A Force Love Contract With GANG LEADER

The road lights were dim, and the foggy weather made them even darker. The two people walked in a single file line, about two feet apart from each other.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

The heels knocked on the stone pavement and made a loud noise. Tristan said, “You don’t have to wear these from now on.”

Kate slowed down for one second and didn’t reply.

The elevator was out of order, and they had to take the stairs. The induction lights on the stairs didn’t work for two straight flights. “Is it always like this?” Tristan asked.

“No.”

“Then is it because of me?” He said half-jokingly.

“Possibly,” Kate replied.

After she opened the door and switched the light on, Kate walked straight inside. Tristan ignored her manners and followed her in. He walked around as if it was his own home. It was a very cramped space, clean and tidy though, not much of a feminine trace unless one looked closely.

“You live alone?”

Kate gave a hum as a reply. Tristan strolled to the kitchen and then to the balcony and pushed the window open. She looked at him oddly.

The house was too small for Tristan, and he had already walked a couple of circles and checked everything. Seeing Kate standing there in a trance, he pointed to the couch and said, “Sit.” And Tristan sat down next to her.

The couch was quite long for her; sometimes, she lay there reading. But now, after he sat down on it, there seemed not much space for her. She had to try to sit as far as possible on the other end. It was like he took more space that his physical body needed.

Tristan sat with his legs crossed. One of his arms rested on the chair, his fingers knocking on it casually. He turned to Kate and asked, “How much is the rent for this place?”

“I don’t know. The owner is my friend’s relative. He doesn’t need it for now.” Kate said honestly.

Tristan raised his eyebrows. “A house in this area should be above 1000 dollars a month.”

Seeing her astonishment, he smiled and said, “Who gave this good bargain to you? A man?

Kate nodded.

His eyes showed understanding.

Kate protested in a low voice, “It is not what you think.”

“Well,” he retorted, “What do I think?”

There were a few books on the lower shelf of the coffee table. Tristan reached his hand and picked one up, with Basic Accounting on the cover. He flipped through it and asked, “You are learning this?”

Kate gave an almost inaudible yes. And he continued, “Looks complicated. Can you understand all this?”

Kate was annoyed and didn’t answer.

After a moment of silence, he asked again, “You got any water?”

She didn’t follow and stared at him. He smirked, “That is how you treat a guest?”

Kate stood up and walked to the kitchen and said, “I will boil some.” She turned back halfway and said, with no expression, “No coffee or tea.”

“Okay.”

It looked like Tristan was not too picky.

Kate was still wearing that strapless dress, which made her feel insecure. The top kept sliding down, and she had to pull it up from time to time. Before going to the kitchen, she went to the wardrobe to get a jacket and changed her heels for slippers.

Tristan waited patiently. He caught sight of the wardrobe she opened and frowned. It was closed tightly, and a corner of a piece of pink clothing was exposed from the seam.

Tristan had a little obsession with tidiness and could not endure this for long. He stood up and went to the wardrobe and tucked it inside.

But the next second, he pulled the door wide open again and stared into the wardrobe sternly.

Kate caught a glimpse of him standing there. She didn’t know what he was up to but didn’t want to face him, so she just stayed in the kitchen and waited for the water in the kettle to boil.

She took a glass and put it under the faucet to rinse mechanically until the whistling of the kettle frightened her. She then wondered, why bother washing this glass? Tristan deserved to be poisoned.

When Kate got back to the living room with the glass of water, the man had returned, and the wardrobe door was open. She saw that piece of dark blue clothing standing out amongst her clothes.

She panicked and put down the glass on the coffee table. Then she turned to the wardrobe, but he grabbed her wrist. His hand clamped so tightly that she almost wanted to cry out in pain.

Tristan’s face looked scary, and the word was uttered from his teeth, “Whose?”

“None of your business,” Kate replied.

He sneered and said expressly, “I don’t pay for a wardrobe for other people’s clothes.”

Kate thought she knew what he meant, but she thought it was not unreasonable. She tried to throw off his hand but failed, and he pushed and leaned her back against the wardrobe door. Her back banged on the plank and her scalp jumped.

He had resumed calmness. “You didn’t reply yet. Don’t tell me it is your brother’s.”

Kate was fretted by his affected manners all evening and his mysterious sudden fury. And the sudden push and hitting on her back provoked her too. She raised her voice and said, “It has nothing to do with you, whose it is.”

“I will return the money. All I need is a little more time.”

Tristan laughed, “I am in need of that money?”

“Then what do you want?” But she dried out at the end of the sentence. The answer was in the air, and she was afraid of hearing it.

“So you wouldn’t give?” He asked immediately.

She turned her face aside.

Tristan sneered and said slowly, “If it weren’t me in the hotel room, would you let anyone with a bald head and wrinkled skin sleep with you?”

Detecting a glimpse of disgust in her eyes, he continued, “Or more than one man in that room…”

Kate held her breath. She thought of what they saw earlier on TV.

He made another comment coldly, “As you make your bed so you must lie in it.”

Kate bit her lips and kept silent.

“Feeling any regret now?”

Tristan observed her face and said with sarcasm slowly, “Pretty noble to sell your body for your brother. And you nearly lost your life for your cheap friend? The sacrifice must be your life motto. Who do you think you are? A saint?”

As he mentioned that incident, temporarily forgotten guilt emerged from Kate’s heart again. Combined with the rage and resentment, she was overwhelmed with emotions. She wasn’t noble. She was just stupid.

Kate didn’t know what a smart person would do in her shoes. She knew what it meant when she had signed the contract with the PR head of the hotel. She was fighting and scared, but she could not bring her brother back to their parents with one finger missing.

Kate didn’t understand why she worked her head off. She treated others nicely, she followed the rules of society, but she always pushed to extreme misfortune. Why was life so hard for her?