Chapter 43: Officially Had Competition
The assistant drew breath, and Zeyu turned to look at her. Whatever she had been about to say disappeared immediately.
Good. He was learning.
Several minutes later, the changing-room door opened and Zhiyi stepped out wearing the dark-blue dress.
Zeyu had chosen it because it seemed to require the least from her. There were no beads to catch against her arms, no rigid boning, no straps she would have to keep adjusting and nothing complicated enough to require another woman inside the changing room with her. The fabric was soft beneath his fingers, the skirt was wide enough for her normal stride, and the hidden zipper was positioned where she could reach it herself.
It also fit beautifully.
The dark blue made her skin look almost luminous after the remaining pallor from the attack, but there was nothing fragile about the dress itself. It lay smoothly across her shoulders and followed the narrow line of her waist before falling toward the floor. Standing barefoot, the hem was long enough to accommodate a low heel without requiring an alteration.
The manager smiled in immediate approval, but Zeyu barely noticed. He wasn’t interested in whether the dress made Zhiyi beautiful. She had already been beautiful in the clothes she had arrived in.
He wanted to know whether she could forget she was wearing it.
"Raise your arms," he demanded.
Zhiyi lifted them over her head, and Zeyu watched the fabric move with her. Nothing pulled beneath her arms or forced the bodice upward. When he told her to sit, she crossed the distance to the sofa and lowered herself without having to arrange the skirt first. The fabric folded naturally around her legs, and she didn’t shift in an attempt to relieve pressure around her waist.
"Walk to the mirror and come back."
She obeyed, taking several normal steps before turning and returning to him. Her stride never shortened. Her hands stayed loose at her sides. Most importantly, she didn’t touch the dress once.
That was enough.
"We’re taking it."
"It’s an excellent choice," the manager said.
Zeyu suspected she thought he was evaluating color, silhouette and whatever other mysterious standards people were supposed to apply to expensive dresses. But he wasn’t. Zhiyi had spent the last five minutes wearing it without appearing to remember that it existed.
As far as he was concerned, the dress had passed every test that mattered.
He turned his attention to shoes and gave the manager enough specifications that there shouldn’t have been anything left for Zhiyi to decide. Closed toe, low heel, dark blue or silver, nothing crossing the top of her foot, her measured size and half a size larger.
While the assistant went to collect them, Zeyu held out his hand toward Zhiyi. "Come sit down."
She placed her fingers into his immediately.
The trust in that small action caught him harder than it should have.
An hour ago, she had barely known him beyond whatever Hanchuan had told her and whatever she remembered hearing in another life. Now she let him guide her back to the sofa without hesitation and sat close enough that the side of her dress brushed his trousers.
Zeyu sat beside her instead of taking the chair across from them.
"We’re doing the shoes the same way. You’ll put them on and walk around. If they change the way you move, I’ll reject them. If they don’t, we’ll buy them," he explained, keeping his voice soft and even.
Zhiyi considered the process. "What if they hurt and you don’t notice?"
There was considerably more strength in her voice now, and Zeyu felt some of the tension leave his shoulders.
"Then take them off," he replied with a shrug.
"What if we’re already at the dinner?"
He nearly told her that he would carry her before remembering there was already a perfectly good man available for that purpose. "Then Hanchuan can carry you."
She thought about it seriously.
The fact that she apparently considered Pei Hanchuan carrying her through a black-tie foundation dinner a perfectly reasonable contingency plan almost made Zeyu laugh.
"All right," she agreed after a moment.
The assistant returned carrying four boxes. Zeyu sent two away before they were opened because one contained a heel twice as high as he had requested and the other had thin straps crossing the toes.
The first remaining pair lasted approximately ten seconds. Zhiyi stood, took several steps, and turned her right foot slightly inward on the third.
Zeyu pointed at the box. "Those are gone."
No one asked why.
The second pair had a wider toe and a heel low enough that Zhiyi’s posture didn’t change when she stood. She walked toward the mirror, turned and came back without adjusting either foot.
Zeyu nodded. "We’ll take those."
The entire shoe-shopping process took less than five minutes.
Apparently buying things for Zhiyi was extraordinarily easy once everyone stopped asking her what she wanted.
The realization pleased him far more than it should have.
The manager started explaining that they could package everything for delivery, but Zeyu cut her off. "She’ll wear the dress and shoes. Pack what she came in."
There was no reason to make Zhiyi change twice merely to transport clothing across the city. More importantly, the thought of returning her to Hanchuan already dressed for the evening appealed to something smug and childish inside him.
He had been given one assignment.
He intended to return with visible proof that he had accomplished it.
By the time the assistant had carefully folded Zhiyi’s clothes into a garment bag, Zeyu had paid for everything without bothering to look at the total. The manager approached with the receipt while Zhiyi stood near the sofa, watching the room with considerably more awareness than she had twenty minutes earlier.
"We’re deeply sorry that Miss Qiao became distressed during her appointment."
Zeyu finished signing his name before he looked up.
The wording bothered him.
"She didn’t become distressed because she couldn’t handle shopping. You kept handing her decisions you were supposed to know how to make."
The manager’s professional expression faltered.
Zeyu wasn’t angry enough to humiliate her. He understood now that he had done exactly the same thing. The only difference was that he had been ignorant for free while the boutique employed an entire staff of people supposedly trained to help clients choose clothing.
"I understand," she said quietly.
"I don’t think you do yet." His voice remained pleasant. "But if she comes back here, you will."
The manager nodded.
And that was enough.
Zeyu wasn’t interested in forcing an apology out of her or making the rest of the staff terrified of Zhiyi. He wanted them trained. There was a difference.
He crossed the salon to Zhiyi and held out his hand again. She took it without looking first.
Something expanded beneath his ribs.
The terror of watching her lips turn blue hadn’t left him. He suspected it wouldn’t for a very long time.
But neither had the feeling of her body finally giving him its full weight.
Zeyu knew what it meant to be trusted. He had trusted Hanchuan and the others with his life since they were boys, and they had done the same with him.
This had been different.
Zhiyi hadn’t needed him to fight beside her or stand at her back. She had needed him to be strong when she couldn’t be. To hold her upright when her own legs gave out. To make the decisions she couldn’t make and quietly remove the things that hurt her before they ever reached her.
And she had let him.
For most of Song Zeyu’s life, people had wanted something from him.
Today, for the first time, someone had simply needed him.
And he found that he wanted her to do it again.
He just had to wonder what Hanchuan’s reaction would be when he learned that he now officially have competition.