He continued with a wry smile, "I have fallen for her, hook, line and sinker. She is the one for me. I want to make my intensions crystal clear to you so that there is no awkwardness in the interactions that are bound to occur between you, her and me."

Tang clamped down the roar of possessiveness which ignited inside him upon hearing these words.

"As I mentioned earlier, my past or future with her isn't and should be of no concern to you. I appreciate your candidness, though it's a bit late, don't you think? Anyways, this is not what I wanted to discuss with you. Apparently Dad received a call from the Ministry. They are unhappy about the fact that our company is running the English Language inst.i.tute without their blessings and also only in one town. Credit to you and…err, your team for making the project so successful that it has caused ripple effect in even the government. So now, dad wants to milk it for all the positive publicity that it may garner. Your father is on board for the same as well," he paused.

He, then, continued with a nonchalant expression, "they have decided to open four more such inst.i.tutes. A tidy budget has been allocated for the same. I wanted to give you the good news personally. I believe the detailed plan would be discussed during the meeting on Sat.u.r.day."

Wei dialled Jia Li the minute he came out of Tang's office. He couldn't wait to give her the good news.

Tang stood next to the window after Wei had left the cabin. But his mind didn't register the serenity of the golf course which was visible from the tall French windows in his office. He felt a moment's guilt at his own duplicity but squashed it down ruthlessly the very next minute. He couldn't afford to think about other people's emotions. He rang up his father's secretary and asked her if his father was free for drinks later that evening.

"You mean I will have to come to set-up the inst.i.tute in a sub urban area around Shanghai?" Jia Li asked in dismay.

Wei had just shared the news about their company's expansion plan with her.

"I am really looking forward to you coming down here and working in the same city with me. I will be able to drop you to work and pick you up too, apart from spending the weekend with you," he said with a smile.

Mumbling an excuse about another call coming on her phone, Jia Li put down his call. She leaned back in her seat. Her heartbeats matched the speed of the car that she was travelling in. There was no way that she would go to Shanghai for work. Last night was a reminder about why it was important for her to maintain distance from Tang. Everything ceased to matter when she came within ten meters of him.

He was a burning matchstick to her existence as dry leaves!

"I will explain it to Wei face-to-face when he comes down next weekend," she thought.

Tang shook hands with the last bit of shareholders exiting from the big conference room. For the past two years, he had been presiding over the meetings instead of his father, who was the biggest stakeholder in the company. In contrast, this was the first time that Wei had made it to the meeting.

"I am glad to see that you have decided to take active interest in the business," said Mr. Xie to w.a.n.g Wei in presence of his father.

Slightly embarra.s.sed at his son's callous att.i.tude towards work up until recently, Mr. w.a.n.g cleared his throat and said, "as long as he has mended his ways, I am not complaining. Not everyone can be lucky like you to have a son who took over work as soon as he finished studies. Such sincere kids are tough to find these days."

"That is not a fair comparison, Uncle. The way Wei has been working in the past year, he would catch up with me soon enough," Tang came to his defence.

The four of them were sitting in a hotel's coffee shop after wrapping up the shareholder's meet.

"The success of his maiden project is garnering us major accolades from the government. He has managed to do that single handily, without support from any of us," he said further.

Wei raised his hand, "please stop. Now you are being overly kind. I know that I have been negligent all these years but henceforth, I would give my hundred percent to the business."

Mr. Xie nodded, "you have our support. Your father and I have discussed the Language inst.i.tute project. We think it is a scalable model and the Education ministry has agreed to fund it partially. Once we have identified other suitable places, we can set the inst.i.tutes there simultaneously. It would save us time and effort needed from our end."