Hyatt thought about it and said, "No, thanks. I'll take the pictures with my camera for now. If it doesn't work, I'll borrow your lens." Erica's camera lenses were very expensive. If he broke any one of them, it would cost him a fortune to compensate, which he couldn't afford.
"Okay, then!"
After class, Erica messaged Matthew on WeChat. "Matthew, can I borrow something from you?"
She received his reply in no time. But the message confused her. "I'll give you a chance to ask that again."
She frowned at her phone. 'What? Why does he want me to repeat it? Did he delete the message by accident or something?' Erica wondered. 'Fine, whatever.' She copy-pasted the same text and sent it to him again.
Matthew sighed when he read it. Women could be extremely smart when they wanted to be, and at other times, they were just blatantly stupid. "You don't need to 'borrow' anything from me. Don't say that again."
"Oh!" 'That's what he meant!' She texted, "Ha-ha! Matthew, may I use something of yours?"
Matthew replied, "Try again."
'Are you serious? What the heck?' Erica was losing her patience. She didn't use "borrow" this time. What was wrong now? "You just don't want me to use your stuff, right?" she texted.
Matthew exhaled. "Come to the company right now. I'll personally teach you how to talk to me from now on!"
Seeing his message, Erica pouted. 'Why go to all the trouble?'
But she was missing him anyway, so she packed up and headed to ZL Group.
After texting Erica, Matthew threw a glance at the man who was casually sitting on his office sofa. He growled, "Leave now! My wife is coming to see me."
Sheffield sat up straight and frowned at his brother-in-law. "What? Why should I leave? Is it that embarrassing for you to be seen with me?" he asked with a smirk.
"Yes, it is."
"Ah! I see. You just want to get rid of me so that you can be alone with your wife! Ha-ha!"
Matthew was well aware that Sheffield already knew his true feelings for Erica. There was no reason to hide his intentions anymore. "Yeah, that's right. So, get out of here now!"
"Okay, okay!" Sheffield got up and said, "You are such a weirdo." He straightened his clothes and continued, "You strongly disagreed when Dad suggested that you marry Erica. That was good acting, I must say!"
"Have you forgotten how it feels to kneel on the keyboard lately?" Matthew asked, raising his eyebrows.
Sheffield pulled a long face and said helplessly, "Come on, bro. If I hadn't paved the way for you during the dinner meeting back then, you wouldn't have ever had the chance to marry Erica because of your arrogance. You should be grateful."
Matthew had to admit that at the time, Sheffield's words had definitely helped him ease into the marriage agreement without prompting any doubts from the others. Matthew had naturally followed his words and even warned Carlos not to interfere in his affairs after his marriage. He had successfully achieved his goal without exposing his true feelings.
Matthew stood up from his seat, walked up to Sheffield and told him off. "Even without your help, Rika would have belonged to me sooner or later."
Sheffield laughed. "I like your confidence! Confident and domineering! But I wonder how you would've succeeded without my help. Remember? You and Rika were pretty much strangers before that day. And she was already twenty-one at the time, yet you had not confessed your love to her. I believe that without this 'forced marriage, ' she would have gotten married to some other man and had their own children before you could ever express your love."
With his hands in the pockets of his trousers, Matthew stared at the cocky man in his office. After a long silence, as Sheffield was losing his patience, Matthew finally said, "Even if she were married to another man and had a child with him, I would've made her mine in the end. I wouldn't have minded raising her child as my own either, as long as she was ready to marry me."
For a moment, Sheffield just stood there and gawked at him. 'What is this man saying?' he thought incredulously. "Are you saying that even if Rika had gotten married to someone else and had a child with that person, you would have separated the couple and married her instead?"
"Yes." That wasn't entirely true. If Erica was happy with the other person, it would be a different story. He probably wouldn't separate the happy couple and hurt her.
"You bastard! What a beast you are!" After cursing the cold CEO, Sheffield immediately scuttled away from his office.
Matthew didn't chase after him. Instead, he called Owen from the internal line. "Stop Sheffield now!" Then, he hung up the phone.
As soon as Sheffield ran out of the office, he saw Owen walking towards him, blocking his way. He knew that something was about to go down. He outdid Owen in a few moves.
By this time, Matthew had come out. He had taken off his suit jacket, and was now rolling the sleeves of his white shirt. He stretched out his arms and grabbed Sheffield's neck, pulling him to the side, in case Sheffield's blood splattered all over the special assistant area later.
"Look, Matthew. Rika is here! You better be your cool, elegant self in front of her. You don't want to frighten her, do you?" Sheffield's neck was now in Matthew's clasp. He couldn't escape.
Matthew replied indifferently, "It doesn't matter. My wife happens to have a tendency for violence." He had lost count on how many times she had hit him.
"You better let go or I'll tell Rika that you spoke ill of her!" Sheffield threatened.
"No worries. I won't give you the chance to speak at all!" Matthew then dragged him to a corner and said, "I haven't been able to practice martial arts in a long time. My hands are itching for a fight!"
It wasn't that Sheffield couldn't defeat Matthew. The two of them were as good as each other in Kung Fu. It was just that Sheffield couldn't dare hurt his brother-in-law. If he hurt Matthew, Evelyn would be mad at him, and Sheffield would have a hard time on the keyboard again.
When Erica arrived, the two men were fighting fiercely. Several people in the special assistant area were pretending to work with their heads down. No one dared to stop them.
Well, they couldn't stop the two even if they wanted to. The two men were both masters of Kung Fu and it was impossible to intervene.
But Erica was different. When she saw Sheffield and Matthew fighting, she threw down her camera and rushed over. "Sheffield, stop!"
Regardless of the fierce punching and kicking going on between them, she rushed over and stood in front of Matthew. "Sheffield, don't bully my husband!" Erica gasped when she saw that Sheffield's fist was about to hit her face. She closed her eyes in horror. "Ah! Don't hit me either!"
Sheffield's fist stopped a few centimeters away from the tip of her nose, while Matthew stood leisurely behind her, enjoying the feeling of being protected by his wife.
Erica slowly opened one of her eyes and saw the fist in front of her. She thought that Sheffield was about to hit her, so she yelled, "Sheffield, show some mercy. That could hurt!"
She was fully aware that she could never beat Sheffield. Otherwise she would have taken a different course of action! The woman started yelling at the top of her voice.
Sheffield and Matthew were rendered speechless.
Matthew grabbed her and held her in his arms. "Honey, it's all right."
Sheffield withdrew his fist and straightened his clothes. "We fought for a while, but I didn't get any advantage over him! What a waste of time!"
They were evenly matched.
Erica raised her head from inside Matthew's arms and glared at Sheffield with dissatisfaction. "Sheffield, I know you are good at Kung Fu, but you really shouldn't bully your brother-in-law!"
Sheffield was slightly stunned and tried to explain, "No, Rika. I didn't bully him..."
An evil smile appeared on Matthew's face. He touched his chest, looking very hurt. "Rika, it's okay. Let him go."