Chapter Text
The brandy in Jackson Wang’s stomach felt like acid boring a hole through him. It didn’t matter that he’d ingested the most expensive liquor in the bar—in the end it only served to make him feel worse because it was money he didn’t have to spare.
He should have been over this. It had been a little over three weeks since his dreams were crushed and his career aspirations flushed down the toilet. Jackson wasn’t the type of man to dwell on the past. But this—this was more than something that had happened to him. This was someone burning down his home and following him to burn down any other home he moved into. This was an annihilation of his person and he felt it. Oh, how he felt it. The acid currently eating him alive was nothing compared to the rage that threatened to explode his heart.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the woman at the end of the bar cast another look his way. She was dressed well and her grooming looked as though it cost a fortune to maintain, but in these hotel bars you never knew if the women were gold diggers dressed in rented finery. Her continued attention at least told him that the maelstrom inside him hadn’t made it onto his face, and that his situation hadn’t gotten around yet. That was some consolation. Everything else may have been stolen from him, but at least his misery wasn’t yet on display for all to ridicule.
Nonetheless, for her own sake the woman had better not come over. Jackson smiled bitterly at his reflection in the mirror behind the liquor bottles. If anyone approached him right now he would tear them a new one. The veneer of composure he wore was only that. Tug it away and they’d see the terrible man he was on the verge of becoming.
He was musing over that awful prediction for himself when someone did approach him. His fingers tightened around the glass of brandy.
“I have a better suggestion for you than moping.”
He nearly did it. He nearly stood up and tossed the contents of his glass into the speaker’s face. The only thing stopping him was the reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t the woman behind him. It was someone else.
“If you sit down,” Jackson said through gritted teeth, “I will kill you.”
Wang Yibo, managing to look too expensive for a bar that catered to only the wealthiest denizens of Shanghai, moved to stand beside Jackson’s stool. He carried with him the faint scent of sandalwood. The younger man was gorgeous tonight, draped in a complicated scarlet top striped with chains while his long legs were hugged by skintight black pants. His small, fine featured face was lightly accented with makeup, but only a touch. Wang Yibo was naturally beautiful. It made him recognizable everywhere.
“If you kill me,” Yibo said casually as he glanced into Jackson’s glass, “my father will have the last laugh as he sends you to prison. I highly doubt you could live with that.”
“I’ll kill him after.”
“I know you want to. I hope you’re aware of how stupid that would be.” Yibo leaned an elbow on the bar as though he were chitchatting with a friend. “He would ruin your life twice, instead of just the once.”
Jackson wasn’t surprised that Wang Yibo knew what his father had done to him. The two of them had probably had a laugh about it, though Jackson recalled that Yibo hadn’t been seen in the company of his father for a couple of years now despite both living in the same city.
“How does it feel to be the spawn of someone so evil?” Jackson asked him with a smile better suited to a shark. “Does it run in the blood? A deal made with the Devil? Is that why you look the way you do? You bought your handsomeness with your soul?”
Yibo smirked. “Are you drunk? Have you been drunk ever since my father bankrupted Fuji National?”
The name alone was enough to wring a shiver out of Jackson. “I was going to be the youngest president in its history.”
“You were. Now the business is gone and you’re not even a lowly assistant.”
“Because your father sabotaged the company!” Jackson hissed.
“Yes. After Fuji National headhunted you into leaving his company.” Yibo’s careless shrug had Jackson contemplating hitting him with his glass. “My father felt betrayed by you and Fuji National. Therefore he had to destroy you both.” Yibo grimaced before looking down to brush imaginary lint off his top. “And he’ll keep destroying you, no matter who hires you, until you leave China with your tail tucked between your legs. He’s a very vindictive man.”
The words felt heavy. There was something there. A story. Yibo’s own experience crossing his father, perhaps.
“Why are you here talking to me?” Jackson demanded. “To gloat? To tell your father his plan is working perfectly? Go ahead. Tell him I’m a shell of a man now that I’m being blackballed by one of the richest and most powerful men in Asia.”
“No.” Yibo pushed the glass of brandy away from Jackson’s hands before turning his limpid gaze to him. “I’m not here to gloat. I’m here with a proposition.”
Jackson couldn’t help the way his own gaze fell down the long, slender length of the other man. Yibo reminded him of an orchid: delicate and precious, too beautiful to touch, only to be admired. But because he was so stunning and because Jackson felt so emasculated by the senior Wang, Jackson wanted only to crush Wang Yibo beneath his heel.
“Is the proposition the destruction of the Wang family?” he asked sarcastically.
“You’re close,” Yibo said, sounding unbothered by Jackson’s words or the paradoxical heat in his gaze. “I want to help you obtain revenge against my father.”
~~~~~
You’re close.
Jackson had moved on to soda water and lime in an attempt to ease his stomach. It wasn’t because he wanted to be sober to hear Wang Yibo’s proposition, though that wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. But Jackson wasn’t convinced that the other man was here for any reason that would benefit him. What little he knew of Wang Yibo suggested his interests were entirely self-centered.
Despite having the father that he did, Yibo had rejected the family business—or so the rumors went. Jackson never took anything at face value. There had to be more to the story. Yibo had gone into modeling, where he’d quickly become a fashion darling both because of his notoriety and because he was genuinely intriguing to look at. He made every outfit he wore, from the sporty to the avant garde, look as though it were accompanied by a fascinating drama. After being featured on the cover of every major fashion magazine in Asia, Yibo apparently grew bored with being a human hanger and changed course into extreme sports. Snowboarding led to skateboarding which led to his current passion of motorcycle racing. Not once during this odyssey had Yibo stepped foot inside the Wang Consolidation building.
His careless lifestyle and snubbing of his father’s demands created something of a scandal. Wang Zheng, dead set on keeping business within the family, needed an heir to take over his $200 billion dollar empire. Yibo was supposed to be it. Yet he hadn’t done a single day’s work for Wang Consolidated, something Wang Zheng’s competitors salivated over and mentioned whenever they had the chance. It hinted, they said, at future weakness in the company.
The reality was that there was no urgency. Wang Zheng was a robust fifty-four year-old and his son was twenty-three. Wang Yibo might be having the time of his life now, flouting his father’s rules, but the business world at large—Jackson included—knew he would eventually buckle beneath the immense pressure put on him by his father. One day, and that day would certainly come, Wang Yibo would enter the family business and become the new executive chairman.
So why was he here?
“You were my father’s protégé,” Yibo said as he ran a fingertip around the rim of his martini glass. They’d moved to a table for two in a corner of the bar. Jackson had granted him ten minutes. If he didn’t like what he heard within that time frame he’d leave without a backwards glance. “One day you would have been the second most powerful person in the company.”
“And I would never be more than that. When you take his place, I’d still be an executive vice chairman.”
Yibo’s finger skittered off the rim before returning and resuming its slow slide. “So your greed drove you to accept Fuji’s offer. Loyalty to my father meant nothing to you.”
“Not greed,” Jackson argued calmly. He presented a picture of quiet grace, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee. But his insides were churning as they rehashed past events. “If I had taken Fuji’s offer to your father, he would have matched it. Exceeded it, even.”
Yibo’s eyes were intent. “Then why didn’t you?”
“Because it wasn’t about the money. I’m twenty-six years old. My dream is to be the head of a powerful company. That would never happen inside Wang Consolidated, so I had to leave. Fuji National was young and bold and looking to conquer China after its domination of Japan. They were willing to give the entire Chinese territory to me. They offered me freedom and power of a degree I would never have been given by your father. The choice was as easy as it was imperative to me.”
“You sound like a man who should start his own business.”
“I would if I could,” Jackson muttered, but the words were empty. Anything he attempted would be deep-sixed by Wang Zheng within days. Bank loans, credit approval—Wang Zheng would block everything. He was just too powerful to cross.
“You don’t have the capital, and any effort to obtain any would be blocked by my father,” Yibo guessed.
Jackson saluted him with his glass, the acid beginning to boil again.
“So you’re screwed.”
“You’ve wasted my time,” Jackson muttered, moving to stand.
“If you’re screwed, you may as well take him down with you,” Yibo said.
Jackson hesitated with both feet on the ground. He didn’t look over at the younger man. “How could I possibly do that? If I can’t help myself, how could I ruin him?”
“By taking me as your lover.”
Jackson resumed his seat, though he questioned why he did so. “You must have done your research about me and learned that I’m amused by the stupidest things.”
“I’m not here to amuse you.” The cool side of Yibo that lived on the covers of magazines appeared in the man across from Jackson. “What’s my father’s most important possession?”
“His company.”
Yibo didn’t flinch. “Then let’s say his second most important. That would be me. His legacy lives in me. Wang Consolidated only survives if I take it over. Or so he believes. But, that’s never going to happen.”
Jackson chuckled at his naivete. “You’re taking over the company, Wang Yibo. You just don’t know it yet. There’s no choice for you.”
“That’s why I’m making it my father’s choice. His choice to disown me, that is.”
Jackson could have used the expensive brandy to deal with this. “Why in the hell would he do that? Because you like to play with bikes?”
“They’re not toys. They’re worth more than you are. Secondly, no. I’ve tried to convince him I’m serious about racing and it obviously hasn’t worked. He thinks it’s a phase. My interests won’t ever be enough to truly infuriate my father.” Yibo’s gaze darkened. “But there is something he hates more than anything else in this world. Someone, whose mere name sends his blood pressure soaring.”
Jackson experienced a moment’s pleasure in hearing that Wang Zheng hated his guts as much as Jackson hated his. At least the misery was mutual to a small degree. But the power imbalance remained.
“Yes, he hates me and he’s doing his best to show me,” Jackson drawled. “So what?”
“You want power, Jackson. What if you were given the power to devastate him?” Yibo lifted his martini glass and poured its contents between his plush lips. “What if you could ruin his legacy?”
It all fell into place, and Jackson took a moment to consider Yibo’s plan.
“He hates homosexuals that much?” he asked, dubious.
“If he did, you would have been fired long ago.”
Jackson stilled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“If you’d like to pretend that my father never knew about you, go ahead. It doesn’t change the facts.”
If Wang Zheng had known that Jackson was gay but kept him employed, that meant he’d valued Jackson over his own morals. No wonder Jackson’s decision to leave had struck the older man so deeply, not that Jackson felt sorry in any way. Wang Zheng was no hero for swallowing his distaste of Jackson’s sexuality to benefit from the money he made for the company.
“Being gay wouldn’t be enough for him to disinherit me,” Yibo said, confirming Jackson’s thoughts. “He’d pinch his nose and endure it so long as I kept the company profitable. It needs to be more than that. Worse than that.”
Jackson snorted. “Then what, a sex tape of you and me?”
Once, he’d picked up a magazine featuring Yibo wearing a woman’s dress that the young man had hiked up to his thighs while he straddled a motorcycle. It was supposed to be an artsy, high concept shot, but to Jackson and no doubt anyone with a pulse, the image was pure provocation. However, the thought of sex with Yibo had never previously crossed Jackson’s mind despite absently noting that Wang Yibo was the most attractive man he’d ever seen. The connection to Wang Zheng had instantly killed any possible feelings of desire for the young man.
“I didn’t say I was gay,” Yibo told him. “There won’t be any sex involved.”
Jackson sighed deeply, his brief interest fizzling. “Then how much scandal can we create beyond fake angles? The paparazzi will see through that.”
“We can bring a certain element into our fake relationship that will cause my father to lose face. He can’t bear to lose face. Not like this.”
Jackson was back to being curious. “What is this ‘certain element’ which holds so much power?”
“You just said it: power.”
Jackson waited him out, resisting the urge to walk out. He hated being played, and this felt very close to it. He watched a muscle in Yibo’s sharp jaw ripple as though he’d clenched his teeth. It was the first time he’d shown a hint of anxiousness.
“To be a successful businessman in my father’s world you need to be strong and ruthless,” Yibo began. “You need to be dominant. An alpha. There’s no room for weakness. Or perceived weakness.” He glanced at Jackson before looking away coolly. “I’m aware of what people think about me.”
“That you’re precious and spoiled, you mean?” Jackson asked with a wide, innocent smile.
Yibo didn’t bother with a glare. “People who don’t know me think I play around because I can’t make a decision for myself. They think I’m incompetent. Soft.” Yibo looked uncomfortable saying it, but it could have been an act. “If you become my lover, if you’re publicly controlling and seemingly taking advantage of me, my father will be so disgusted he won’t be able to look at me. He’ll be ashamed to meet with his competitors for fear they’ll mention my name to him. My weakness will become his. Which will never happen, by the way. He’d disinherit me before that could happen, and so I’d win.”
“Win,” Jackson repeated, skeptical.
Yibo’s eyes flashed, full of determination. “I have enough money of my own to last for lifetimes. I just want to be left alone and allowed to race. For your help, I’ll bankroll whatever business you want to start up. You can build your empire and I’ll be free. We both win.”
“Just to be clear,” Jackson said slowly, because for as intelligent as he was, this concept wasn’t an easy one to grasp, “you want me to pretend to be your lover.”
“Not just a lover, a possessive and controlling one. There needs to be no doubt in his mind that I serve you in the bedroom. It will turn my father’s stomach.”
“So like, slap you around a little? Call you demeaning names?”
Jackson couldn’t be sure, but he thought the eyeshadow around Yibo’s eyes reddened. “If that’s necessary.”
“Thanks for clarifying.” Jackson stood and straightened his jacket. “I may be gay, I may be desperate, but I’m not sick in the head like you Wangs apparently are. You come near me again, Wang Yibo, and I promise that you’ll regret it.”
He thought he saw a flash of disappointment on Yibo’s face but didn’t stick around to confirm it. He had to get away from that family before he did something that would get him thrown in jail.