The noodles were heavily seasoned, but he could only taste a long-lost family's sweet and warm flavor, melting his heart. Matthew bowed his head and finished the bowl of noodles without saying another word.
Flora sat beside him, also bowing her head, her fingers twisting together.
Besides feeling embarrassed, she had a strange feeling creeping up on her for some reason.
She was about to tell him not to eat if it was too salty, but seeing him eat so attentively, she couldn't speak.
She could only sigh and wait for him to finish before taking the bowl to the sink to wash it.
"Let me do it myself." She had already cooked for him and couldn't let him wash the dishes too.
"Stop it, a young master, like you probably have never done housework. I'm afraid you'll break my dishes." Flora politely declined his offer.
The man she hated didn't get angry. He just leaned back and lightly brushed his lips against her plump lips.
His sudden action left her stunned, and her hand slipped, causing the bowl to fall to the ground and shatter into several pieces.
The sound of the shattering bowl made both of them jump.
Matthew sighed, stepped back, and proactively created a distance between them.
Flora sat down and picked up the broken pieces, hiding the flush on her cheeks.
"Still criticizing a young master like me for being clumsy." Above was the man's light laughter: "Isn't it you who are even more clumsy?"
Flora pursed her lips: "Isn't it because of you that I'm in trouble? This isn't even your house. How can you...do whatever you want like that?"
"So...if it was my house, I could do whatever I want?" Matthew deliberately misunderstood her, smiling as he tilted his head and said: "I remember now."
Before Flora could react, he had turned around, his hands in his pockets, and walked straight out.
As his hand touched the door handle, he suddenly remembered something and turned back to her: "Be at AA Media Company at eight o'clock tomorrow morning for work. The salary and bonus remain the same."
Flora stopped picking up the broken pieces and looked up to say something. But the door had already closed right in front of her.
The man had just left, and the warmth in this tiny house also seemed to have vanished.
Flora bowed her head, her brown eyes full of melancholy. She suddenly realized, almost involuntarily, that she had an extraordinary affection for him. Emotions could come in just a moment.
Like seeing cherry blossoms spinning around before falling to the ground, her heart was now floating in a sudden tremor.
But she didn't know that the man who had just left also had to take a few deep breaths to calm down the wild beating of his heart.
The next day was a new beginning.
"Big brother, I'm tired...I can't stand anymore..." The little girl pouted and looked over at her big brother, a few tears already forming in the corners of her eyes.
Her knees were trembling, and she had no strength left.
The little boy was no better off, his face still cold and emotionless.
The two kids had held this position for almost thirty minutes, just because of a remark from the person in charge of this advertising shoot: "Advertising shoots are not easy. The position of the two of you is not correct. Try to maintain the correct position for about thirty minutes, then practice expressions on your faces."
"Big brother...can we not do this anymore?" The little girl felt even more miserable as she thought about it.
She had been tricked into doing anything so complicated from childhood to adulthood.
"No, we can't. We already signed the contract." the boy shook his head and spoke evenly: "We can't let our mom know when we get home later. I'm afraid she'll worry. We're grown-ups now. We have to solve our problems."
The girl pursed her lips, trying to hold back her emotions, and nodded in agreement with her brother.
After more than thirty minutes of training, the person in charge finally let the two children go back to rest.
As they exited the advertising area, another person approached, sighing heavily: "Why do we have to make it difficult for these two young children... if it were my child, I would be heartbroken!"
"You don't know anything." the person in charge frowned: "As Selena's manager, the fiancee of the CEO instructed me to 'take care' of those two children. Compare the future mistress and those two kids. Who do you think holds more weight?"
This... of course, there's no need to compare.
The other person didn't continue the topic, just murmured: "It's raining outside, I wonder..."
Outside, it was indeed raining heavily. Raindrops were pounding on the pavement, making a loud thumping sound.
Flora held a small umbrella, anxious to see her two children come out.
"Are you two exhausted? Mom shouldn't have let you do this kind of work..."
The little girl saw her mother, and all the grievances she had accumulated until now seemed to have been released. She rushed over to hug her mother, whimpering: "Mom..."
Flora hadn't had a chance to respond to her daughter when she saw her son put on his usual cold face and shake his head: "Not tired. Mom, you should think about how we will get home."
She fell silent. This was her son's style, not to be mixed in anywhere.
The three of them looked outside, the rain was getting heavier and heavier, and they couldn't see any taxis.
Suddenly, a car drove through the rain and stopped before them.
A tall man held an umbrella from the car and walked straight toward them.
"Daddy Matthew!"
"Get in the car." Matthew nodded in response to the two children's call of "daddy Matthew." as if admitting it.
Then, he carefully covered the umbrella over them, and they all sat in the back seat together. Flora reached out and took the towel from Matthew, smiling gratefully.
She didn't care about being wet herself but first turned to wipe the hair of the two children.
"You're all wet... Hold on a second..." The intense heat on the little girl's forehead made her startle and ask: "Why is your forehead so hot? Are you uncomfortable anywhere?...! And how about Charlie?"
Concerned, she checked the temperature on her son's forehead and found that the little boy was still okay, breathing lightly.
But when she looked down, she noticed that both children's feet were bruised.
"What happened...? Did something happen today? Why are your feet bruised like this? Paul is still running a fever..."
The little girl carefully glanced at the cold face of her older brother, innocently asking: "Big brother, I didn't want to keep it from Mom, but she found out. Can I tell her now?"
Her voice trembled slightly.
The little boy sighed: "The coach said we weren't standing in the correct posture, so he had us stand there for a while longer. Standing for too long caused it..."
Then Charlie looked at Paul: "Why didn't you tell me you had a headache?"
His little sister's fever also worried him, but he didn't know how to express it.
Flora pursed her lips, her throat choking up. She suddenly felt like the world's worst mother.
She should have been the one taking care of the two children, but now they were in such difficulty, and she didn't even know.
"I'm a bad mother..."
Matthew looked at the three of them through the rearview mirror, contemplating for a while.
Then he drove the car in a completely different direction from the direction of their home.
"Mr. Matthew, do you have a son?" The housekeeper in the villa lowered her head, gently stroking the cheeks of the little boy: "He's so handsome, and he looks just like you."
"Could you... stop touching him and talk to me instead?" The little boy displayed a cold and emotionless face. Even his voice was monotone.
Matthew laughed: "Aunt Laura, don't scare the little guy."
Flora was also half-cried and half-laughed.
She didn't expect Aunt Laura to misunderstand Charlie as Matthew's son.
"Aunt, the little boy is my son."
Aunt Laura looked at her, then at Matthew, the little boy standing between them and the cute little girl he held in his arms.
Then, she exclaimed: "Oh!"
"Both of you are really... having two adorable children like this and still..." Uncle laughed: "The little master looks just like Matthew, and his personality is similar too. And the little miss is very much like Flora..."
"Aunt Laura... these two little ones are mine. They have nothing to do with... the CEO." Flora's smile was strained.
Aunt Laura winked at Matthew and said: "I know, I know..."
But Laura only knew what she was thinking.
Currently, these two adorable children are not Matthew's, but in the future, who knows?
They say: "When you love someone, you love everything about them." That little boy looks just like her housemaster.
Flora quickly changed the subject and took the two children to bathe.
"We will stay at Daddy Matthew's house tonight, right, Mom?" The little boy sat in the bathtub, throwing the yellow duck to the side.
The little girl picked up the yellow duck and stubbornly placed it on her brother's head, looking up at her mother with big round eyes: "I want to stay with Daddy Matthew too... can I, Mommy?"
Flora frowned for a second: "He's not your father; you should call him Uncle Matthew. After I finish my work, we will take the car home. We can't stay overnight and bother someone else."
Hearing the two children stubbornly call Matthew "Daddy" made her feel so sad.
Her children had never received care from their father, so when they met Matthew, they quickly became close to him.
However, the gap between her and Matthew was too big. She couldn't be selfish and expect him to be their father.
The little boy sighed, speaking evenly as if stating an obvious truth: "It's raining heavily outside. If we keep going like this, we'll get wet again."
Flora bowed her head: "If it rains even harder, we still have to go home. Listen to Mommy, and this is not our house... We have to go home..."
After bathing the two children, she saw Matthew waiting outside as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom.
He was holding a stack of papers, reading them intently.