My Taboo Harem!

Chapter 975: What Price?

The night itself seemed to hold its breath with her.

The glowing seashell dealership might as well have dimmed in collective mourning.

Jade turned her head slowly toward Maddie, and for one beautiful, dangerous second, irritation glittered in her eyes — sharp enough to confirm that beneath all that luminous elegance lived a very human woman who despised having her hair touched.

Maddie knew this.

Naturally, Maddie had done it anyway, because friendship among such women was apparently affection laced with legal malice.

Jade inhaled quietly; she gathered her composure back around herself like the finest silk shawl, and looked at Phei again with a smile so impeccably composed it deserved both applause and a discreet investigation.

Behind her, Maddie and Sierra high-fived.

Jade bit her lip.

She did not show the rest.

Barely.

Phei watched the entire exchange with delighted disbelief. "I feel like I just witnessed a private war."

"You did," Sierra said cheerfully.

"It was short," Maddie added. "I won."

Jade’s smile remained fixed. "For now."

Maddie’s grin widened. "See? She loves me."

Jade ignored her with majestic discipline, which was becoming an impressive athletic feat.

"Welcome," she repeated smoothly, turning her attention fully to Phei.

Phei turned his focus back to her, allowing the humor to settle into genuine warmth. "Thank you for welcoming us," he said, his tone softening into something deeply respectful. "And for allowing me to conduct business with you."

His gaze shifted past her toward the building, then returned to her face.

"This place is incredible," he continued. "I glimpsed it from the road, but standing here makes it feel entirely different. It does not resemble a mere dealership. It feels like something dreamed into existence from the lake itself — elegant, polished, luminous, and somehow arrogantly refined without ever raising its voice." His smile deepened, carrying a note of sincere admiration.

"It reflects you more than I expected."

Jade’s expression shifted.

Only slightly but Phei noticed.

The compliment had landed, not merely because it praised the building, but because it understood the intimate symbiosis between her and what she had created. Jade turned her gaze briefly toward the glowing shell of the dealership, then back to him, and there was a quiet, luminous brightness in her eyes now — delicate and genuinely pleased.

Phei offered a small, respectful bow of his head. "It is my honor to purchase my first true car here, if you will indulge me."

For the first time since she had appeared, Jade’s composure visibly faltered.

"Your first car?" she asked, a note of soft surprise threading through her voice.

Phei nodded, suddenly a touch more honest beneath the weight of her gaze. "My first. Truly mine."

Jade studied him for a moment, as if reassessing the entire evening through that single, unexpected detail. The Young Dragon — surrounded by women, wealth, and his family’s infinity money, and impossible attention — had come to her dealership not merely to acquire another luxury plaything, but to claim his first true car.

Something about that revelation softened her smile into something warmer, more genuine.

"Then," she said, her voice carrying a new note of certainty, "I believe I have the perfect car in mind for you."

Phei’s eyes brightened with unmistakable interest.

Maddie groaned behind him. "Oh no, she’s activated."

Jade ignored her once more, which was rapidly becoming an impressive display of self-control. "And since it is your first car," she added, her smile turning lightly playful, "I will even offer you a five percent discount."

Phei placed a hand over his chest in mock solemnity. "You are far too generous."

"Only tonight."

"Then I should act quickly before you return to your natural cruelty."

Jade’s eyes gleamed with quiet mischief. "I am always graceful, Phei. Cruelty simply appears far more refined when handled with elegance."

Phei stared at her for half a second.

Then he smiled.

’Dangerous girl.’

Beautiful, graceful, elegant, and dangerous in the quiet, devastating way polished jade could still shatter bone when wielded correctly.

"I won’t be humble then. Lead the way," he said.

Jade inclined her head with effortless poise and gestured toward the entrance, welcoming the entire group inside.

The distance to the doors was short, almost negligible, yet as she turned and began walking ahead of them, Phei found himself wishing the path would stretch endlessly.

Her back, the silken fall of her hair, the languid, hypnotic rhythm of each step, the way the golden lights danced across the dark silk of her tresses and the pale, luminous grace of her figure — all of it commanded his attention with such quiet, irresistible authority that he felt almost hypnotized.

He was not the only one who noticed his noticing.

Sierra leaned into his side as they walked, her voice pitched low and wicked just for him. "You are staring, Young Dragon."

"I am appreciating architecture," Phei murmured.

"She walked in front of the architecture."

He opened his mouth to defend himself, found no defensible ground, and did the only honorable thing available to a cornered man: he turned his head and kissed Sierra’s temple, slow and unhurried, right in the middle of her interrogation.

She made a small, pleased sound despite herself and promptly lost the remainder of her sentence somewhere against his mouth.

When he pulled back, she was smiling — traitorous and helplessly pleased, because she had set a perfectly good trap tonight and then cheerfully walked into it herself. "That is the third time tonight," she informed him.

"And it keeps working."

"I keep letting it," she admitted, tucking herself more firmly against his arm, entirely too content to pretend otherwise.

’What would it take?’

The thought rose unbidden before he could suppress it.

What would he have to give to make Jade his?

Not as dazzling jewel in an already magnificent collection. His — in the deeper sense his heart was beginning to understand ownership as: responsibility, relentless pursuit, devotion, and the terrifying refusal to allow someone this precious to drift into another man’s future.

He could not imagine watching Jade Park walk away into another man’s life.

He would not allow it.

So what price would he have to pay? What challenge would stand between him and this graceful, luminous woman walking ahead of him through her palace of cars and light?

Phei smiled faintly as he followed.

He had a feeling he was about to discover the answer.

The group moved inside, the glowing interior of the dealership enveloping them like a dream woven from moonlight and polished surfaces. Jade’s presence seemed to command the space itself — every step she took drew the eye, every subtle shift of her figure beneath the soft lighting accentuating the elegant lines of her form.

Phei found his gaze lingering on the gentle sway of her hips, the way her dark hair caught the light like liquid obsidian, the quiet confidence in her posture that made even the act of walking feel like an art form.

She was not merely beautiful; she was captivating in a way that stirred something deeper than simple lust — a magnetic pull that promised both serenity and exquisite ruin.

Maddie and Sierra exchanged knowing glances behind him, while Victoria’s cool gaze held a flicker of appraisal.

The air between all of them hummed with the subtle undercurrent of new possibilities, the kind of charged tension that only Phei’s orbit could generate.

Jade, for her part, remained the picture of composed allure, leading them deeper into her domain with the quiet certainty of a woman who knew exactly what she offered — and exactly what she was worth.