Contract Marriage with the Cold CEO

Chapter 12: The Summons

Su Nian's heels skidded on the polished floor as she rounded the corner. Her room door slammed behind her. The lock clicked. She pressed her back against the wood and slid down until she hit the floor.

The image wouldn't stop playing.

Lin Yuxin stepping out of that car. Shen Liangchen walking toward her. His arms wrapping around her like she belonged there. The way her head fit beneath his chin. The way his hand cradled her spine.

Su Nian pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes until she saw stars.

*Stupid. Stupid to believe any of it.*

She sat there for five minutes. Maybe ten. The garden's evening chill still clung to her dress, and somewhere in the mansion a clock chimed seven. She counted each strike like a lifeline.

*One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.*

The tears stopped.

She pulled her knees to her chest and breathed until her ribs stopped shaking. Grandma Shen's words surfaced through the haze: *Madam Shen will do anything to keep you quiet.* Shen Liangchen's warning followed: *Your amber eyes are a target.*

Everyone wanted something from her. Everyone had secrets they'd kill to protect.

Su Nian pushed herself up.

Her legs wobbled. She steadied herself against the doorframe and walked to the dresser for a tissue. That's when she saw it.

A brown envelope sat on the polished wood surface, angled perfectly toward the center. It hadn't been there when she'd left for the garden. She'd been gone forty minutes. Someone had entered her locked room, placed this envelope exactly where she'd see it, and left without a trace.

She picked it up with two fingers. No return address. No stamp. Just her name written across the front in sharp, angular strokes.

*Su Nian.*

She tore the seal.

Inside, a single sheet of cream paper. Three lines of handwriting. And at the bottom, drawn in dark ink, a pair of amber eyes. slanted, watchful, unmistakably his.

She read the words aloud, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Tonight. The charity gala at West City Hall. Come alone, or you will never know the truth about your mother."

Her throat tightened. She traced the ink eyes with her fingertip. *He finally showed himself. After all these weeks of shadows and whispers and missing persons reports. he reached out.*

But why tonight?

Why choose an event where Shen Liangchen would definitely be present? Where every socialite in the city would watch her walk through those doors? Where Madam Shen's network of informants would be drinking champagne and taking notes?

A test. A trap. A genuine lead.

She didn't know which.

Su Nian laid the paper flat on the dresser and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Red-rimmed eyes. Smudged mascara. A woman who'd spent the last hour shattered over a man who'd never been hers.

*This is pathetic.*

She grabbed a washcloth and scrubbed her face clean. Cold water. Hard pressure. The sting brought focus.

"I can't back down now." She said it to the mirror. To herself. To whatever version of her mother might be watching. "I'm a piece on their board at home. Watched by my stepmother while I was growing up, surveilled even now. Shen Liangchen's been lying to me since the moment I arrived. This. " she tapped the paper, ". is the first real move I get to make."

Her reflection didn't answer. The amber eyes in the ink drawing seemed to watch her.

*But what if it's a trap? What if he wants something I can't give? What if I walk into that hall and never walk out?*

She'd be another missing woman. Another file in a police drawer with a scribbled 'lie' in the margin.

Su Nian pressed her palm flat against the paper.

"Then at least I went down swinging."

She crossed to the wardrobe and pulled out the simplest dress she owned. a navy shift, no sequins, no designer branding. Minimal jewelry. Hair pulled back into a low knot. Everything about her appearance screamed *no one special.*

Exactly what she needed.

She unpinned her hair, reconsidered, then pinned it back up. The note went into her bra, tucked against the underwire where no one would pat during a casual encounter. A small clutch held her phone, a credit card she'd hidden from the household accounts, and a lipstick that doubled as a pepper spray substitute.

The gala started at eight. She had forty minutes.

Su Nian stood at her bedroom door, her hand on the knob. Her pulse hammered against her collarbone. Her reflection in the hallway mirror showed a composed woman with steady hands and clear eyes. No trace of the girl who'd collapsed against this same door twenty minutes ago.

"From now on, I'm not anyone's puppet."

She pulled the door open.

The hallway stretched empty. Somewhere downstairs, she heard Madam Shen's voice directing servants, overlapping with the clink of china being arranged. Standard evening chaos. No one watching the back stairs.

Su Nian walked.

Past the east wing. Past the staff kitchen. Out the service entrance where the gardener parked his truck. The garage key hung on the same hook it had for twenty years. She grabbed it, slid into the oldest car in the fleet. a sedan no one used anymore. and started the engine.

Headlights cut through the dark.

She pulled out of the driveway without looking back.