Matthias released Heather from his embrace while trying to calm himself down. His behavior on this day was too abnormal; how could he hot-headedly come to Heather while his life was still in a mess? Still, he showed no signs of forgiveness after becoming much calmer. “Now that you’ve ruined my relationship, you have to pay the same price.”
Matthias couldn’t stay calm whenever it occurred to him that Heather would be together with another man, for he would never allow her to be happy with someone else. He was fixated on Heather the same way he was fixated on Myra. No matter what, Heather had to be bound to him; even if their relationship was an unhappy one, they would stay unhappy together.
“That’s boring,” Heather uttered indifferently. The more Matthias spoke in an imperative tone, the more she wanted to oppose him. No one could boss Heather around, and she would not show signs of weakness even in the face of Matthias’s domineering behavior. Now that the guilt she felt toward Matthias had vanished without a trace, the only thing left was her fight against him.
According to Robert, Matthias would never become an ally of the Langston Family. Even though it wasn’t necessary to make an enemy, Heather would never give way again and again if Matthias provoked her repeatedly. “Your relationship isn’t ruined at the hands of me, but at the hands of yourself. Didn’t you come to Bradfort City for Myra?” She was confrontational. Since Matthias wanted to keep on deceiving himself and others, she wanted him to wake up to reality.
“Yes, that’s right,” Matthias answered without the slightest hesitation.
Meanwhile, Heather sneered at the note of certainty in Matthias’s voice. The night breeze brought a chill to the air in this barely inhabited neighborhood, and she wasn’t afraid of being seen under the dim streetlight. Even so, she didn’t want to continue being locked in a stalemate here with Matthias anymore. “If you really came for her, you should’ve come a long time ago. So many years have passed, yet you put it off until Myra gave her heart to someone else and is about to marry her Mr. Right,” she said sarcastically. She wanted to go back into her house right now, but she knew from the way Matthias looked unwilling to give up that she had to stand in the night wind for a while longer. When she saw that he had been swayed by her words, she followed up her success by saying, “Stop fooling yourself and others. You came to Bradfort City for the sake of your interests, and Myra is nothing but a perk.” She analyzed Matthias’s thinking in a leisurely manner. Since he was unwilling to confront his innermost thoughts, she would let him have a good look at his profit-seeking self.
“I have always wanted to come to Bradfort City, but I couldn’t find a chance to come here because of the Locke Family’s strict family rules.” Matthias continued to defend himself, but he looked a lot more clear-headed and no longer sounded as aggressive and belligerent as before.
Heather didn’t allow Matthias to find any excuses, though. “That’s an excuse. No matter how hard it is, one would go to their beloved person as soon as possible.” Matthias kept saying how much he loved Heather, but that wasn’t the way he conducted himself at all. Heather wasn’t a foolish girl in love, and she was aware of many things deep down.
“I couldn’t come out; I was constantly under surveillance by the Locke Family in Tasnia City, and they were watching my every move,” said Matthias, continuing to talk about his difficulties. Now that he was completely drawn into this subject by Heather, he focused on whether his feelings for Myra were just as he said.
“Would the Lockes have killed or locked you up over the fact that you stealthily ran away to Bradfort City?” Heather stared hard at Matthias and saw the evasiveness in his eyes. Men always liked to make excuses for themselves. They loved themselves the most, but they kept claiming and pretending that they were deeply in love.
“I was in a really tight spot while living with the Locke Family. I couldn’t make any mistakes.” Matthias glowered at Heather, for he couldn’t understand why the conversation had changed into an interrogation against him instead.
“In the end, you’re still after the position of the Locke Group’s president.” Heather smirked contemptuously. Matthias looked absolutely pathetic, for he even wanted to deceive himself. Love was nothing in his eyes, and his love for Myra was only an obsession caused by a missed opportunity back then. Did Matthias understand what love was? To some extent, he was even more cold-blooded than Heather. His inner pursuit of profit was endless, so how could such a person, who was blinded by greed, have the right to talk about love?
Matthias blew up like a cat that had its tail stepped on. “I did nothing wrong. The position is mine in the first place!”
“On one hand, you want to please the Locke Family and successfully become the Locke Group’s president. On the other hand, you want to have a pure relationship. What a nice dream you have.” Heather stared icily at Matthias. She could no longer tell whether someone like him was detestable or pathetic.
“I want to live better and have more power. What’s wrong with that? A man can only give his woman the best of everything by standing on the apex!” It never occurred to Matthias that he was wrong. He did all of these for Myra’s sake; he was waiting for the day when he could meet her again and give her everything she wanted.
“In other words, do you mean that those men who fail to reach the apex don’t deserve love? Your idea is so ridiculously childish. Love cannot be measured with power or money; it stems from the rawest flutter of the heart,” argued Heather plausibly, but she could only talk the talk. In reality, she wasn’t any better than Matthias, which was why they were the same kind of people. Being incapable of love, they predicted the future of their relationships and weighed the pros and cons like how they made predictions about the stock market. Even if there was true love, they wouldn’t be blessed with it, for they were the ones who abandoned love first. “Why can’t you just admit that you don’t love Myra as much as you claim to? The one you love isn’t even Myra. If someone else showed up back then, you would’ve probably fallen in love with them without hesitation and regarded them as your first love.” Heather had a knack for making psychoanalysis, which was precisely why it became increasingly clear to her that she would never have a pure relationship.
“Shut up!” Matthias didn’t want to listen to Heather anymore. He kept telling himself that he loved Myra deeply, but Heather described his love for Myra in such deplorable terms.
“Did I touch your sore spot?” Heather continued to provoke Matthias without fear of death.
Matthias’s face was frighteningly as black as thunder, and he was shrouded all over in intense gloom. When she noticed that there was something wrong with him, Heather kept him at an appropriate distance.
“You’ll pay the price for what you said today.” Matthias looked at Heather frostily with an iciness in his eyes that sent a chill down her spine. Just as she thought he would make the next move, he stiffly turned around and left right away. Heather looked at Matthias from behind, and she was soon lost in thought; she didn’t know what he was up to again.
After Matthias left, Heather suddenly lost the mood to go back to the Langston Residence, so she wandered alone in the neighborhood for a long time. When she looked above her head, she saw that the light was still on in Leon’s apartment. After a moment’s hesitation, she decided to go to his place.
Leon hesitated for a while when he heard the doorbell ringing. Who would come to him in the middle of the night? After all, he didn’t know anyone in Bradfort City except Heather. “Who is it?” he asked from behind the door.
“It’s me,” Heather replied casually.
Leon was astounded. Why hasn’t Heather gone back after such a long time? He pulled the door open at once before asking Heather outside the door, “Did you leave something important here?” He couldn’t think of another reason why Heather hadn’t left.
“No, I didn’t.” Heather squeezed herself through the door. Leon looks a little dumb sometimes; he doesn’t even know how to leave a gap for me, she lamented inwardly.
“In that case, why would you…” Leon pointed a finger at Heather before shifting it somewhere else. Since he had no idea what she wanted to do, he felt extremely curious.
He looked at Heather in bewilderment. It was apparent from her expression that something was wrong, but he couldn’t tell specifically what it was. In short, her behavior was so strange that he forgot to rejoice inwardly. In any case, Heather had come when he was unable to sleep.
“I’ll sleep here tonight,” Heather said apathetically.
Leon looked at Heather incredulously, and the corners of his mouth twitched as if she was telling some fairy tale. “It’s improper for man and woman to come into direct contact, so it’s not so good for a man and a woman to sleep together.” He pretended to hold himself tightly in a defensive posture as if Heather was here to molest him.
“You’ll sleep on the sofa.” Initially, Heather had planned to sleep on the sofa by herself. After all, Leon was still recovering from jet lag—he would have even more difficulty trying to fall asleep if she let him sleep on the sofa. However, since he was being so shifty, she decided to leave him to sink or swim by himself since this guy deserved some suffering.
Leon was dissatisfied by this and promptly followed Heather, but she quickly entered the room and closed the door right away, shutting him out completely. He touched his nose and bared his teeth at the tightly shut door with a look of displeasure. “What a petty woman,” he muttered in dissatisfaction. As expected, he shouldn’t dream of staying in the same room with her, for he could only sleep on the sofa.
Now that it would be even harder for Leon to fall asleep, his body ached all over as he lay on the sofa. He stared at the ceiling in boredom, not knowing if Heather was asleep at this moment. He shifted his gaze to the door again, but there was no noise behind the door. Leon wondered if Heather had suffered some wrongs and was secretly crying in the room, but he quickly shook his head after imagining the scene for a moment. It’s probably impossible for Heather to cry; I might not even get to see her shedding tears as long as I’m alive, he thought to himself.
It was already late at night, yet Leon was unable to sleep. There were a few times when he wanted to knock on the door or even prise the door open, for Heather seemed so abnormal that he thought he should show some care for her. Still, he hesitated for a long time, for he knew that the last thing she needed was someone else’s solicitude for her. This woman was so stubborn that she wouldn’t speak out even when she was wronged. What a frustrating person she is, he thought to himself.
Just as Leon was in two minds, the tightly shut door suddenly swung open from the inside. Leon was startled by this; he sat up on the sofa and looked up to see Heather’s face with her makeup removed. Without any makeup on her face, she looked so tender that Leon instantly felt a desire to protect her; he was defenseless against such a side of her.
However, the expression on Heather’s face was so stiff and not at all lovely even when she was wearing Leon’s yellow duck pajamas. She looked like a kid wearing adults’ clothes in secret, for Leon’s pajamas were too large on her. After all, Leon had a tall and sturdy build.
Heather went to the fridge on her own and pulled its door open. After taking a bottle of imported cognac from inside the fridge without looking at its brand, she turned around and suggested to Leon directly, “Would you like a drink?”
Leon squinted at the bottle of imported cognac in Heather’s hand before shaking his head. “This is too strong for girls like you.” He thought to himself, Heather probably has something on her mind; she looks like she wants to get drunk.
“Are you afraid that you’ll drink yourself unconscious? You can’t hold your liquor as good as me,” Heather replied disdainfully. Even the slightly upturned right corner of her mouth had a hint of sarcasm to it.
