True Love Waits

Chapter 1268 The Headache

Feeling a headache coming on, Matthew rubbed his eyebrows. "I'm not—"

Before he could finish saying, "afraid," Erica had closed in. "Oh, Matthew, it's all right! I know you're a man, but there's nothing shameful in being afraid of snakes. Rest assured, there's no danger at all. In any case, I'm not scared, so I can protect you!" As she said this, she hugged him, patted his chest, adjusted his tie, and fussed over his lapels, thus leaving a copious amount of wet dirt smudged across the front of his suit.

Matthew looked down at her hands, his face hardening with disgust. "Erica," he asked dryly, "did you think of washing your hands after handling those snakes?"

Her face was stricken with what appeared to be genuine shock. "Oh! No!" she stammered, backing off a step.

Meanwhile, one of the two snakes she had dropped was creeping aimlessly about the meeting room. Its companion, apparently unsociable, had withdrawn to a corner and coiled itself up there.

As for the members of the Su family, they were huddled together atop the conference table, looking quite ridiculous and pitiable. The security guard they had brought was made of sterner stuff and remained as calm as Matthew. However, since there seemed to be no actual danger, he simply claimed his own corner of the room and waited at attention there.

After taking in the scene, Erica went to one of the snakes and gingerly gathered it up from the floor. She made a show of inspecting the creature; by contrast, the snake seemed uninterested in any of the humans present. "It's so cute, isn't it?" asked Erica innocently. "What are you all so afraid of?" She'd been careful to get ahold of snakes that were not poisonous. Naturally, nobody else in the room knew that. With a casual air, she approached Phoebe, gently pointing the head of the complacent reptile toward her.

'How dare Phoebe tell on me to Matthew! Seems like she hasn't learned her lesson yet!' Erica thought. In recent days, Matthew had been sometimes warm and sometimes cold to her.

Erica had begun to fear, what if he dumped her because of the Su family? Her best chance of preventing that was to scare them all away!

And she seemed to be off to a good start; as Erica neared the desk, Phoebe was already screaming at the top of her lungs. At the last second the poor woman leaped from the conference table and took refuge behind Matthew, who stood like a statue, observing the madness. "Matthew...Matthew, help me! Please..." Phoebe cried hoarsely.

"Honey, don't help her! There's no need for that at all!" Erica countered, trotting after her.

White as a ghost now, Phoebe gave another scream and bolted from the room.

The door closed with a bang.

Fanya down as well. Trailed by the guard, they hurried from the

at ZL Group. A great many of them had seen the Su family strut into the building like they owned it; now they saw them rushing out, looking mortified

of trouble and would be hard to catch again. Matthew watched, impressed despite himself, as his wife rounded up the second snake-the one that had gone to the

them in the box which the Su family had brought in, adding it to the third snake inside. Arching an eyebrow, Matthew asked,

not! How could I be afraid of such cute little things?" Erica looked down at the box and tapped the lid,

get you to eat a peeled snake," he ventured. That had been during some kind of survival training class. In fact, Erica had run away and left the class

of eating snakes," Erica admitted, "but that doesn't mean I'm afraid of live ones!" 'Well, except for the poisonous

kept that fact to herself. If everyone thought Erica wasn't afraid of any kind of snake, poisonous or not, that was all right

pants-that was from climbing onto the balcony of the

in mock amazement. "Wow! You figured it out? I'm so impressed." Her husband was as smart as her

"Get out

trailed off, looking down at her dirty clothes. "Can I use

from his seat and stalked from the

snakes, then trotted

route, the various employees milling about kept their

the box with false casualness. "So, are you going to take the snakes

someplace where they belong!" Erica looked stricken at her

really couldn't do anything about her. A moment later, he took out

"Send someone here."

and the CEO's special assistant area was no

the company soon heard about the audacious deeds of Erica, grabbing snakes with her bare hands and bringing them into the office. Everyone in the office was afraid

more afraid than Paige. When she saw the couple approaching, particularly the box in Erica's hands, she suppressed a shiver. To her credit, though, she offered a professional smile as she greeted them. "Why, hello...Mr. and

terrifying speed she approached Paige's desk. "Hi,

and left their chairs, backing away