novelxo Chapter 1
“You can quit your job after marrying me. You just need to take good care of me at our home and give me a chubby little son
within a year! No daughters, please. Daughters are expensive to raise!”
How very condescending.
The man who made that remark sat in front of Corrinne Carew, and he happened to be her prospective partner during a
matchmaking session. At nearly 40 years of age, his hair was thinning and he had a pot belly.
Corinne’s stepmother, Lilliana Reece, was worried that she might end up marrying someone better and so forced her to meet
with this crass, middle-aged man.
The middle-aged man was initially very displeased with Corinne’s dark makeup because it was really heavy on the eyeshadow,
but upon seeing her slender figure and decent character, he could imagine how deliciously beautiful she would be if she stood
naked in front of him.
“And how tall are you again?” he asked.
Corinne absent-mindedly stirred the coffee inside the cup and replied curtly, “A hundred and sixty-eight centimeters.”
The middle-aged man was delighted to hear her answer. “Hmm... That’s more or less the standard of a woman that’s fit for me.
My height is nearly one point eight meters, so I guess that’s what they call the perfect height difference for a couple! You’d have
to tiptoe whenever you kiss me in the future, but that’s not really an issue. I can still bend you over and take you from behind!”
For the record, whenever men who like to talk big say that their height is nearly 1.8 meters, their true measurements were only
172 centimeters at most!
Corinne rolled her eye-shadowed eyelids and said, “I don’t think you’re aware of how tall a man is if his woman needs to stand
on her toes to kiss him.”
The middle-aged man frowned unhappily. “What do you mean by that?”
At that point, a tall and stern-looking man walked into the cafe. He was 2.8 meters tall. As Corinne looked up and laid eyes on
him, a playful twinkle appeared in her eyes. She decided to get up from her chair and walk over to him.
“Hey there, handsome. Could I borrow you for a sec to demonstrate what a true height difference is?”
The man frowned. Before he could refuse, Corinne grabbed his tie, yanked it downward, and tiptoed to plant a firm kiss on his
thin lips.
“See? You need to be at least as tall as him for women to stand on tiptoe and kiss you!”
“How dare you...” The pot-bellied middle-aged man was angry due to that embarrassment. He stood up in a rage and pointed at
Corinne, saying, “You wh*re! Who the hell just grabs random men and kisses them? I’ll tell the person who introduced us to each
other about your sluttiness soon enough. Your notoriousness will soon spread within the matchmaking circle, and you’ll never be
able to find your perfect match here.”
‘That’d be perfect!’ Once word of her actions got out, her stepmother Lilliana would surely have a hard time trying to play
matchmaker again!
Corinne snorted in disdain, kicked the crass, big-talking man away, then waved her hand in a gesture of thanks to the tall man
who ‘stood up for her’ in her moment of need.
“Thanks for helping me out there, kind sir! See you around, I guess. Bye!” She ended her sentence and turned around to leave,
but a palm that was cold to the touch grabbed her wrist.
“Are you just going to leave after kissing me without my consent?” a hoarse, stern male voice reached Corinne’s ears, and an
oppressive chill came up her spine. She felt riveted when she looked up and saw the man’s handsome face.
His attractiveness knew no bounds.
There was a certain maturity and meticulousness in the way he styled his hair, chiseled facial features on his fair-skinned
handsome face, and an expression brimming with danger and fierceness.
‘Uh-oh!’ Corinne had been so worked up about the man from her blind date that she just randomly chose the tallest man in sight
without paying much attention to his appearance.
Upon a closer look, she came to realize just how uniquely handsome he really was! As if that were not enough, she could tell at
a glance that there was more to him than what met the eye!
Corinne frowned slightly. “What do you expect me to do?”
The man looked at Corinne sullenly, and his thin lips parted open as if he was about to say something.
At that point, his black-clad subordinate who stood beside him had just ended a phone call. He stepped forward with a solemn
expression and said, “Sir, there’s been a change of situation! Miss Sophia’s flight was forced to turn back due to bad weather,
and she won’t be able to make it into the country today. What are we going to do? Your engagement banquet is tonight, and it’s
almost time too.”
The man frowned after hearing this. That engagement banquet was, quite frankly, a matter of a life-and-death for his grandfather,
and the old man had been urging him to get married because he was still a bachelor at nearly 30 years of age!
It was not too long ago that the old man had a heart attack that necessitated a life-saving heart transplant operation, but what
followed was nothing short of a threat.
He agreed to proceed with the operation on the condition that his grandson got engaged that very night and married in another
three days!
Sophia, the woman whom he had hired to act out the plan and please his grandfather, was unable to make it.
Since the man’s tight grip on Corinne’s hand did not loosen, she shot back impatiently and said, “Is there anything else you need,
mister? Could you let go of me now?”
The man, Jeremy Holden, stared silently at Corinne as a cryptic look surfaced in the depths of his black pupils. All of a sudden,
the corners of his lips curled coldly as he said, “This young woman right here has delivered herself to me on a silver platter, so
we might as well have her replace Sophia.”
His special assistant, Tommy Jenkinson, was taken aback by the sudden remark. He turned to look at Corinne and sized her up
with a rather displeased expression. A girl who used heavy eyeliner, had unkempt hair, and dressed like a brat was hardly fit to
be his employer’s partner!
“But sir, she’s a little...”
“I’ve made up my mind. We’ll go with her!”
Tommy did not dare to object any further. “R—Right!”
Corinne felt that something was off and asked warily, “Me? Why me? What are you going to do to me, mister?”
The man stared at her coldly, and answered her coldly, “I want you to take responsibility for kissing me.”
‘Responsibility?’ Corinne’s face turned pale. “You can’t be serious, right? You want me to take responsibility because I kissed
you? I gave you my first kiss, you know, but you don’t see me demanding you to take responsibility for me after I just gave you
my first kiss, now do you?”
The man raised his eyebrows curiously. “Your first kiss?”
Corinne lamented pitiably. “You bet! I kept my first kiss for nearly twenty years now, and I gave it to you today just like that!”
She was bold, if nothing else.
Jeremy’s expression turned cold, and he said softly. “Bring her with us, fellas.”
It took just a couple of seconds for Corinne to be ushered into a black luxury car by several men in black suits.
Situated within New Capital City was Lunar Century Manor, the most high-end urban manor in the entire country. There, Jeremy
—the young master of a famous first-tier family known as the Holdens—had organized a grand engagement banquet.
“I wonder who’s the lucky young woman Mister Jeremy is going to be engaged to!”
“I’m sure she’s what many would call the perfect woman—someone who has a solid family background and is an outstanding
individual herself! Ordinary women will never be able to pique Mister Jeremy’s interest!”
“Look, there he is! Gosh, he’s so handsome...”
“Hold on. Is the girl standing next to him...his legendary fiancee? Why does she look... Well, how should I put this...”
“Different from what we imagined her to be...?”
Everyone stared intently at Jeremy as he led an eccentric-looking girl into the center stage at the banquet venue. The host of the
engagement banquet stepped forward to hold the microphone and began to speak.
“Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Jeremy Holden’s engagement ceremony!”
Corinne’s heart raced like mad after being forced to stand on the stage. She admitted she was at fault for kissing him without
permission earlier, but the most she expected him to do was to report her to the police for sexual harassment.
If it came to that, she would accept whatever punishment that was meted out to her.
Alas, she did not expect him to do something even worse—forcing her to get engaged to him at an engagement banquet!