After patting Everly on the shoulder, Heather said impassively, “Just be rest assured. I believe that you’re totally capable of dealing with it using your capabilities.” She had stressed this many times; what Everly lacked the most at present was self-confidence, so Heather had to find a way to build it up.
However, Heather’s lips curled into a sneer when she walked out of the woman’s room. She spotted something she shouldn’t have seen inside, and it truly surprised her because she hadn’t expected Everly to be involved with that man. This gave her quite a headache, but she had to let Everly join the Langston Group smoothly for now. Right now, Heather had to take three aspects into consideration; she had never expected Everly to become a key figure, but she didn’t think this was a bad thing. Now that things had come to such an extent, she could only take one step at a time and act according to the circumstances.
It was never by chance that Everly had caught Heather’s attention, for the latter had learned some information about Everly while she was at Leon’s villa. There was a trace of worry in Heather’s eyes as she recalled how Leon talked about this in vivid detail; she wasn’t sure whether what Leon said was entirely true, but she was indeed shocked by what Leon had told her. The Everly he described was so different from the Everly in the Langston Family that she even doubted the veracity of his words.
Things were getting increasingly out of control, but Heather liked such a feeling. The loss of control made everything more interesting, and this completely aroused her innermost courage and uprightness.
The Langstons were the least united. On the outside, they seemed to be keeping on good terms with each other. With all members of the family living under the same roof, the Langston Family was unmatched by other families in Bradfort City. Unfortunately, the Langstons secretly acted of their own free will, disappointing Heather and leaving Robert heartbroken. If the Langstons continued to rest on their laurels, they would definitely fall apart.
Heather used to be eager for such a day to arrive, but she changed her mind now that she truly saw herself as a member of the Langston Family. The Langston Family mustn’t perish, so she had to find a way to help the family pull through this crisis. However, she could only take one step at a time for now. Furthermore, she didn’t know how she should deal with this, and she often found herself at a loss for what to do with the Langston Family’s current situation.
She returned to her room while wondering if Robert had grown suspicious today. For now, she was only suspicious of Everly, so she didn’t want to let Robert know this. Robert’s perspicacity was well beyond an ordinary person’s imagination, and Heather feared that he would sense her suspicions as she didn’t want him and Everly to become estranged from each other.
Speaking of it, Heather hadn’t figured out what was the matter with Everly, nor did she know what was the latter’s objectives. As such, she couldn’t let anyone else grow suspicious of Everly as well since that would be unfair to the woman. After all, wouldn’t she be blaming the woman unjustly if Everly had really done nothing to be ashamed of? Still, Heather learned some information via her interactions with the woman. As expected, Everly wasn’t who she appeared to be, and it seemed that the entire Langston Family had overlooked her capabilities.
That afternoon, Heather made arrangements to meet Matthias at a cafe since she hadn’t enjoyed a good cup of coffee outside for a long time. Heather liked to drink coffee, and she would brew herself some of it at home since it was a rather interesting pastime.
The weather was nice today, but the wind blew so harshly that it made one feel somewhat chilly. Wind and rain were most feared during the winter, but it was pretty fortunate and nice since it wasn’t raining that day.
Heather’s arrival drew many gazes when she pushed the door open, and Matthias looked at her with a faint smile. The instant their eyes met, everything else seemed to pale into insignificance, for they only had eyes for each other. Heather walked step by step toward Matthias, but he didn’t walk up to her. Instead, he waited for her to walk toward him. His heart was filled with surging emotions when he saw her, but the surging emotions within him were concealed beneath his imperturbable exterior.
Heather had come ahead of time, but she didn’t expect Matthias to arrive earlier than she did. “Have you been here for a long time?”
“Nope. I’ve only been here since lunch,” Matthias replied nonchalantly as if several hours of waiting wasn’t something worth mentioning.
“Why did you come so early?” Heather looked at him with a helpless expression. Matthias was the Locke Group’s chief executive officer. Yet, not only did he skip work in secret to go on a date, he even came so much ahead of time. This made Heather feel rather embarrassed.
“I couldn’t stay in my office when the thought of being able to see you soon came into my mind.” Matthias was still impulsive whenever Heather was concerned—he was like a reckless young boy blinded by love.
“In that case, you could’ve just told me that you arrived ahead of time so that you wouldn’t have to wait for so long.” Heather looked at it from Matthias’ perspective. In her opinion, waiting here alone wasn’t probably the best experience.
“The process of waiting was also wonderful because I was waiting for you.” Matthias kept showering Heather with sweet talk as if his lips were coated with honey.
Upon hearing Matthias’ words, Heather felt rather embarrassed. “Let’s order some coffee, shall we?” She picked up the menu. This cafe had neither booths nor private rooms, though its lobby was unusually spacious. Despite the lack of private rooms, Heather liked the taste of the coffee here. Since the coffee here tasted good, she could forgive the other lacking aspects of this cafe.
She ordered her usual drink; since Matthias already had a cup of coffee earlier, he didn’t want to order another one right now. He merely looked at Heather without doing anything else since he was pleased to see her.
“Has anything been going on in Bradfort City lately?” Heather was habituated to talking about work, so she naturally blurted out the question as if by instinct.
However, Matthias evaded her question and took the opportunity to bring the conversation around to himself instead. “Why don’t you ask me if there’s been anything going on in my mind lately?”
“This question is too personal,” replied Heather in a formal tone. Indeed, she never asked such personal questions.
“Don’t you want to know something personal about me?” Matthias asked with feigned disappointment. There were still misunderstandings between him and Heather, so he wanted to eliminate the estrangement between them as soon as possible.
“I do. Well, kind of,” Heather replied reluctantly.
Matthias looked at Heather and stopped talking about this subject as he roughly understood what her reply meant. Heather took a sip of coffee, and it felt warm in her stomach; the wind outside had made her feel somewhat chilly just now.
None of them spoke again out of silent understanding. After all, some matters couldn’t be glossed over no matter how hard they tried. The argument they had at Iceland was still fresh in their minds as if it happened just the day before, and they couldn’t help but sigh when they thought back to it.
As a pleasant aroma filled the air, Heather looked at Matthias one moment and glanced down at the cup of coffee in her hand the next. One would seldom see her behaving in such a manner, and Matthias looked at her with a corner of his mouth turned up in a faint smile; it seemed as though he was trying to soothe the uneasiness within her in such a way. Heather also felt that she was being a bit restless, and this felt very bad.
“Will you be frank with me about some matters, Matthias?”
Matthias’ heart did a complete somersault at Heather’s sudden question. It was difficult to answer this question since he was still pondering how to talk about some matters. Now that Heather brought this up herself, he had no idea how to answer her. Nonetheless, this was indeed a problematic issue between them; not only were there many things that he couldn’t let Heather know, but she also had many little secrets of her own. How should such a relationship last when they each had secrets that they couldn’t tell each other?
The faint aroma in the air grew increasingly strong as time ticked away. After Heather sniffed lightly at it, she noticed that everyone else was leaving one after another. Before long, everyone else in the lobby had left, and even the cafe closed its doors. Seeing her puzzled expression, Matthias then explained, “I like a quiet environment. It’s hard not to be overcautious when too many people are around.”
His words were puzzling, but Heather looked at the bar with a smirk as she thought about what they implied; it seemed like Matthias was inconvenienced with the presence of so many outsiders when he wanted to tell her about something. Even so, she disliked such a big move. Such theatrics seemed romantic in novels and TV dramas, but they didn’t look so in Heather’s eyes. After all, she was capable of buying out an entire place herself. One shouldn’t try to move her by doing things that money could do. To her, it was meaningless for someone else to do something she was capable of doing herself. “You’d better be frank if you have something to say.” She disliked Matthias’s antics since it was actually better to be more straightforward.
Now that even the waiters and waitresses had left the lobby, they no longer had to worry about eavesdroppers. “How long do you think the Locke Group can last?”
“How could you ask me this question?” Heather responded in disbelief. “You’re the man helming the Locke Group, so how long it will last has a lot to do with you,” she answered forthrightly since she didn’t know what Matthias’ point in asking such a question was.
“That’s right. I do have a great influence on the Locke Group’s existence,” Matthias replied in agreement.
Heather’s brow furrowed at Matthias’ reply, for she soon realized the hidden meaning behind his words. In fact, she didn’t expect him to have such a plan. Since his crazy idea came as a surprise to her, she looked at him with a frown.
“Shh!” Matthias put his forefinger in front of his mouth, signaling for her to keep quiet.
Heather didn’t say a word and held back what she wanted to say. However, she was relieved upon hearing him say something like this. There seemed to be a great possibility that Matthias would side with her in the future, so she could set her mind at rest for the time being.
When he saw the natural smile on Heather’s face, Matthias sighed inwardly with relief. It’s really difficult to please a woman, he thought to himself.
“Did I screw up your plan?” Heather asked. Now that she thought about it, she felt like she had been difficult on purpose.
Matthias didn’t seem to care about it, though. “Things never turn out as planned.” After all, he cared more about whether he could win the heart of the woman he loved.
“Let’s not talk about these depressing subjects, shall we? Let’s talk about something lighter,” suggested Heather. She was the one who had brought up such depressing questions at the beginning, yet she was changing her tune right now. Needless to say, women were the most complicated beings on earth.
“In that case, let’s talk about when you’ll be giving me your heart,” Matthias suggested as he seized the opportunity to woo Heather. After all, he never missed an opportunity to do so.
Meanwhile, Heather smiled helplessly as Matthias tried to sound her out again. How was she supposed to respond to that? She couldn’t think of a good answer to this question no matter how hard she tried.
Matthias didn’t give up, though. He continued to ask, “Why do you look so nervous?” His question threw Heather further off balance. “Let’s change the subject, shall we?” She didn’t want to beat around the bush with Matthias, so she thought she might as well be upfront first.
“Okay.” Matthias nodded. He thought he was marvelous enough to throw Heather into such a state, and he had to hold her in check since he mustn’t be too soft on her.
“It’ll be snowing tomorrow.” Heather changed the subject awkwardly by abruptly mentioning the next day’s weather.
“Don’t you like snow the most?” Matthias raised an eyebrow at her words. She likes it anyhow, he thought to himself.
“I like a heavy fall of snow, not a light one.” Heather hated sleets the most. There were several kinds of snow—thick and heavy snow was the most nice-looking one. How pleasant it was to see the earth being covered in white snow! Heather had a thing for heavy snow, and she was particularly fond of poems about it since these poems would remind her of how snowflakes fell thick and fast back then. Unfortunately, it was difficult to see such a scene in Bradfort City right now.
“It seems like I won’t have the opportunity of inviting you to enjoy the view of snow together then,” Matthias responded with feigned dejection.
Heather was natural and poised this time. “You have the opportunity to hide from the snow with me, though.”
Matthias’s heart fluttered at her reply. He felt happy from the bottom of his heart, and he immediately seized the opportunity to ask for more benefits. “Are you inviting me to the Langston Residence?”
