Chapter 142 Female Hooligan
"It was you, YOU were the one who made moves on me first, gave me hope, gave me hints, and now you're blaming me? You're just mad because Thalia dumped you and everyone in Emerald City looks down on you, so you're taking it out on me, aren't you?"
"Walter, what gives you the right to hit me? This is domestic violence. I'm going to report you."
Walter was drunk, had just been beaten up by Thalia, and now had to deal with Aria's threats at home. His temper instantly flared up, and he started punching and kicking her: "Report me? Go ahead and report me. Let's see if you can even make it out of this house. You think I won't break your legs and lock you up in here, making sure you never see daylight again for the rest of your life?"
Screams echoed through the house one after another.
The servants watched as Walter beat Aria viciously, but none dared to step forward and stop him.
After all, Walter had a bad temper, and honestly, none of them liked Aria anyway.
When Thalia was dating Walter, she was extremely generous to everyone. The Wood family, top to bottom, even the extended relatives, all benefited greatly from Thalia. But ever since Aria came along, everything changed.
The household was constantly in chaos, and problems kept popping up.
Aria curled up covering her stomach as Walter beat her, though Walter seemed to have some conscience left - he avoided hitting her stomach directly.
When he finally got tired, he sat down on the sofa and fell asleep.
Aria cautiously lifted her head and saw Walter sprawled on the sofa, fast asleep.
Her heart clenched with anger.
"Well? Aren't you going to help him upstairs?" Aria snapped, showing rare backbone.
The servants who had been watching the scene, now frightened, quickly rushed over to help Walter into the master bedroom.
"Make some hangover soup."
Soon, a servant brought over a bowl of hangover soup. Aria took it and went into the bathroom, then came back out. Ignoring the pain throughout her body, she helped Walter drink the bowl of soup.
........
"Is this Thalia's alternate account?"
"Why is she getting involved with Walter again? Is the Smith family really going downhill?" At a bar, someone bored was scrolling through Facebook when they suddenly came across a post from someone who looked exactly like Thalia.
The woman in the photo had her arms around a man - and wasn't that man Walter?
"Let me see," someone said skeptically, leaning over to look. When they saw the person, a shriek rang out in the private room.
"No way! Does Emerald City's princess have so little self-respect? Getting back together with a man who betrayed her and cheated on her?"
"How is that possible? You might not know her, but don't you guys know Thalia? With her pride, would she allow herself to get back with Walter? You must have mistaken her for someone else. Thalia would probably want to kill Walter if she saw him now, not get back together with him."
"Come on, look at this," the person said, handing over their phone. "Take a good look."
The person who had just been defending Thalia fell silent after seeing the photo. It did look kind of like her.
"Mr. Smith, come look at this. Is this your sister or not?"
Someone suddenly remembered that Chase was at tonight's gathering and reached out to hand him the phone. Chase glanced at the person offering the phone, his look carrying a hint of disdain mixed with arrogance. He hadn't wanted to come to this gathering in the first place.
Chase had arranged to meet someone to discuss business, but the person he was meeting had taken an interest in one of the women there, and somehow a perfectly good business meeting had turned into a gathering where women competed for attention.
The person handing him the phone was some daughter from some family in Emerald City.
She casually reached out her hand, and when Chase didn't take the phone, she realized she shouldn't have done that.
This... everyone outside said Chase and Thalia didn't get along, but rumors were just rumors - that was still their family business. Today, by reaching out her hand, she was basically asking Chase to confirm that he and Thalia weren't on good terms.
"Flora, what are you doing? Don't you have any sense?" someone said, trying to smooth things over.
That person leaned over to look at the phone: "This doesn't look like Ms. Smith at all!"
"Besides, with Ms. Smith's proud personality, how could she possibly go back to an ex-boyfriend? These days with all the technology, women can completely change their faces with makeup. Someone who looks a bit like Ms. Smith with some touching up could totally fool people, right?"
"Put your phone away."
The person who had started the commotion sheepishly put away their phone and didn't dare say anything more.
When Chase left the social gathering and got in his car, he immediately instructed: "Look into what Thalia has been doing lately."
"Ms. Smith joined a production crew. She's been filming and just got back from the studio today."
"What's Walter been up to?" Chase asked again.
"Mr. Wood has been hanging out at bars lately. People say they see him at bars every day, going from one end of the street to the other, a different bar every day."
The driver answered Chase's questions, finding it a bit strange as he thought about it.
When had Chase ever worried about Thalia's safety? What was this today... sudden concern?
"Why are you asking about Ms. Smith?"
Chase thought to himself, yeah, there was no point worrying about Thalia. They were still enemies. As long as the family assets weren't divided up properly, he and Thalia would eventually meet in court one day.
"Nothing. Let's go home!"
........
At Maple Grove Villas, Thalia saw Amara off and went upstairs to find William coming out after his shower, lower body wrapped in a towel, drying his wet hair.
Seeing this, she raised an eyebrow, feeling playful.
Thalia put one hand on the door handle and the other on the door frame, whistling at William.
William: ........
Thalia's rogue behavior was exactly the same as when she was in school.
"Mr. Brown, that towel around your waist seems a bit unnecessary!"
"Isn't that being too formal?" Thalia walked toward William, quietly reaching out to sneak up on him, only to have William grab her hand.
William turned and pinned her down on the bed.
William looked down at her, his hair dripping wet droplets that fell into the collar of Thalia's loungewear, then slid down her chest and disappeared from view.
Watching it go to a certain place made Thalia shiver.
The freshly showered William had a sandalwood scent all over him. Thalia couldn't understand William's preference - of all the nice scents in the world, he didn't like any of them, but he liked sandalwood.
Thalia moved her wrist, looking at William, watching his long eyelashes lower as his clear eyes looked at her with caution.
"Thalia, do you know what you're like right now?"
Thalia responded and nodded: "A female hooligan."
William laughed: "Good that you know."
With that, William was about to let go of Thalia and get up, but she reached out and hooked her arm around his neck, pulling him down. William's face suddenly landed in the crook of her shoulder.