Huo Ting Cheng rose smoothly from the bed with the fluid grace of soone whose body wasn’t a mass of aches and pains. He pulled on a pair of lounging shorts before striding to the door, opening it just wide enough to reveal Huo Qi standing outside with a covered breakfast tray balanced perfectly in his hands.
"Master," Huo Qi greeted with a small bow, keeping his eyes carefully, diplomatically averted from the interior of the room. "Breakfast, as requested. Also, Young Mistress Twilight called regarding the child’s school enrollnt and the Entertainnt City auditions. I’ve handled the school authorization personally, and she’s managing the auditions independently. Everything is under control."
"Good. Thank you, Huo Qi." Huo Ting Cheng took the tray with steady hands.
"Will you need anything else, Master?"
"Privacy," Huo Ting Cheng replied pointedly, his tone making it clear that it was an order rather than a request.
Huo Qi bowed slightly, understanding imdiately, and retreated down the hallway. The door clicked shut with a soft, final sound.
Huo Ting Cheng turned back to the bed, carrying the tray laden with steaming congee, fresh fruit cut into artistic arrangents, fluffy stead buns, and a pot of fragrant jasmine tea. "Hungry?"
Tang Fei crossed her arms over her chest and turned her face away stubbornly, presenting him with her profile. The movent made the anklet jingle again, that damned musical sound, which only fueled her irritation and made her jaw clench.
"Fei’er," he coaxed, setting the tray carefully on the bed between them. "Don’t be angry."
She remained silent, her jaw set in a stubborn line, lips pressed together.
"You need to eat. Especially after last night." His voice held a note of amusent that made her want to throw sothing heavy at his smug face. "You expended considerable energy."
"I’m not hungry," she muttered, still refusing to look at him, staring determinedly at the aquarium wall where a school of silver fish swam past.
"Liar. I can hear your stomach growling from here."
As if to betray her completely, her stomach chose that exact mont to emit a long, loud rumble of protest.
"Then you can eat alone," she said through gritted teeth.
Huo Ting Cheng sighed, but she could hear the smile in his voice, the barely suppressed laughter. "Are you really this upset about the anklet?"
Tang Fei finally turned to glare at him, her eyes flashing with genuine anger. "You marked like... like property! Without asking! And now I can’t even remove it! Do you not see how that’s a problem?"
His expression softened slightly, so of the teasing amusent fading. He sat on the edge of the bed, close but not touching, and reached out to brush a strand of hair from her face with gentle fingers. She jerked away from his touch as if burned.
"It’s not about property," he said quietly, his voice dropping to sothing more serious, more sincere. "It’s a symbol. A reminder."
"A reminder? Of what? Your inability to control yourself?" The words ca out bitter.
"Of commitnt," he corrected gently. "Of permanence. Like our marriage. Like the bond between us." His finger traced down to touch the anklet with reverence. "This doesn’t co off, just like I don’t let you go. Ever. You’re mine, Tang Fei, and I’m yours. Permanently."
Despite herself, despite her anger and indignation, Tang Fei felt her resolve wavering. There was sothing in his tone, in the intensity of his eyes when he looked at her, that made her chest tighten with an emotion she couldn’t quite na.
"That’s... that’s still not okay," she protested, but with noticeably less heat than before. "You should have asked. Consent matters, Ting Cheng."
"You’re right," he conceded, surprising her completely. She’d expected him to argue, to deflect. "I should have asked first. That was wrong of . But would you have said yes if I had?"
She opened her mouth to imdiately say yes, then closed it. Honestly? If he’d presented her with a permanent, unremovable anklet and asked permission? She probably would have refused, finding it too possessive, too controlling, too permanent and binding.
"See?" He leaned closer, his hand cupping her cheek with a tenderness that contradicted the presumption of his actions. "Sotis I have to make executive decisions for us."
"Executive decisions," she repeated flatly, raising one eyebrow. "Is that what we’re calling it now?"
"Call it what you want. But admit it, you’re not as angry as you’re pretending to be."
Tang Fei wanted to argue and wanted to maintain her righteous indignation. But her traitorous stomach chose that precise mont to growl loudly, insistently, demanding attention. Huo Ting Cheng’s grin was triumphant, victorious.
"Eat," he commanded gently, picking up the bowl of congee and holding it toward her. "Before it gets cold. I had them make it exactly how you like it."
She hesitated a mont longer, pride warring with hunger and exhaustion. Then she sighed in defeat, accepting the bowl with reluctant hands. "I’m still mad at you."
"I can live with that," he replied, completely unbothered, suprely confident as he selected a stead bun for himself and took a large bite.
The anklet jingled softly as she shifted to eat more comfortably, adjusting the pillows behind her back, and Tang Fei tried very, very hard not to think about how, despite everything, despite the presumption, the possessiveness, the complete disregard for asking permission, a small, secret part of her didn’t actually hate it. Didn’t hate being claid so thoroughly, so permanently.
As they ate in relative silence, the quiet was broken only by the clinking of chopsticks and occasional sips of tea, Tang Fei’s mind wandered back to the previous night despite her best efforts to focus on the present. She shifted uncomfortably, the persistent soreness between her legs a constant, throbbing reminder of just how thoroughly Huo Ting Cheng had claid her. How relentless he’d been. How she’d actually lost consciousness from the intensity.
"Does it hurt badly?" he asked, noticing her wince as she adjusted her position.
She shot him a look that could have lted steel. "What do you think? You practically split in half. I can barely move without feeling it."
"I applied ointnt last night after you... passed out," he said, and there was a hint of smugness in his tone that made her want to smack him upside the head. "Anti-inflammatory. It should help with the swelling."
"How considerate of you," she replied with dripping sarcasm. "After being the direct cause of the problem in the first place."
Huo Ting Cheng set down his tea cup with a soft clink, his expression turning more serious, more challenging. "You were the one who initiated it, Fei’er. You practically begged to...."
"I did not beg!" she interrupted, her face flaming red, heat flooding from her cheeks down her neck.
"’Ting Cheng, I want you,’" he quoted in a breathy, exaggerated imitation of her voice that made her want to die of embarrassnt. "’Why not? You can’t decline my request...’"
Tang Fei threw a pillow at him with all her strength, which he caught easily with one hand, his laughter filling the room, deep, genuine, and unrestrained.
"I hate you."
"No, you don’t." He set the pillow aside and moved closer, closing the distance between them. His hand settled on her thigh just above the anklet, warm and possessive. "You love . That’s why you’re so determined to get pregnant."
Her breath hitched, suspended sowhere between her lungs and her throat. So he had noticed. Of course, he had. Huo Ting Cheng noticed everything, filed away every detail, every expression, every hesitation.
"I want to give you another child," she admitted quietly, vulnerability making her voice small. She looked down at her half-eaten congee, unable to et his eyes. "A child of our loving phase. Not that I don’t love Minghao, Tinghao, Zhihao, Feihao, and Qing Qing, I do, so much, but..."
The words trailed off. No one was going to understand her feelings. How could they? How could she explain that she wanted to experience sothing the original Tang Fei had already done? That she carried mories of a past life where pregnancy had never been possible, where she’d watched others hold their newborns with an ache she could never satisfy? That despite having five beautiful children who called her mother, there was still this hollow space inside her that whispered she’d never truly carried a child of her own?
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