Gu Yuxiao hates sweets.
This understanding was as natural as air within the Gu Group. From the board members to the waitresses in the tearoom, everyone knew that the young leader's aversion to sweetness bordered on paranoia.
The company restaurant's dessert area always reserves a sugar-free section for him, and whenever there are sweet dishes on the menu for business banquets, the secretariat must confirm them three times in advance.
Therefore, when Li Zhou walked into the Gu family's main residence carrying the pink cake box with the "Sweet Time" logo printed on it, the antique clock that the housekeeper Uncle Zhang was wiping almost fell out of his hands.
"Mr. Li, this..." Uncle Zhang's eyes moved back and forth between the eye-catching pink ribbon and Li Zhou's rain-soaked hair. His voice was very low. "Mr. Gu is in the study handling the acquisition of Xinghui. He might be in a bad mood..."
"I know." Li Zhou gently placed the cake box on the marble countertop in the entrance hall, water droplets sliding down the corners of the box. "That's why I need this."
Uncle Zhang looked at the six-inch diameter cake box, hesitant to speak. At last week's board meeting, the CFO had specially flown in a macaron gift box from France, but Gu Yuxiao had returned it intact, without even removing the ribbon.
At Mrs. Gu’s birthday party last month, Gu Yuxiao only touched the cream with the tip of his fork out of courtesy on the birthday cake specially made by a Michelin three-star chef.
"It's the one in the west of the city." Li Zhou added, tapping the cake box twice with his fingertips, making a dull thud.
Uncle Zhang's expression suddenly became subtle. He cautiously took the cake box, as if holding a time bomb. "Do you want some coffee?"
"No need." Li Zhou took off his rain-soaked coat. "He only drinks ice water when he eats this."
When the door of the study was pushed open, Gu Yuxiao was working in front of three screens.
His slender fingers tapped on the mechanical keyboard, making a dense sound, and his left hand unconsciously turned a Montblanc pen.
Hearing the noise, he didn't even raise his head: "Put it on the coffee table."
"If you don't eat it now, it'll collapse." Li Zhou walked straight to the large mahogany desk and placed the cake box directly on a pile of documents labeled "Xinghui Core Asset List." "The frosting needs to be cold."
The pen fell onto the keyboard with a "bang", and a string of garbled characters was typed into an important document.
Gu Yuxiao finally raised his head, his gaze sliding from Li Zhou's slightly reddened ears to the eye-catching pink box. His Adam's apple moved slightly. "Did you go to the old town?"
"On the way." Li Zhou had already started to untie the ribbon.
The aroma of cream instantly filled the study.
Fresh strawberry slices were sandwiched between three layers of soft cake base, the hand-whipped chantilly cream was in the shape of a perfect cloud, and the frosted bear decorated on the top was deliberately placed by Li Zhou to face Gu Yuxiao.
The little bear is holding a candied strawberry in a naive manner, which looks particularly out of place in the serious office environment.
Gu Yuxiao stared at the little bear, his lips twitching slightly: "...childish."
But the silver fork was already in front of him.
When the first bite of cream touched his lips, Gu Yuxiao instinctively reached for his handkerchief, but Li Zhou stopped him: "There's no one here."
He watched helplessly as Li Zhou pulled out his phone and pointed the camera at him unceremoniously: "Smile?"
"Deleted." Gu Yuxiao tried to grab the phone with a cold face, but his right hand honestly scooped up a second spoonful of cake base, and this time he accurately picked up a whole strawberry.
Li Zhou took two steps back to avoid it, and in the camera there was still a little cream on the corner of Gu Yuxiao's mouth.
This young leader, who is feared in the business world, narrowed his eyes slightly because of a bite of sweets. His thick eyelashes cast fine shadows under the light. He looked like a cat with its fur stroked, and even his tense shoulders relaxed a little.
"You know what?" Li Zhou suddenly said, his finger zooming in on the cream-covered lips on the screen. "You always crave this when you're stressed."
Gu Yuxiao's fork stopped in mid-air, and a drop of cream fell on the keyboard.
"On the eve of you acquiring your first company at the age of seventeen, we climbed over the wall and bought six more." Li Zhou continued, his finger sliding across a worn photo in the album.
The screen shows two teenagers squatting on the steps behind a convenience store. Young Gu Yuxiao is stuffing the last of a strawberry into his mouth. "When Uncle Gu was hospitalized when I was twenty, you hid in the fire escape and ate two boxes."
The study suddenly became so quiet that the sound of the central air-conditioning vents could be heard.
Gu Yuxiao put down his silver fork, took a tissue, and slowly wiped his mouth, his movements as graceful as if he were signing a multi-million dollar contract: "Xinghui's equity transfer documents need to be signed tomorrow."
"So?" Li Zhou raised his eyebrows.
"So the sugar content in this box exceeds the limit." Gu Yuxiao pushed the cake away and put his hands back on the keyboard.
But Li Zhou keenly noticed that when he saved the document, he named the file [STAR-Acquisition Final Case_V3 (Expedited)], while the previous two versions did not have the suffix "Expedited" at all.
The strawberry frosted bear slowly melted in the dish.
As Li Zhou put his phone back into his pocket, he heard a barely audible voice: "...not enough sugar."
He pretended not to see Gu Yuxiao secretly hiding the last piece of strawberry under the fork, and also pretended not to notice that when the other party took the third bite, his left hand unconsciously loosened the tie knot.
The sound of rain outside the window grew heavier, and the only sound in the study was the occasional soft sound of silver forks hitting porcelain plates.
When Gu Yuxiao finished the last bite of cake base, Li Zhou had already fallen asleep on the sofa in the reception area, his wet hair leaving dark water marks on the leather cushion.
Gu Yuxiao stared at the empty cake box for a long time, finally gently closed the notebook and took out a yellowed sticky note from the drawer.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
