"Hey, hey," she said, putting her hands up. "I get it. I just came here to give you the hairpin you bought today. You left it at my place. Well, I'll leave you to it. Don't stop on my account!" Debbie said in embarrassment. She put the hairpin down carefully on a table, covering her eyes. She kept her back to them the whole time. Then she walked out as quickly as she could. If Erica's words reached her ears, she didn't acknowledge them.
"Clack!" The door of the villa was locked.
Erica looked sheepish. She knew how it looked, and it was exactly what it looked like. She had been sitting on the table, and Matthew stood close to her, holding her waist. His jacket was sloppily thrown into a chair. His tie was on the floor, and a few buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned...
"Ah!" Erica screamed hysterically when she pictured that.
Matthew still stood where he had been, in a partial state of undress. "You know, we did nothing wrong. Mom should be embarrassed, not us."
"Matthew Huo, y-y-you—you—you go explain everything to Mom!" She was so flustered she could barely talk. A moment's indiscretion, and her reputation was ruined. H
e casually started re-buttoning his shirt and asked, "Explain what?" In contrast to Erica, he was calm. He and Erica were married. What should he say to Mom?
Besides, he knew his mom, Debbie would love to see them being intimate like this every day.
"You know... tell her we were just kissing. Th-that's all," Erica stammered anxiously.
Matthew looked up at her and said indifferently, "I wanted more than kissing."
Erica brushed him aside and ran upstairs as fast as she could, as if there were a monster chasing her.
"I'm hungry. I'll whip something up. Want any?" Matthew asked behind her.
Erica refused without looking back, "No."
"Are you still angry?" The man was confused. Wasn't she fine just now?
Erica picked up the medical kit on the floor, stood on the stairs, turned around and glared at the man. "Yes! You dumped my macarons. You bet I'm still mad!"
Matthew was surprised that she was still not over that matter yet. Who told him women liked to dig up the past? 'Oh, it was Sheffield.
He was so right!'
Half an hour later, lying on the bed and browsing Weibo, Erica received a message from Matthew. It was a picture. She looked at it more carefully and found out it was a picture of hot and sour rice noodles. She scratched her head. Why would he send that? Then she remembered he was going to fix dinner.
'So, Matthew is cooking hot and sour rice noodles downstairs?'
The food looked so tempting Erica could practically smell it. She swallowed to suppress her desire for the food.
She sat up on the bed and was about to head downstairs when Matthew sent her another message. "I've cooked enough for two. Want to come down and have a taste?"
Gritting her teeth, Erica paced back and forth in her room. Her stomach was growling loudly and telling her that she had to go downstairs now. It was only her dignity holding her back.
Two minutes later, Matthew sent another message. "It's pretty good, but it takes some getting used to. If you don't want it, I'll throw it out."
'Throw it out?' Erica grabbed her phone and hurriedly tapped out a reply. "I'll tell Dad you're wasting food!"
The man replied calmly, "I'm eating. You're not. Who's wasting food again?" He was kind of enjoying this. He had food, and he got to tease his wife.
For a moment, Erica sat there, staring at the message. How could he be such a jerk? She already had dinner! It wasn't her fault!
Grinning like a Cheshire cat, Matthew called up his dialer. He sent a screenshot to her. It was Wesley's phone number, ready to dial. All he'd need to do to call him was press "send." "If you're not down here in 60 seconds, I'm calling Dad."
It didn't take her that long.
Erica came downstairs like a gust of wind and appeared in the dining room, panting slightly. She angrily scolded the man who was eating hot and sour rice noodles, "Tell me something; you're rich. Why are you eating hot and sour rice noodles? Isn't that a bit like slumming? I'll snap a pic of you eating it, so the whole world will know that you eat hot and sour rice noodles at home!"
Humph, she hadn't forgiven him yet. But he tricked her into coming downstairs. She had to have revenge!
As if he didn't hear what she said, Matthew pushed an untouched bowl of rice noodles to her and said, "This is really an acquired taste. You'd better cherish this opportunity. If you want me to make this again, you'll be waiting a long time!"
She resisted. She wanted it so much, and the fragrance of the meal was sheer torture. But she was still mad.
Pretending to be reluctant, Erica picked up her chopsticks and picked up some noodles.
HMM... Matthew was a really good cook. He could make even a snack taste like a fancy treat.
It was so delicious that she could almost cry. He was so good to her, sometimes. If she could have a can of cola right now...
The next moment, he set a can of coke near her bowl. Erica wondered if Matthew was a mind reader. How did he know exactly what she wanted?
"Thank you!" she said to him and took a few gulps of the coke.
WOW! This felt so great!
Life with Matthew was, at times, a slice of heaven.
When Erica was working up the motivation to wash the dishes, Matthew was one step ahead of her and began to clear the table and clean the kitchen.
Erica felt embarrassed. She placed the dishes in the dishwasher and asked her man, who was scrubbing down the counters, "Why don't we have servants to help us with housework?"
"We can do that ourselves."
Erica threw the empty bottle into the trash can. "Guess I need to learn how, then! I've always had servants do it."
He was the one who cooked. It was only fair that she cleaned up after the meal. She hadn't done anything other than eat. Well, eat and complain, anyway.
Matthew looked up at her and refused her indifferently, "No."
"Why not? I see. You think I can't do it, huh? Just because I grew up in a well-off household... Don't worry. I'm sure I can. I'm over twenty. If I can't learn how, I'll be totally useless all my life!"
"That's not what I meant."
"Then what?"
Matthew didn't beat around the bush. "You won't have time."
"What do you mean?" she insisted. If others could do it, she could too.
"I mean, you shouldn't have to worry about it. You just need to be who you are. Your priority is your studies."
Thinking of something, Erica curled her lips and murmured, "That sounds good. But you don't help me with my studies!"
"What are you talking about? I support you as much as I can." Matthew couldn't believe his ears. He paid her tuition. Actually, he had paid for books, supplies, everything. He had bought her the camera she wanted. He had personally pulled strings and got her credits to transfer.
And now she was saying he didn't support her. What kind of crazy talk was that?
"Well, you don't help me with my homework. You don't allow me to take pictures of you, and then I had no choice but to use Hyatt as a model. That got me embroiled in a plagiarism scandal. If you had let me take some pics of you earlier, no one would have bothered me."
Even if Kaitlyn managed to steal her photos, Kaitlyn would have to explain everything to Matthew if he asked her to. Erica wouldn't have needed to be so anxious, and she wouldn't have had to bother Sheffield with it.
Another thing that made Erica angry was that Matthew didn't keep his promise. She did what he suggested, gave him what he wanted, but he still wouldn't let her take pictures of him.
Hearing her rant, Matthew smiled, probably because he was too angry.
"So, you think having your work stolen is my fault?"
The girl nodded affirmatively, "Yeah!" The man didn't want to talk to this unreasonable girl anymore.
When Erica was about to leave, she suddenly looked back at the man cleaning the table carefully. "Matthew," she suddenly called in a sweet voice.
Matthew paused for a second. She probably needed his help again, but he pretended not to hear her.