The Mafia's Rose Married the CEO

🌹2: Wedding Bells🌹

Feng Lizhao had been nervously waiting for her daughter. Up until Mr. Chao had sent him a text message that he was now on the way to The Kingly Hotel with Feng Xuan, Feng Lizhao had not been sure that her daughter would have really come home to Chengshi.

Feng Xuan could see her father from the hallway of the restaurant. There were numerous people in the restaurant at this hour. Feng Xuan walked the remaining steps towards her father and came up from behind him. She leaned down next to his ear and said, "Father."

Feng Lizhao's body jumped a little, followed by a small "oh" and his big laughter.

"Xuanxuan," he said, standing up to give her daughter a hug. Feng Xuan embraced him back and committed to memory how warm her father's embrace was. "Was your flight pleasant?"

Feng Xuan sat in front of her father. "It was okay," she said to him, remembering the little novel manuscript on her that she had finished reading on the flight. "How are you, Father?"

Feng Lizhao's eyes almost disappeared from all the fat on his face. His eyes were like slits on a coin bank. "Never better now that my daughter has come home," he smiled.

Feng Xuan smiled back. "Are you hungry?"

"Would you like to order?" Her father reached to give her the menu but she held up a hand to stop it.

"I don't feel like eating as of the moment. Jetlag, I think," she said.

"Oh, you are just like your mother," he said with a hearty laugh. "Your mother never liked to eat when we just came back from a long flight. She would wait until dinner time, or even the following day to get her appetite back."

Feng Xuan's smile faltered. Her mother died just a few months before she was sent away overseas. Apparently, a psychologist told her father that sending her to a new place would help her move on from what happened. That was what her father exactly did. And it did work. But Feng Xuan had always felt she still had not gotten over her mother's death. As if something was still missing to finally accept that she was really gone. She had just avoided the topic of talking about her mother all together to never remember that empty feeling inside.

"Aw," her father cooed. "Your mother would have been happy that you are now home. She would've hated to see that long face."

Feng Xuan pulled the smile back to her face. She poured themselves a cup. She brought the ceramic piece to her mouth and sipped. "How is your wife?"

Now it was her father's turn to sip on his tea. "Lifen is alright."

"And the daughter?"

Feng Lizhao had shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It had been a well-established fact that Feng Xuan did not like the idea of him marrying another woman. Much less when the said woman was whom her daughter had the suspicion of just leeching off the family's riches. He did not protest with Feng Xuan's refusal to call her step-family with their names. "Meilien is okay too."

"Figures," Feng Xuan said with another sip of her tea. She set it down and sprawled her skinny arms over the armrest of the seat. "Are we not going to talk about the elephant in the room, Father?"

"What elephant?"

She gathered up strength and courage to face the truth. "The reason why I am back in Chengshi. I was meant to stay overseas until I finish my graduate studies, yet here I am trying to think that everything is normal when everything is about to change."

Feng Lizhao did not answer. He knew his daughter knew why she had to get back in Chengshi. It was not like his daughter was stupid. She had known the stories about her great-great grandmother and all the women that followed.

Feng Xuan leaned forward the table and said in a low voice, as if it was still a secret. "I am getting married. Aren't I?"

Feng Lizhao nodded his head once, a grim look on his face.

"Don't worry, Father. I am not going to hold it against you. I am going to comply to everything. You won't hear a single protest. I just want to know some of the details."

Her father cleared his throat. "Such as, to whom you are getting married?"

"Hmm," Feng Xuan thought. She had wanted to know so she could prepare. But knew it did not really matter. "Not really. Just answer two questions."

Feng Lizhao put his little white cup on the table and nodded at his daughter. "Go."

"Is he old?"

Feng Lizhao could not help but bark laughter at that one. He furrowed his eyebrows at his only daughter. How could she think that? Sure, he was marrying her off to a stranger but he also made sure that she was getting married to the right person. And out of all the questions, why this one? "He is young, Xuanxuan. A young twenty-four year old. Very handsome."

Feng Xuan almost did a full-body shiver. She did not need to know if her future husband was handsome. Just the same with his name, it really did not matter to her. However, admittedly, she appreciated the thought that her father found her groom to be handsome, but that could just be softening whatever blow was coming her way.

She asked her second and last question. "When is the wedding?"

"If everything goes well," Feng Lizhao said, "next weekend."

Feng Xuan refused to let out a frustrated sigh. She would not show weakness in front of her father.

Next weekend?! It was a Friday afternoon and next weekend would mean Saturday or Sunday. That would just be eight to nine days of getting her bearings straight to marry a stranger.

She suddenly caught herself wishing she had known the person she was marrying instead of trying to torture herself for the next few days trying to figure out who that person was. But she had made her decision earlier, and she was not going to go back. She would just have to find out on her own.

She grabbed the teapot with its intricate design and refilled her father's cup and hers. "Okay," she said to her father. "That's all I need to know."

As her father was reaching for his cup, he said, "I want to thank you, Xuanxuan, for the sacrifice you're making for your family." He raised his cup to his daughter. "I know you are going to make me proud."

Feng Xuan mustered up a smile and raised her cup back to her father.

Feng Xuan could hear the wedding bells.