Frightened, Erica quickly squatted down and turned off the cellphone screen light while she hid in the dark.
A couple of minutes later, when she was sure that Matthew was no longer moving, she carefully went down on her knees, crawling to his bedside again, and pressed his lipstick-stained thumb on a sheet of paper.
"Phew!" She successfully got his first fingerprint.
Approaching his face, she took a good look at him and noticed that his eyes were still shut and his breath was even. Fortunately, it didn't seem he was going to wake up anytime soon.
Then she got back to work on getting his fingertip on the second sheet of paper, the third… And finally the sixth! In the end, she got his fingerprint of every sheet.
By the time she put her lipstick away, Matthew's voice reached her ears. "Are you done?"
"Yes, I am," Erica answered absently at first, but then she widened her eyes in fear and fell on her ass.
The man lying in the bed opened his eyes slowly and met her gaze.
'Oh my God! I'm screwed!' she cried inwardly. Regardless of her things spread on the floor, Erica rushed to her husband and asked smilingly, "Why are you awake?"
'Wasn't he fast asleep? Boo…hoo…'
When he was about to sit up in the bed, Erica quickly reached out and pushed him back on the mattress. "Well, well, it's still early. You can sleep a little longer!"
Matthew stretched out his hand and turned on the bedside lamp. Looking at the guilty woman in front of him, he said, "I'm afraid that if I slept a little longer, you would sell me out."
"What? How is that possible? Why the hell would I want to do that to you?" Erica asked with a bright smile on her face. "Honey, you don't have to worry. I'm your dear wife. I would never hurt you!"
He nodded, trying to sit up again. But Erica stopped him immediately. "Wait a minute!"
Conceding, Matthew lay back calmly. "What were you doing in the middle of the night? Why didn't you go to bed? And what's this?" He showed her his thumb covered with lipstick.
"Well, I saw the lipstick on your thumb and was trying to wipe it for you," she explained.
"Huh!" Matthew suddenly grinned as he thanked her gently, "Thank you, honey. Thank you for all your hard work."
It must have been quite a challenge indeed for her to get up in the middle of the night to clean up the lipstick she had applied herself on his thumb.
"You're welcome. Go to sleep now!"
Tired of all that nonsense, Matthew finally sat up and saw some of her tools spread on the floor.
A cellphone, a few A4 sheets of paper, a lipstick…
Realizing that she was about to get exposed, Erica held his waist and blocked his sight with no hesitation. "Honey, just go to sleep, will you?"
"I will after you tell me what is going on!" He had briefly seen his fingerprint pressed on the bottom right corner of each piece of paper.
If someone told him at this moment that his wife had sold him, he would definitely believe it!
"Oh, I swear I never did anything that could harm you. But please don't ask me about this, okay?" With her arms around him, Erica behaved like a spoiled child trying to deceive him.
On those papers, there were all kinds of information that Matthew had entrusted her to sue Phoebe for him. She just couldn't let him see them!
Matthew pushed her away, intending to lean over and reach out for the papers on the floor. However, Erica was quicker to step in and pick the papers and her phone up before he could. Then she rushed into the walk-in closet with those things in her hands.
A loud sound echoed when she shut the door behind her. Soon after, the bedroom became quiet again.
Matthew stared at the lipstick she had left on the floor.
A few minutes later, he stood up and knocked on the door to the walk-in closet. "Come out!"
"Only if you promise me not ask any questions!"
"Okay." He nodded helplessly. "I promise."
As she had classes in the morning, she shouldn't stay up much longer.
Taking this into consideration, she opened the door slightly and revealed her suspicious eyes through the thin breach. "Will you keep your word?"
"Of course." He nodded again.
This time, Erica dared to open the door fully. The papers were already safely locked anyway. She then held his arm and led him back to the bed. "Matthew, I swear I didn't betray you. I'll tell you what this is about when it's over, but not now. So, no more questions, okay?" She feared that Matthew would try to stop her from suing Phoebe if he found out.
"Okay. But if you ever need my signature or fingerprint again, just ask me directly. You don't need to do this behind my back!" he told her. 'What a silly girl!
Since she wasn't betraying me, I would certainly agree on anything she wanted. There was no need for her to go through all this trouble to get my fingerprints.'
"What? Doesn't it bother you to have your fingerprints on documents that you don't know what the content is? Will you simply do as I say?" she asked in disbelief.
"Mm hmm!"
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" she complained. If she had known it before, she wouldn't have gotten up in the middle of the night to do everything on the sly and risk having a heart attack.
Matthew gaped in shock. 'You didn't tell me you wanted my fingerprints.' But instead, he said, "Well, it's my fault then. Next time, just tell me and I'll do it, okay?"
"Okay, let's go to sleep!" Finally, Erica relaxed and soon yawned.
"Okay."
The two went to bed together. But Erica couldn't help worrying. She feared that Matthew would go after the papers she hid as soon as she fell asleep. Therefore, she didn't dare to close her eyes until she found a position in which the slightest move he made would immediately wake her up.
Matthew didn't know how to respond. 'Why is she so vigilant?'
The next morning, before going to school, Erica met her lawyer and gave him the documents with Matthew's fingerprints. Now, all she needed to do was wait for the court date.
In the next few days, Erica kept going out with Hyatt to find inspiration for the photography competition.
Meanwhile, in A Country, Gifford had just come back.
That same day, Wesley asked Chantel not to go to school. Obediently, she stayed in her bedroom as she waited for the result of the conversation between father and son.
In the study, Wesley looked intently at his son, trying to figure out how Gifford could have been forced to get laid.
He thought it over for a long time but came to the conclusion that Chantel didn't have the means to force Gifford to have sex with her. He must have been willing to go through with it or nothing would have happened.
"Go and get the marriage licenses with Chantel now," Wesley commanded coldly.
After hearing these words, Gifford realized that he had been exposed. In fact, he had always known that this day would come. "Did she tell you?"
"Yes."
"I won't go!" Gifford couldn't let Chantel and Erica succeed with their scheming.
But Wesley didn't take well his son's refusal. Enraged, he roared, "What did you say? You brought her back. You must take responsibility for her!" Moreover, with Chantel's pregnancy, the wedding had become an even more pressing matter at the moment.
If Gifford kept resisting doing as he said, Wesley would have to take him to the Civil Affairs Bureau by force.
"So what if I brought her back? Who said that I have to marry her?" Gifford retorted. If he had known such logic existed among these people, he would never have brought her back in the first place.
This time, not even Blair was at her son's side. "It's not because you've brought her back that you should marry her. You have to take responsibility for sleeping with her."
Gifford sneered, "Mom, Dad. We're in the twenty-first century. This isn't the ancient times anymore. Chantel and Rika should've thought that I wouldn't take responsibility for their wicked plan before they did anything."
'Chantel and Erica didn't care about the consequences when they did this. But now that I don't want to marry Chantel, they involved the elders in it so they could force me! How shameless these two are!'
In fact, Gifford didn't mind being responsible for Chantel, but he was angry at the two girls for tricking him. This episode would certainly be remembered as the biggest mistake of his life!
"Rika? What does she have to do with it?" Wesley asked. He was both confused and in shock.
Gifford immediately shut hi mouth. 'Damn it! Did I just spill the beans?'
