Wooing my Bodyguard Wife

"Secretly married?!" Xue Ning and Jingwei both exclaim loudly in unison, but while Xue Ning's tone is one of confusion, Jingwei's one was one of delight.

She glares at him, and he gives a terrible impression of looking confused.

"Excuse me Sir, wasn't it cleared up before I started this job?" Xue Ning continues to ask.

"Yeah Father, didn't we put out an announcement or anything? Did our PR department slack off?" Jingwei adds on.

"Our PR department has never rested for a day since you flew back into the country five years ago," Tianwei replies flatly. "There's a reason why that department has the highest turnover rate in the entire company."

"Oh." Jingwei says glumly, falling silent. No wonder Yi Ting keeps cursing him out - she was the sad soul in charge of hiring.

"… Did anything else happen?" Xue Ning asked cautiously, seeing that no one was going to elaborate.

"Nothing too terrible," Sun Haowei replies. His voice is deceptively casual, and it scares Xue Ning more than the yelling. "Other than my son doing a spectacular job in making the world believe he's desperately in love with you, rendering all our earlier efforts of denial completely moot."

"Oh," Xue Ning says faintly, because there was nothing else she could say in response.

"Father!" Jingwei exclaims, face redder than a tomato. But he still seems too pleased at this outcome. Xue Ning makes herself count to 20 to stop herself from elbowing him. Patience. Patience.

"What, you impudent boy? You dare to feel embarrassed after acting so shameless?!" Sun Haowei demands, throwing a printed photo at them. "Just look at the both of you, carvoting in public."

The carvoting in question showed them hugging. It was a picture of them taken when they were still in the restroom, after they took down Xiumin. Sun Jingwei had spun her around delightedly then, and she was so relieved and happy that they got rid of such a big threat that she let him.

One of the nosy staff must have taken the photo then. Thankfully, Xue Ning's underwear was not on display.

"What's wrong with that?" Jingwei says, staring at the photo. He didn't see anything with hugging, but perhaps that was too much for a man like Sun Haowei, who belonged in the era of no public displays of affection. "Father, you have to move with the times!"

"What rubbish!" His father yells and slams a huge stack of photos on the table. "What about all these then? Everyone thinks the both of you are married!"

Xue Ning and Jingwei look at each other before approaching the pictures cautiously, fearing the worst, but they don't show anything untoward.

There are a few photos, taken at her shabby apartment complex. Someone had gotten grainy photos of her getting into Sun Jingwei's eye-catching Ferrari. Luckily, the windows were tinted so no one could really confirm if it was Sun Jingwei in the car, even though everyone present knew that only he drove this particular car.

So, the photos are just creepy, but not incriminating. Xue Ning does not like the idea of her neighbours spying on her for spare cash. Who knows what they might do when she returns to her building?

There are more pictures, this time it showed… CCTV footage of them at the restaurant? Even though the pictures weren't of the highest quality, one could still clearly see Sun Jingwei holding her hand tightly in all of them, their bodies close together.

This was from the time where they pretended to be dating, just so that he could get Xiao Hui to leave him alone! And look how well that turned out - Xiao Hui was harmless, compared to Xiu Min, the woman that was actually obsessed with him.

Did the police pull out the CCTV footage to look for Xiu Min, but end up stumbling on them?

She would like to have words with them immediately - their priorities are so fucked!

There are more photos of them walking in the restaurant and milling outside. These new pictures must have been taken after they've gotten interviewed by Officer Tang, for in the pictures they looked happier. They were half-bickering with each other then, still buoyed with happiness by their success.

In a particular photo, Jingwei had a hand on her back, and it looked like he was guiding her along to the ambulance while saying something. She had a faint smile on her face, as though she's trying hard not to laugh. That seemed… fine. Innocent. Friendly.

What was less friendly: Sun Jingwei's face. The photo had captured the full extent of his puppy eyes. He looked at her so adoringly, so hungrily, in the photo that Xue Ning felt her cheeks heating up just by staring at it.

Come to think of it, he wore that look often, when he was with her. She chanced a quick glance at him, only to realise he was already staring at her with that very look on his face. She stares back down at the photos.

Luckily, there wasn't any photo of their kiss. There would be no turning back from that point.

"Who took these photos?" Xue Ning asks. The thought that someone was secretly taking pictures of them both made her skin crawl. And the CCTV footage too! Were the police doing their jobs?

While Xue Ning worried over potential paparazzi and the incompetence of the police force, Jingwei was undergoing a mini-crisis on his own.

He stared at his own face in the multiple photos, cataloguing the affection in his own eyes and the genuinity of his smile. This was the first time he looked at himself when he was looking at her!

Did he ever look so in love, so besotted, with any other women? Surely he must have, once upon a time. But he honestly could not confirm it.

But that could be because he had never fallen in love like this, so deeply, that every atom in his body was hellbent on flinging itself through space to reach Xue Ning.

"So?" Jingwei asks his father, raising an eyebrow. Xue Ning gives him a warning look, hoping that he doesn't antagonise his father further, but Jingwei reaches out and holds her hand right in front of him.

"Father," Jingwei says cockily, "What's wrong with these pictures?"