A Vengeful Ex-Wife
Chapter 394 Not Affecting Anyone

"I won't drink it anymore. Can you help me finish the rest?" Maria asked James, fluttering her eyebrows with an innocent smile.

"No," came the man's cold reply.

Hearing that, she stood up decisively. "Fine, I'll pay the bill right now. Let's go home!" Anyway, she had already had a chat with Ethan, so she was ready to leave.

But before she could walk to the counter, James grabbed her hand and signaled to Ethan.

Ethan immediately understood what he meant. "Maria, let me do that!"

Before she could respond, he ran to the counter to pay the bill.

Maria turned to James and said helplessly, "I told him that I'd pay the bill. This whole meal would have barely cost five hundred dollars! Why are you bullying a kid over five hundred dollars?"

James looked her coolly. How was Ethan a kid? That guy was more than twenty years old! He opened his thin lips and said, "Even if I asked him to pay a bill of three million dollars, he wouldn't dare to say no." Maria rolled her eyes at him. "Is that the reason why you bully him even more?"

"What? Are you feeling sorry for him? No matter, I can bully him even more. Should I do it?"

Maria scoffed. What was wrong with this man? All she had done was have a drink with his friend at a snack bar. Was that such a big deal? They were just having a meal in public, not hiding in some private room!

Sure enough, as Maria said, their dinner tonight cost just a little more than four hundred dollars.

After handing five hundred dollars to the cashier, Ethan walked back, panting slightly. "Let's go," he said.

"Where are you going?" James asked coldly.

"To your house, to eat something delicious! Call the chef right now and tell him we'll be back soon," Ethan said, as if it was obvious.

Maria could barely hold back her laughter. Couldn't he see that James was angry? How could he still expect James to invite him to his house for dinner?

However, to Maria's surprise, James glanced at the half-finished food at the table in front of him, and then took out his phone and dialed a number. "Call the chef over and ask him to prepare a barbecue dinner."

As he spoke, he began walking out of the snack bar, towards his car. Ethan and Maria obediently followed, whispering to each other as they shuffled behind him. "He's angry," Maria said.

"I know."

"You know? Then how come you dare to go to his house for dinner?"

Ethan shrugged casually. "Why should I be afraid when you're around?" In his mind, Maria was the amulet that would protect him from James' wrath. Upon seeing James, the driver quickly opened the door of the back seat of the car. James asked Maria to get in first, and then climbed in next to her.

Ethan naturally sat in the front passenger seat, next to the driver.

Their ride back was quite peaceful. James kept silent, while Ethan and Maria chatted with each other every now and then.

When they arrived at the manor, they found that all the lights were on, and the chef was busy cooking inside.

Walking in the very front, James opened the door and held it for Maria, asking her to go in first.

When Ethan tried to follow her in, James stood in front of him and blocked his way. "I just remembered something."

"What is it?"

Maria turned her head and listened to the conversation between the two men.

"Wait a minute," James said.

Ethan paused and watched in confusion as James walked into the house first. He didn't expect what came next at all. James turned around and said, "The thing I remembered is that you are not welcome here today. Get your own ride back!"

The door was ruthlessly slammed on Ethan's face. He had excitedly followed them to the house to have a delicious dinner, but it turned out that he was not even allowed to enter the house.

However, he wouldn't give up so easily. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the door for a long time. Finally, he decided to call Maria.

To his dismay, it was James who answered the call.

Maria heard her phone ring, but before she could answer it, James took it away. She could only helplessly watch as he answered it and said, "Get lost as soon as possible!"

Maria clucked her tongue in disapproval. "It's a miracle that someone like you has friends."

She could not help but feel sorry for Ethan and Lawrence.

James looked at her and said flatly, "Lawrence and Ethan aren't the only good friends I have. Several dignitaries, celebrities, and rich businessmen are also my friends. Everyone is clamoring to be friends with people like me. Are you jealous?"

Maria was speechless. This man never missed a chance to show off!

Outside the house, Ethan kept ringing the doorbell over and over again. Maria tried to open the door for him several times, but James came and stopped her every single time.

Finally, perhaps moved by Ethan's persistence, he stood up and walked towards the door with a plate of sirloin steak that the chef had just roasted.

Ethan was actually about to call a friend and ask him to come and pick him up, but when he heard the sound of the door opening, he shoved his phone back into his pocket and rushed forward. "James, you're finally here."

James stood in the doorway with a plate of steak in his hand, blocking Ethan's way. The smoky aroma of the steak instantly made Ethan's mouth water.

However, James just stood at the door, with the plate in one hand and a fork in the other. Then, he began to eat the steak in front of Ethan, without any intention of letting him in.

The smile on Ethan's face froze when he finally realized what James was doing. "James, as the CEO of HL Group, is it really appropriate for you to stand at the door and eat your food?"

"I'm eating at my own door. I'm not affecting anyone. What's wrong with it?" James deadpanned. He put another piece of steak in his mouth and chewed like it was the most delicious thing in the world. Leaning against the other half of the door, Ethan said, "You're getting more and more cruel every day."

"Thank you!"

Ethan was speechless. What part of his sentence could be misconstrued as praise?

He sighed and said, "If you can lend me a car, I'll leave."

"I don't want to lend anything to you," James said, finally stepping aside.

Fearing that James would change his mind, Ethan quickly slipped into the house through the gap that he had been given.

In the kitchen, Maria was eating barbecued meat at the long dining table. In front of her, a chef wearing a mask was barbecuing the food on the spot.

A new set of tableware had already been prepared next to James' seat.

At the sight of the tableware, Ethan immediately understood what was going on.

In the beginning, he hadn't been sure whether James really wanted to drive him away. That was why he had stayed and persistently rang their door bell. But it turned out that James had just been pulling his leg.

Thinking of this, Ethan was moved. As he sat in the seat prepared for him, he said, "James, I'll never meet Maria alone again."

Compared to Maria, James was way more important to him.

Maria found his words amusing, but she pretended to be unhappy and said, "What's wrong, Ethan? Isn't our relationship as valuable to you as James' barbecue?"

"Relationship?" James asked, taking his seat as well. He didn't know when the two of them had become so close.

His voice was cold and gloomy, as if it was coming from the gates of hell.

Shaking his head, Ethan clarified, "I have nothing to do with Maria! We're just friends. James, you have to trust me."

James snorted and continued to eat, ignoring him.

He knew Ethan better than Ethan knew himself.

During the rest of the meal, Ethan and Maria chatted with each other every now and then. Sitting between the two of them, James didn't say anything, but occasionally shot a cold glance at Ethan, who sometimes took his jokes too far.

After dinner, Ethan had enough sense to say that he wanted to go home. James nodded and asked the driver to send him home.

Later, in the bedroom, James leaned against the wall and looked at Maria, who was sitting at the dressing table, applying skin care products on her face. "Tell me, why did you go on a date with another man behind my back?"