Chapter 4 Big Day

Eleanor had been fully dressed since about forty minutes ago, but she was nowhere near ready to leave.

Standing in front of the vanity mirror in the east wing suite, she held up a strand of pearls and a diamond choker, while two members of the house staff waited in perfect silence on either side of her.

A third person was kneeling at the foot of the bed, aligning a pair of heels that had already been aligned twice, just because she told them to do it again.

The poor servants were beyond exhausted with this mistress of theirs, but obviously, she signs their paychecks so…… they're pretty much stuck with the overbearing woman.

"The pearls," Eleanor finally said, then changed her mind. "No. The diamonds. Today should feel like a moment."

To her, today was more than just a big deal. And that's why she's been reminding everyone within earshot of how perfect the event had to be since six that morning.

"Today is about Ming," she said, lifting her chin so one of the staff could fasten the choker. "Everything we've built — Wei and I — it's all been leading to this. For the children to take what we gave them and make it something real." She smiled at her reflection. She'd worked hard to see this moment manifest into a reality. Of course she was satisfied. "The Zhang name belongs at the top. It always has. Today just makes it official."

In the next room, Ming was making it happen in his own way.

He had his tie straight, buttoned his jacket, then unbuttoned it, then buttoned it again.

He had practiced three different versions of his CEO face in the mirror — serious, kind, and the one he decided to call commanding — and settled on the third.

He looked so good and he knew it, which was the best possible starting position for a day like today.

He ran through his speech once more under his breath.

It had everything a speech was supposed to have. Something talking about legacy, then the part about his vision and finally, to the most important part, the part where he thanked his father without sounding like he meant it too much. He had it clean. He had it right. He was totally ready.

He fixed a thread on his cuff and caught his own eye in the mirror and for a short moment, Leo crossed his mind.

"Wherever that leech ended up," Ming mumbled, "good riddance."

He laughed and his reflection laughed back.

It was a great morning to be a Zhang.

★

The venue was all glass and high ceilings and the kind of catering that existed to be photographed rather than eaten.

Every surface caught the light. Every guest had been carefully selected by Master Wei himself. He couldn't risk some lowlife showing up.

The CFO appointment ceremony was the official centerpiece, but the real conversation that he so eagerly looked forward to, was the president.

Word had moved through the right circles: he was considering a collaboration with Zhang Enterprises for a national infrastructure deal.

And deals like this didn't just make money — it made history.

Zhang Wei worked the room the way only a man with nothing to prove would work a room. He moved slowly.

He accepted compliments the way a man accepts something he is owed. When he shook hands, he let the other person feel the power of being acknowledged by him.

He almost smiled, once. A corner of his mouth moved. God, who thought he'd get this lucky? And just when business was turning out to be a bit bland too.

The MC tapped the microphone and announced that the president's motorcade was ten minutes out. The room settled into its best behavior. Champagne was poured. Conversations dropped to a quiet murmur. Staff moved along the edges, trying their very bests to be precise and invisible all at once.

Everything was exactly as it should be.

Nobody noticed him at first.

That was the thing about the present Leo. He tended to avoid making an entrance. He simply arrived, and there was a beat — maybe two seconds, maybe five — where the room continued without noticing, and then something shifted in the air that no one could name, and everyone was suddenly and quietly aware.

He walked in through the main doors. He had two men with him, large in the particular way that suggested they weren't hired for the event and hadn't come to admire the catering.

Leo himself was wearing something dark and held a supreme level of expensive — the kind of suit that didn't announce itself, that simply made everything else in the room look like it was trying too hard.

He had shades on as he scanned the space once, his gaze dragging along slowly, and his gaze landed on the head table.

Specifically on the seat at the center of the head table. The one with the presidential place card.

He walked straight to it. Sat down. Crossed one leg over the other. The two men took their positions on either side without being told.

Leo picked up the water glass in front of him and drank from it like he was sitting in his own dining room, which — in a sense that no one in the room yet understood — he almost was.

The staff froze. Guests murmured. For a full five seconds, no one moved at all.

Wei recovered from the shock first.

He crossed the room with the controlled pace of a man who really couldn't afford a scene but desperately wanted one. He stopped beside the table and spoke in a voice that was very quiet and tight.

"You need to leave. Now."

Leo didn't look at him. He set the glass down and stared ahead with the mild, abstract attention of someone watching traffic from a window.

Ming came over then because obviously he couldn't bear being left out. Such an attention seeker.

"Is this a joke?" Ming looked at Leo and then looked around at the nearest guests, making sure they were watching. They were. "Did you borrow that suit or steal it? What did you take to get here — a cab?" He laughed, and it was a crowd laugh, built for an audience. "Rent those?" He gestured at the two men flanking Leo. "How much does a pair of bouncers run these days?"

Eleanor appeared at Ming's shoulder. She had the grace to look slightly uncomfortable. She said nothing though.

Leo took his shades off. He folded them slowly and set them on the table. He looked at Ming.

"The lowlifes in this room," Leo said, without raising his voice, "are not the ones you're pointing at."

Ming's smile didn't drop. It widened — the kind of widening that happens right before a man messes up. He signaled to the venue security.

More words.

More of the clown's performance.

The room had split cleanly between entertained and horrified, and Ming was too comfortable to notice which side was larger.

Then the main doors opened.

The president walked in with his detail, took in the room in under two seconds and his eyes went to the man sitting in his chair.

His entire bearing changed. Straightening up, he crossed the room himself. His detail followed but he was ahead of them, moving with purpose, and he stopped at the head table and looked at Leo with the expression of a man who had been waiting for this very moment.

The room had fallen completely silent by now.

"Mr. Leo." The president extended his hand. "It's an honor to finally meet you in person.”