instincts were telling him Linlin was in trouble, but he couldn’t put a finger on why and pulling his cell under the table and leaving her text messages had gotten zero response which only made him restless. Although it wasn’t unknown for Linlin to ignore him when she was sulking or mad at him, this felt different. His calls had rung out rather than being red buttoned, TangShi wasn’t responding either, and he couldn’t shake this intense stress and uptight sensation making his guts ache or stop his min from straying to her repeatedly. Every cell in his body and brain were telling him he needed to contact her, even thought they were only an hour into this scheduled appointment.

ZhengLi relented and text the driver he personally assigned from Leng Group today, getting a response that made his blood run cold and his rage rise at Linlin for being so fucking careless. His expression tightening as his mouth ran dry and he gritted his teeth to curb the insanely aggressive reaction in his stomach at her stupidity. The driver informed them that the two women had refused both guard and driver and gone off alone this morning to have a girl’s day out.

Both men were sat outside YuZhi’s apartment waiting for them to come back and ZhengLi felt like he might lose his cool so never responded to scold the driver. He thrust his cell back inside his jacket with harsh force, trying to calm his anger and growing anxiousness. Linlin was an idiot to not think about the fact Rong Cai was out on bail and a very real threat to TangShi. Even being a pint-sized hellcat, ZhengLi knew she was no protector for TangShi against a deranged psycho stalker who drugged women, and if anything happened to Linlin he would fucking kill someone.

YuZhi was in full flow, walking back and forth in front of the projector screen and reciting his prepared speech perfectly. Seemingly owning the room with confidence and delivering a perfect proposal with ease. This was where YuZhi belonged in life and excelled so easily. All eyes glued to him as men and women were immersed with thoughts of the proposal and impressed by his charisma.

The reality was he was counting down the seconds to being done as he too was suffering from strange gut feelings that TangShi was trying to contact him and it was something important. He had never been one prone to crazy sixth sense urges but even ZhengLi seemed to be on the same wavelength with this and it was probably why he was paying more attention to it than he normally would.

ZhengLi wasn’t the irrational, impulsive sort, who jumped to act on feelings, but he had spied him checking his cell repeatedly and looking increasingly uptight and worried and now YuZhi was that way too. Reading his best friends mood and not liking what he was seeing as suspicion rose internally and twisted him all up inside.

He knew the girls were together and yet ZhengLi wasn’t having any obvious luck in getting contact. He knew he would have tried TangShi too, so it was only logical and yet his expression made it clear she wasn’t replying either. TangShi always kept her cell handy, especially since what Rong did to her so this wasn’t a good sign. He would have tried the guard and the driver for sure as he was the one who hand picked them and set them the task of protecting TangShi.Text content © NôvelDrama.Org.

ZhengLi waited for the break in the meeting, where the members were given time to sit and discuss and ask YuZhi questions as the lights were put back on, to excuse himself. Sliding out with a brief apology and waving his cell as though he had an important call and headed to the outer hall. He immediately called Linlin’s cell again, pacing back and forth and starting to feel sick in the pit of his stomach. Clenching his fists and cursing under his breath. No guard, no driver, no god damn knowledge of where they went and no way to trace them. He was starting to get beyond livid with her.

“Come on, baby. Answer your god damn phone. You’re making me crazy.” He gritted his teeth, muttering to himself, tried again and got the same result which only pushed his anxiety sky high. The same happened with TangShi’s cell number and he paced in a circle trying to think who else to call when a lightbulb moment hit him. He scrolled to Rhea’s number and hit the call icon wondering if she too had met up with them and maybe they were somewhere with their phones silenced. Like a spa or beauty salon. It would explain the lack of guard if they wanted some personal time to rebuild their relationship with Rhea. He knew the girls had a strained and complicated friendship as they tried to grow something real from the ashes of previous hurts.