Chapter 90: Full Marks Hidden Marriage

Lily Ling frowned and jerked her hand out from Riley Rong's grasp, glaring at him. She stood by my side defiantly, folding her arms.

"He's my fiancé, of course my whereabouts and wellbeing will involve him."

"So what if he's your fiancé?" Riley Rong retorted. "Does that mean you are obligated to report your location and activities to him every second of the day? Don't you have your own privacy?"

"No one said that," I replied, annoyed. "What is the matter with you?"

"Yeah, this has nothing to do with my privacy. You're basically taking me away from my fiancé and dragging me to a place that neither of us know where it is. Obviously he's going to be concerned, and of course I would want to inform him of my whereabouts. Besides, it's none of your business whether I want to report my activities and whereabouts to my fiancé, right?"

Lily folded her arms and glared at Riley Rong.

"You are my woman. I forbid you to have any contact with other men." Riley Rong strode forward to seize Lily by the wrist, but I stepped between them and blocked him. I raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me? We literally just told you that Lily is my fiancée. When did she ever become your woman?"

"I have no obligation to tell you," Riley Rong replied in that cold, overbearing manner so typical of male leads in CEO novels.

"Don't you know who he is?" One of the bodyguards in suits growled, but Riley Rong waved him back. Instead, he beckoned me over.

"Let's have a talk somewhere else."

"…huh?" I gaped at him. He shook his head and sighed.

"Don't worry. I won't do anything to harm you. I'm not that stupid. And I won't bring my guards along."

At this, he glared at the men in suits, who wisely backed off silently. I followed him to a corner where he suddenly spun around and took out a check. He also retrieved a huge suitcase, opened it to show me the cash, then clicked it shut and tossed it at me.

"There's 10 million in there. It's yours as long as you leave Lily Ling."

"…excuse me?"

"If it's not enough, I can double it."

"No." I glared at him before throwing the suitcase back at him. "What the hell are you trying to pull?"

"There exists no man in the world who can't be bought," he replied arrogantly. "Name your price. If 20 million isn't enough, then 100 million."

"Dude…" I shook my head in disbelief. "Just listen to yourself. Do you really think you can bribe me into leaving Lily? She's priceless. No amount of money will ever convince me to leave her. Are you an idiot?"

"A billion then. Don't push your luck."

What the fuck? Was this guy listening? Or did he become mentally retarded after banging his head against something?

"No." I turned away to leave. "If that's all you have to say, we're done. I'm not leaving Lily for any amount of money. Some things in this world are priceless. There are many things in this world that are more important than any amount of money. Just stop it…you're embarrassing yourself."

Riley Rong's mouth thinned.

"If you refuse, then we'll have to do this the hard way."

"…excuse me?"

The guy was just insane. However, Riley Rong wasn't giving up. His piercing gaze riveted upon me, he began reciting.

"Trevor Shen, CEO of Shen Industries, responsible for manufacturing military equipment. Don't think you can hide behind your company. My Rong Group can easily buy out your entire company. I can make you lose everything in one go. So don't push your luck. You should just accept my request when I'm asking nicely."

…the fucker thought this was asking "nicely"? What drugs was he on? oh, right…never mind, this was the typical overbearing CEO attitude that fangirls loved to read about…that they loved about the male leads because of the lengths he would go to just to acquire the female lead's love.

In reality, to an objective third person like me (particularly since I was a guy), it was just plain rude, absurd and excessively arrogant. This was the sort of behavior that would get him in trouble, just like Donald Trump about a century ago. No, seriously…no matter how rich you were and how many fans and supporters you had, if you continued to run your mouth off in such a rude and arrogant manner, you would get into trouble, eventually get kicked out of office (or voted out) and lose your position. Granted, his wealth and influence would prevent him from being imprisoned, and he would have enough money left over to last him the rest of his life, but he wouldn't remain a CEO for long.

Well, that was assuming he didn't get assassinated or mobbed by furious crowds first.

"Are you threatening me, Master CEO?"

"You can interpret my words however you want. But I'm warning you, stay away from Lily. Or I will ruin you."

"Go ahead," I snapped defiantly. "Like I said, I don't care about money. There are more important things than wealth."

Also, the guy was being incredibly shortsighted. If he wanted to set my space program back, it would be mankind who suffered, not just me. Besides, I was confident that the military and government wouldn't leave me to hang and dry. No matter how rich Riley Rong was, he couldn't compare to me, who was singlehandedly responsible for revolutionizing military technology and had more cards to play. Unless the nation was willing to play with fire and risk losing one of their most valuable assets and military advantage over other nations just to appease some rich, spoilt brat who was throwing a tantrum, there was no way they would abandon me.

If they did, I would take revenge. This bastard…he had no idea how scary a person could be if he lost everything. If he thought he could deprive me of everything and drive me to a corner…then I would make sure I bring him down with him. I had survived assassinations and a warzone against guerilla insurgents. I was perfectly capable of killing somebody.

Of course, I wasn't going to resort to murder so lightly. That was a crime, and I hadn't actually lost anything yet, nor was I driven to a corner. I would watch Riley Rong for now. No doubt the petty and childish CEO would pull some stunt to destroy me and acquire my company like all the male leads in CEO stories did, but in reality I knew that it was no simple task to buy someone else's company. Obviously the writers of CEO stories never did their research and assumed that it could be done just by throwing money around. However, there were a lot of other factors at work here, from political sanctions, tax levies, the question of legal ownership, checks and more.

Right now, both William Wang and I were the majority shareholders of the company. We had never sold our shares and we did not intend to sell them. If Riley Rong tried to buy them from us, he wouldn't succeed. Even if he somehow persuaded William to sell his shares, he would never be able to buy mine.

Only a fool would sell a rival the shares of his company. Of course, Riley Rong would find ways to go around this, but even so I doubted I would sell my company to anybody. He could own the subsidiaries for all I cared. As long as I owned the shares for the core division – research and development – I could sell all the entertainment or whatever subsidiaries.

"I see." For some reason, Riley Rong was acting cool. He adjusted his jacket. "Then you had best start waiting for the news."

He turned away to speak to his employee. While he did so, I contacted William and filled him in on what had just happened.

"Don't worry, I won't sell my shares," he assured me. "Leave this to me. I'll protect our company. I don't know who this bastard thinks he is…okay, I guess I do. He's the heir to the Rong Group, after all. But I hate his arrogance. We aren't selling anything to this asshole."

"Good. Thanks."

"Yeah, I've been receiving calls demanding to purchase shares of Shen Industries. I'm shutting them down and blocking them for now. But wow, this guy moves fast."

"He does. He's a CEO, after all." I sighed. An overbearing, Mary Sue CEO at that. Usually such takeovers never take place instantly, but as I said, writers never do their research or they want to dramatize things.

Riley Rong scowled at me from a distance, growing impatient. Meanwhile, I began receiving emails and text messages requesting to purchase the shares of my company. I ignored them all. Shen Industries belonged to me and William. I was never selling my baby, no matter what price they offered. I could see ridiculous prices going up to the trillions, but I ignored them all.

Where the fuck were they getting trillions of dollars to buy my company from? Were they retarded? They were going to get into deep trouble at this rate.

"How is this possible?!" Riley Rong snarled. He stomped over to me, his fists clenched. "Even if I'm unable to buy your company, remember this. Your parents…they aren't under your protection. I know they live in Country S right now. It's a simple matter for me to ensure they lose their property and jobs."

Wow. What a low blow. He found that he couldn't buy me or my company out and now he was targeting my parents. What a bastard.

"You do that and I'll take that as a declaration of war," I warned, pushing my glasses up my nose. "And trust me, you do not want me as an enemy."

"Hmph. There is nobody I fear."

"Enough!" Lily stormed at him. "I don't know what you're trying to do, but leave Trevor and his family out of this! Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Your man." Riley Rong moved to grab her, as if to kiss her, but I intercepted him once again and shielded Lily behind me. This guy was outrageous. Perhaps most female readers found his actions romantic, but from an objective point of view, he was just sexually harassing a lady who already told him that she wasn't interested in his advances.

If he wasn't a rich and handsome CEO, she would have reported him to the police.

"Sir." One of the bodyguards approached, holding up a smartphone. Riley Rong gritted his teeth when he saw the caller, seething. He shook his head and relented.

"Fine, both of you can come." He spun about and stalked off, slamming the door of his limousine. "But mark my words…Lily Ling, you'll be my woman one day. There is no escape for you."