"And do you not want me around you anymore?"

  Qian Meng stared right into his eyes. They didn't have the gleam that they usually did. She couldn't decipher what he was feeling at that moment.

  "It's not that—"

  He raised his hand to stop her. "Do you want me to go with you?" She opened her mouth to make an excuse but he caught her. "I don't need to know if you think you are inconveniencing me. I want to know if you want me to come with you. The question is simple enough."

  She was silent.

  "Don't think about anything else. Concentrate on what you want. Be selfish!" he ordered.

  "I want you to come with me," she said meekly.

  He nodded. "Then I will come with you." She opened her mouth to protest. "I am not listening to you. Even if you run away, I am going to find out where you are staying in Hong Kong and make sure I am staying in the room next to you. I will be there." His words were more of an assurance than they were a threat. "Now, which flight did you book your ticket? I'll book mine on it, too," he said.

  She shook her head. "I already booked your ticket," she said sheepishly.

  A small smile played on his lips. He pressed his palm to her head and stroked her hair. "Good girl. Don't think about too much right now. You're overwhelmed. We will talk about this later, okay?"

  She nodded slowly. "Okay."

  As he helped her pack the last of her things and move around to do the same for him, she had only one thought in her mind.

  'Mo Qingchen, I want to explore a real marriage with you.'

  And maybe she should have blurted it out. Just like that——

  The short flight was almost unreal. Mo Qingchen held her hands throughout the journey from their home to the airport. He didn't even let it go as they boarded and took their seats.

  They didn't speak a lot, the air awkward. But emotions are weird. When you are overwhelmed by them, somehow the body starts giving you signals to snap out of it. Usually, this was translated as hunger.

  She pushed it down for the most part.? She had been so hungry when she entered the airport that she barely spoke to the new bodyguard who had been assigned to her.

  Mo Qingchen said that he was in the special forces until he retired and that he had a license to carry a gun. Qian Meng blinked in confusion but then she was glad. She didn't mind the bodyguard being prepared at all times. Now that Mo Qingchen was going with her, she felt that the people trying to hurt her would do a lot worse. They needed the protection.

  Once they were at the hotel Li Min had booked, Mo Qingchen finally spoke.

  "Leave your bags. I'll get everything out," he offered.

  "It's okay. I can carry mine. It's going to take more than one trip. Why does this hotel not have this service?" she asked. Li Min frowned.

  "I'll call someone."

  "No need. I've already taken out the heavy ones."

  Li Min nodded but went her way to ask about it anyway.

  Once they were checked in, Mo Qingchen tugged Qian Meng towards the dining area. "We need to feed you. You've gone without food for a long time," he said.

  "Let's settle into the room before we eat," she said. Her growling stomach, however, disagreed. She was starving and food did sound good.

  The meal came and it looked fantastic, but all of a sudden, her raging appetite seemed to diminish. Something about sitting there beside Mo Qingchen when she was sure that she would be alone and missing him… it just unnerved her.

  Open and honest. She had to internalize that.

  "I thought you were starving?" Mo Qingchen asked, looking at her plate to her face. "All you have done is move your food around on your plate. Do you not like it?"

  "No, no. It's fine. It's great, actually. I'm just… I don't know."

  "What's wrong?" he asked, putting his fork down.

  "It's weird being here with you." She sighed.

  "But you said you wanted me to come with you. Has that changed?"

  "No. I do want you to come with me. Even when I said that you didn't have to come with me, I think I was hoping you would be stubborn and come along anyway. It's weird because I am pretending like nothing happened. That I'm not making things really hard for you," she told him.

  "Qian Meng." He looked at her for a long moment. "We haven't even been here for an hour yet. How could you possibly be acting as if nothing has happened?" he asked. He was a logical man but he understood her confusion.

  "Because I am not talking about what happened. I… I have a lot to say," she confessed.

  "Do you want to really talk to me or are you scared that something bad will happen if you don't speak to me?" he questioned.

  "I want to talk to you. But I guess I feel guilty. And scared."

  "Guilty?" he said, shocked.

  "That I could walk around hand in hand with you, or sit and have a meal with you and still feel like everything is okay. I feel guilty that it is normal. I messed up, Mo Qingchen. I should…" She tried to grasp the words.

  He finished the sentence for her. "You feel like you don't deserve it?"

  "Yes," she answered, taking a deep breath.

  "Can you explain why?" he asked. "I won't know what you are thinking until you tell me. You know that I am not very observant in certain things."

  Qian Meng scoffed. "You give yourself too little credit. You do. You're wonderful. You know just the right things to do and you say the right things… most of the time."