Your cold sweat ran down your forehead at the sight of Kris father.

"Father" kris jumped off his seat and took a few steps forward wishing he could block him from moving closer to you.

"Wasn’t she with her boyfriend before? Where is he?" He spitted as lethal as possible looking right and left

"He is inside, okay?" Your friend said surprisingly calm "he was here just now"

"And he left his girlfriend with you? Alone? Does he know everything about you and her?"

You gulped down the fear that was rapidly accumulating on your throat and stood up. Bad choice.

"Do you?" Thankfully, your voice didn’t crack.

The reaction you got from the old man was the same as of you just had slapped him.

Kris almost gaped at your boldness.

"What did you just say?" he said in a low voice.

"I said..." you remarked "do you know everything that happened between me and your son?"

"well, it's not hard to imagine it" he scoffed and both you and Kris had to control de urge to punch him on the face.

"Then you clearly know nothing, sir" you sarcastically smiled.

But Kris' father had lived longer than you and had been trained in the cruel world of business and power; he knew how to get to you in a subtle way and take you down. Just like his son but way more experienced.

"what I know for sure, is that you kept distracting my son from his duties and almost made our company suffer a huge loss. If kris hadn't married charlotte, you'd have had to pay the consequences...isn't that enough for you to stay away from him."

"Father!" Kris roared and took one defiant step towards his father

It took you a second to realize what had just happened. Images from the past months came rushing back in front of your eyes; the wedding, the way he looked at you, the cars parked outside your house, how he tried to ignore you, how many times he told you everything was going to be okay but in the end he married Charlotte... for your sake.

The dark haired young man looked at you standing there, eyes pinned to the floor before moving up to him confused; waiting for him to say something. he stumbled back, frantically running his finger through his hair while his father watched the scene satisfied.

You were the reason of his disgrace.

He couldn’t stand watching you crumble like that any longer and hurried to grab you by the shoulders, shaking you strongly and staring into your eyes.

"Look at me!" he firmly said "I know what you are thinking, so stop! I made that choice, you are not at fault" his finger buried deeper on your skin but you didn’t flinch, you were numb. You threatened him so cold and always blamed him for not being able to give up his fortune for you. But there were deeper reasons hidden.

Meanwhile in Kris mind, he was rushing to find a reason that could convince her father that he didn't love you anymore but at the same time to not hurt you.

"I did this for myself, okay? I took the most convenient way for me" he said exasperated but the words just wouldn’t reach you and he was losing his patience.

He let go of you and took a deep breath.

"I never really cared about you. Sorry to break it to you, but I never even tried to break the engagement"

You blinked a few times until you noticed another figure coming closer to you.

Leo, who witnessed the scene, wanted to beat Kris to death so much, but doing it in front of his father would be reckless and bad for someone who had just started his company. He waited for you to defend yourself but ended up interfering when he saw you couldn’t go against those two.

He casually walked between the two men and held your hand. All eyes on him, especially Kris'.

"Sorry to break it to you but, she is with me now" his soft voice along with his cold eyes made that line even more intimidating.

Leo looked at the older man, who was staring at him clearly surprised by the way he talked to his son, and nodded at him before dragging you out of the scene.

"Leo, wait" you stopped him before walking into the room.

you stomped back and without further warning, the palm of your hand landed loudly on Kris' cheek.

"you...!" Mr. wu protested, in that moment one of the staff came out and said something to him in a low voice and they left in a hurry. No one really paid attention to it.

your childhood friend glared at you but he knew he deserved it, little did he expect the words that you said.

"I didn't ask you to protect me"

"what?" he frowned, spitting the words just as if he had been insulted.

"I wanted to be with you, not at the expense of your happiness. We could have worked it out together"

he chuckled "I think you don’t understand..." he looked away "I married Charlotte because it was the best option; sure I love you but it's not like you'd never find someone else..." his eyes posed on Leo who didn’t blink at the intense glare "...and I was right so I'll probably get to love Charlotte one day"

His words contradicted what he had said before when he promised he'd never love anyone but you.

"you said..."

"I know what I said!" he raised his voice after swallowing the lump in his throat.

he didn’t want to hurt you but part of it wasn't a lie.

"I was just trying to find a way to get both, the money and you but in the end I realized it's easier to make love than to make money"

Leo noticed Kris' fisted hands but you were focusing on his eyes.

"Is that true?" you said still not believing it.

"I believe you are smart enough to know it" he added fuel to the fire.

In that moment you understood that kris wanted to play the knight in shining armor without getting a single stain on it.

But you were no damsel on distress.

"Well, thank you, kris. I hope you spend your money to your hearts' content..." you said

"That's enough" leo took your hand once again and give one last glare to his rival before lowering his voice "there goes your last chance"

.....

Charlotte was greeting more people after the auction when an unusual scene caught her attention: you were walking with your head down next to leo.

She dismissed herself from the group of people and followed the direction you were coming from only to find a defeated kris leaning against the veranda's fence

"Don’t jump" her expressionless voice and face didn’t match her words.

Kris turned around surprised rising an eyebrow. "Are you worried about me now?" He said as sarcastically as he could on the state he was.

"Nope. I just don’t want you to ruin the event"

"Why are you here, anyways?"

As charlotte was moving closer to kris she noticed someone, a paparazzi, hiding in the darkness of the garden below them. But he wasn’t close enough to hear them.

"I saw those two leaving in a rather awkward mood so I thought you must be involved"

"I see...sorry, but there’s nothing to entertain you here so just leave me alone"

"I cannot do that. People will talk if they don’t see us together..." she discretely gestured with her eyes towards the reporter.

"" kris finally noticed him.

"I hope you just didn’t something compromising. For your own sake...remember we have that marriage contract" she whispered close to his ear.

Basically, the contract was that if they got a divorce before five years Kris would have to give charlotte a tremendous amount of money. And her family will retire their investments on his company and so will he.

He pressed her head closer against him "I remember clearly that it'll be canceled if one of the parts had an affair"

The way he said it rang charlotte's bells.

Did he knew about her and Luhan?.

"Of course I know" she innocently smiled.

Sometimes, when he looked at her, kris couldn’t believe how much of a she could be with that harmless face.

It took one second for kris to realize she was dangerously close to his lips.
Just one inch closer and he would kiss her but he didn’t. She did.

And he let her do as she pleased for the sake of being photographed.

........

Two days later there was breaking news all over the internet.

'The new it couple's life'