Romantic Collaboration

Part 5

10

On the way back, we remained silent.

It wasn't until the car stopped under my apartment building that Ji Ming Chen placed his hand on the steering wheel, exhaling, "I'm sorry for making you upset."
I looked up in surprise, "I'm not upset."

I hesitated for a moment but decided to be honest:

"Well, maybe a little, but it wasn't because of Lin Yao. It was because you've seemed down the entire time."

"... My mood had nothing to do with Lin Yao either." Ji Ming Chen rubbed his face. "If I still had feelings for her, I wouldn't have gotten engaged to you. It's just..."
His voice lowered, "Seeing her brings back bad memories."

I tentatively reached out to hold Ji Ming Chen's hand, gently stroking it. "Let me apologize first. I did some digging into why you and Lin Yao broke up."

"There's no need to apologize. It's something everyone knows." Ji Ming Chen squeezed my hand, intertwining our fingers. "Even if you hadn't looked into it, I would have been honest with you eventually."

I couldn't help but smile. "So, why was it?"

I asked, "Her behavior is really hard for me to figure out."

"I don't know either." Ji Ming Chen gave a bitter smile. "Maybe she hates me."

"We were in a relationship for two years, and afterward, it was a constant cycle of breaking up and getting back together. My family and her mother were always interfering, making the relationship more painful than joyful."

"Looking back now, most of the time we were just yelling at each other. Towards the end, she felt bad for me because I left the Ji family and was struggling, but after she cried, she'd scold me again, and then after scolding, she'd come back to hug me."
Ji Ming Chen seemed lost in his memories. "We studied the same major, and it was only natural for us to start a business together. She's incredibly capable, and everyone could see that. But she always said she couldn't demonstrate her value at my company, claiming that everyone believed her success was solely due to me."

"When I gave her gifts, if they were too expensive, she'd make sarcastic remarks. If they were too cheap, or if I didn't get her anything, she'd say I didn't care about her."

Ji Ming Chen turned to look at me, smiling faintly, "I guess I just didn't do enough. I didn't give her enough of a sense of security."

11

I gently shook our clasped hands. "Are you seriously telling your fiancée that you didn't give your ex enough sense of security?"

For the first time, Ji Ming Chen's expression was so complex—both regretful and panicked. "That's not what I meant!"

I laughed. "I know, I was just teasing you."

"Did she really switch jobs to your competitor?"

"Yes." Ji Ming Chen paused for a moment. "Actually, my family had already agreed at that time, but I hesitated. Our relationship wasn't very healthy then, and on a major project, we had a serious disagreement."
"She was too fixated on that disagreement, insisting I acknowledge her perspective. In the end, it wasn't about the issue anymore, she was just venting her emotions."

I listened quietly.

"We lost the bid on that project to the competitor, so I decided to reshuffle the company's upper management and have given them a half-month break."

"And what happened after that," Ji Ming Chen looked at our joined hands, "you already know."

I asked softly, "Why did she act that way?"

"She said she was jealous of me." Ji Ming Chen was silent for a moment before speaking again. "Jealous of how everything went smoothly for me. She questioned why I was born into the Ji family, and said that I... trampled on her dignity."

"Don't think about it like that." I let go of his hand, unbuckled my seatbelt, leaned over, and hugged him. "Now that it's all out in the open, let's not bring this up again in the future."

There was a cool, soothing scent in Ji Ming Chen's embrace, and with the difference in our body sizes, I was completely nestled in his arms. I leaned in and kissed the tip of his nose.

"A kiss makes all the bad feelings disappear."

Ji Ming Chen's ears slowly turned red. He lowered his eyes, his thick lashes trembling slightly as he softly asked, "Are you only going to kiss here?"