Chapter 1The Canary and the Hunter

I had two salaries.

One was the yearly million-dollar paycheck I earned busting my ass as Julian Gu's executive assistant by day.

The other was the priceless hourly rate I earned warming his bed as his canary by night.

He was hot, great in the sack, and loaded. I was satisfied.

But lately, Boss Gu was acting weird.

Leaving messages on read.

Ignoring calls.

Disappearing for days at a time.

Then one day, he came back early. He was intense, almost manic, like he wanted to break the bed.

Just as I was enjoying it, he dropped a bomb: "This shady relationship of ours needs to end!"

* * *

He didn't stop moving when he said it. In fact, he went harder.

Boom!

It felt like a sledgehammer to my brain.

End?

What end?

How could it end?

Who said it could end?!

The pleasure on my face froze instantly.

My blood went from boiling to ice-cold in a second.

The expensive custom bed finally gave up under the violent "breakup announcement," letting out a final, mournful creak.

Crack! Crash!

The bed... actually collapsed.

We fell into the wreckage in an intimate, humiliating heap.

The world went silent for a second.

I lay on the cold floor, debris digging into my back.

His burning body was on top of me.

The air smelled of sex and broken wood.

Absurd. Laughable.

Julian seemed stunned too. He probably didn't expect the "breakup" to bring the house down.

He propped himself up, frowning, shaking his arm where it hit the wood. Without looking at me, he tried to climb out of the ruins.

As he reached for his pants—

A stiff card slid out of his back pocket.

It floated down.

Spinning.

And landed right on my chest, right on top of a fresh hickey.

The cold touch made me shiver.

Instinctively, I looked down.

It was a photo.

Background: sunny beach, blue sky, white sand.

One of the men in the photo was Julian, who currently looked annoyed and was trying to put his pants on.

But in the photo... I'd never seen him smile like that.

Not the lustful, condescending, or dismissive smirk he gave me.

It was a smile without shadows, eyes shining, like he owned the world. Pure, blazing happiness.

His strong arm was wrapped tightly around the person next to him.

That person wore a clean white shirt, smiling gently like jade, eyes curved like crescents. Untainted moonlight.

Liam Lin.

The "White Moonlight" Julian had hidden in his heart for ten years, the one he couldn't have.

On the back of the photo, in sharp, painful handwriting:

"Reunion. My Liam, my light."

The date... was three days ago.