Love Contract

Chapter 70 Drinks Under The Moon

With a "click", the doorknob was turned.

Holding the bags of food in one hand, William walked in. When he saw the stern expression on Mary's face as she read the document, he raised his eyebrows and said, "You're so serious. Haven't you finished reading yet?"

"You are looking down on me." Mary snorted.

"Get here and have your dinner," said William with a smile.

Mary took a look at him before slowly walking over. She then asked unnaturally, "Why did you come back so late?"

"Did you miss me?"

"I missed the food." Mary glanced at William and took the food from his hand. Bringing it to her nose, she uttered inebriated, "It smells so good!"

After putting her mouth-watering dinner on the bar counter, Mary started to eat anxiously.

"Will you eat all this by yourself?" William asked with his hand in his pocket. He looked at Mary with amusement.

"Hmm?" She turned to look at him and asked with her mouth full, "Haven't you eaten yet?"

"Yes, I have." Taking off his suit jacket, William walked around the bar counter and pulled out a bottle of wine with two glasses. Pouring the liquid, he added, "But I'm not full."

"Your eyes must have got distracted by something more attractive," Mary said, cutting a piece of meat rather forcefully. "So, you forgot to eat?"

"I'm never interested in women." William smiled innocently.

"What if it's a man?" Mary cast a dismissive glance at him.

Angry, William picked up the meat on the table and deliberately ignored her.

"How considerate of you," Mary continued to say, more disdainful now.

"I paid for it." William's voice was calm yet domineering.

In that case, she had to give in since William had indeed bought the meal.

Taking a sip of wine, Mary closed the topic. "Don't talk to me anymore. I'm starving to death, and I only have one mouth to eat and speak. I can't do both at the same time."

"Okay." William grinned, also taking a sip of his wine. "Oh, there are shrimp balls," Mary noted with a surprised beam. "That's great." Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.

"Eat slowly," William warned her. With a kebab in his hand, he seemed to listen to his own advice and took his time eating it.

"According to an ancient saying, we should gulp down meat and wine. That's how you taste good food. But I guess you're too petty to try it." Mary looked at him and curled her lips disapprovingly.

"Then, cheers?" William clasped the wine glass in his hand.

"Cheers!" Mary raised her glass and drank it up all at once.

"You will get drunk soon if you have your wine like this," William told her, smiling.

"It's a good thing to get drunk and let loose afterward!" Mary said happily, "You don't understand how it feels!"

"Then I'll get drunk with you. What do you think?"

"It's fine!" Mary patted on William's shoulder and added, "Let's get wasted!"

By nightfall, the seaside view was really breathtaking from the balcony. However, since the two of them drank in their room, they had no idea how the spectacle outside looked like. At that moment, several bottles were lying on the counter, and most of the meat was already gone.

Mary's cheeks were both flushed, and her eyes were bright. She still couldn't tell, though, whether she was drunk or not.

"Burp!" After finishing her meal, Mary burped and apologized seemingly drunk next, "Ah... I'm sorry for being rude."

She laughed as she spoke. "It doesn't matter," William said. Despite he had had a lot of wine too, he was still sober.

"Ha ha..." Laughing, Mary rested her left elbow on the bar counter and her chin on her palm. Then she looked at William with her bright eyes and asked in a daze, "What... what did you do after you went out with Miss Zhang tonight?"

Whenever people drank too much, they usually became bolder. As far as people were concerned, alcohol was the liquid of courage. Therefore, with its help, Mary became brave to say anything that crossed her mind, regardless if she would regret it the next day or not.

"Nothing." William snickered. He had thought Mary didn't care about it at all.

"Liar!" Mary staggered to her feet and pointed at William with her finger. "Didn't you say you wanted to go out with me? Why did you stand me up?"

"You didn't want to go out, did you?" William asked her as he held her up.

"I... I was just afraid that if we went out... You would remain silent and wear a cold look on your face throughout the whole thing." Mary stammered between hiccups, "I... I didn't... I didn't owe you money..."

"Oh, I see," William nodded.

"Yes." All of a sudden, Mary lost her balance, hitting her head against William's chest. "I'm so sleepy..."

"Then go to sleep." William pulled her to help her move.

"No, no..." Mary struggled, "You haven't... told me. What did you do after you went out tonight?"

"Oh!" William raised his eyebrows. "I went out to solve things with your love rival."

"Rival... love rival?" Mary frowned, "My rival... should be a man then."

William's face suddenly became mysterious.

"Oh, I want to see the moon!" she blurted unexpectedly. Holding a bottle in her arms, Mary stumbled towards the balcony.

"Be careful!" With a sigh, William followed her. "It's time for you to go to bed."

"No!" Mary shook her head stubbornly and sat on the balcony. Looking up at the moon above her head, she muttered, "Everyone has their hometown, every hometown has a moon, and everyone loves the moon over their hometown." She laughed at herself. "Presumably, that's how things are."

"You've read that book too?" William inquired with a smile.

"Of course." Mary pursed her lips with satisfaction. "I am the same as that author. I also like... the little moon in my hometown."

"Alright." William checked his surroundings before he sat on the balcony and looked at the moon with her.

"Then, what about you?" Mary looked at William.

"I..." William took a sip of wine. "I don't have a hometown."

Mary laughed drunkenly, raising her finger randomly as she said, "Liar! How could you... I mean, how can't you have a hometown? Everyone has their hometown."

"I was born by the same time my father started up his company. At then, my mother used to follow him wherever he went around the world. I didn't settle in America until I was eight years old. So there is nowhere I recognize as my hometown," William explained.

"This is sad, sadder than my story." Squinting her eyes, Mary asked, "What about your mother? I remember when you told me about her... You lost her when you were ten, right?"

"Yes." William nodded and said, "Although we've settled down in a house of our own, the situation only got worse. My mother cheated on my father first. She couldn't stand the fact that my father spent more time in his work than with her."

"William..." Twitching her mouth, Mary looked like she was about to cry.

"Later, my father met that woman and asked my mother for a divorce," William continued. Maybe because he had spent most of the night drinking, he was feeling comfortable enough to spit out all he had been suppressing for such a long time. "But my mother didn't agree with it. After making a scene, she made that woman... have an abortion. My father was blind with rage and found a lawyer to solve their situation once and for all. My mother couldn't stand it and took a bunch of sleeping pills to commit suicide."

As soon as William finished telling his story, he found it strange not to hear any response from Mary. Turning his head to look at her, he saw the woman drinking from the bottle. William smiled. How could he have told all that to a drunk person?

"Then I can give you half of the moon in my hometown," Mary wiped her mouth before she suddenly suggested. "And you won't have to be sad anymore." "Would you do that?" William was stunned at her suggestion at first, but after a while, he looked at her with amusement.

"I would do it for you," Mary said followed by a laughter. Then, all of a sudden, she stopped laughing and stared at William in all seriousness.

"And when are you going to take me to see your... our hometown's moon?" William asked.

"Hmm..." Mary thought it through for a long time and said at last, "Tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay." With one of his arms resting over his crooked legs, William stared at Mary dotingly.

"Will... William." Suddenly, Mary bent over and crawled towards him, stopping only when her little flushed face was a few centimeters away from his astonished stare.

Mary had no idea whether she was drunk or not. She just felt dizzy and out of touch with reality.

William's face was so close to hers that if she wanted, she could touch him. Daring to do so, Mary reached out her hand and carefully touched William's left cheek. Once she parted her lips to speak, the smell of alcohol in her breath became even more evident. "If only I were the one you liked."

William smirked at the cold touch of her fingers against his skin, failing to realize that a smile at that situation was an unkind gesture of him. "Certain things are beyond your control." With only the full moon over their heads and the salty breeze blowing in the air, it all became unexpectedly quiet after that.

The little woman on the balcony was silent for a long time. Her right hand was barely hanging from William's shoulder as her head was deeply buried in his chest.

William couldn't help laughing. It turned out that she had fallen asleep.

As if he was holding a child, William picked Mary up as he stood and brought her hands around his neck before he carried her to the bedroom.

Afterward, he put Mary on the bed and gently covered her with the quilt. She was sleeping as soundly as a kitten.

'If I hadn't tempted you with my money, made you marry me, and involved you in all that came with it, you wouldn't have drunk so much, would you?' he thought to himself.

The clock on the wall ticked. As the hours passed, the person on the bed was still soundly sleeping while the man sitting on the bedside remained there in silence for a long time.

The morning early spread its first rays over the sea. By the time the sun made its way into the hotel room, some laughter from afar woke Mary up.

"Ouch... My head hurts." Battling to rise from the bed, Mary felt her head and body aching everywhere. There was no shade of doubt that she had a hangover. The only problem was that she didn't remember much of last night. Going through the past events in her mind, she recalled a lot of drinking, heading to the balcony to drink some more, looking at the moon...

While Mary was struggling to fill the blanks in her memory, a "click" on the door interrupted her thoughts as William came in with a bright smile on his face. "Good morning!"

"Well... Good morning," Mary replied in a daze. Noticing that he seemed to be in a good mood, Mary looked at his clothes and asked, "You went out for a run today?"

"Yes. The weather is good. I just ran along the coast for a while." William wiped his sweat from his face with a towel and said, "I'm going to wash myself now. The breakfast is ready, so don't take too long to get up. We're going to hang out today."

"Oh, okay." Mary's brain was slow to react that morning. It was not until William closed the door behind him that she finally processed his words.

'What? Hang out?' she thought, alarmed.

Candy GSmgB