True Fated Marriage (Grace and Heinz)
Chapter 1713

"Is that so? How are you so lucky?" Maria muttered, still feeling rather resentful. She looked at Gary, pouting in protest.

Gary looked at her helplessly, then said to Liam, "Liam, you'd better keep a close eye on her. She's prone to adding fuel to fires, isn't she? Did she already forget that she was the one who flew all the way here for you back then? Has her memory deteriorated?"

The mention of the post made Maria feel guilty immediately. She avoided making eye contact with Gary and did not dare to look at Liam.

Looking away, she retorted fiercely, "What's wrong about me coming over here to study? You didn't want to come with us at first, didn't you? Celeste wanted to study in Boston back then, but you told her to come to London. You even forbade her from going to look for you! You're really something, Gary."

The corners of Gary's lips twitched. He said helplessly, "Can you stop bringing up the past?"

"Forget it," Maria said, waving her hand dismissively.

At that moment, Liam piped up, "Maria, it doesn't matter. I'll make time to come visit you in London when I have the time. Don't worry."

"You're the best," Maria replied as she leaned against Liam's shoulder, calming down immediately.

"Liam, did you see that? Maria turned as tame as a kitten after you placated her. She's completely mesmerized by your charm." Gary let out a loud sigh and continued, "As the saying goes, love is the most powerful force in this world."

Maria glared at him. "What are you on about? But I've got to give it to you, you kind of make sense."

"I always make sense," Gary replied. He turned to look at Celeste. For Gary, the only person in the world that could have absolute power over him was Celeste.

After Celeste made her announcement, Maria had bombarded her with a succession of rapid-fire questions without giving her any time to answer.

Therefore, Celeste took that chance to turn to Maria and apologized sincerely. "Maria, I'm sorry. I'll spend more time with you once I come back a year later."

"You're going to come back after a year? Why are you staying there for such a short time? You should stay there until your graduation," Maria said, sounding worried now.

"My professor already went out of his way to let me go there for a year," Celeste explained.

"Well, all right then. After you get there, stay by Gary's side all the time. Whenever you guys have free time, you should spend more time together outside. Let everyone know that he's yours, and don't let anyone with ulterior motives take advantage of him," Maria advised.

She had reacted dramatically when Celeste told her the news, but after calming down, she was focused on thinking about what was best for Celeste and gave her plenty of advice.

Gary did not know how to react to that. "Hey, shouldn't you be doing that with Liam? He's the one surrounded by beautiful women in the entertainment industry all the time. I think it'd be best if the both of you hold a press conference and make your relationship public."

"You don't need to worry about Liam and me. He isn't like you at all. If we go public, he'll lose a lot of fans," Maria said shamelessly. "As Liam's manager, I won't allow something like that to happen. So, I don't want to go public with him. We'll discuss it after I graduate."

"Isn't that setting a double standard?" Gary replied, laughing.

"So what? Bite me," Maria retorted, making a face at Gary.

Gary sighed and looked at Liam, who was smiling dotingly at Maria. "Liam, you spoil her too much."

Liam smiled and said solemnly, "In terms of work, she's my manager, so I have to listen to her. In private, she's my girlfriend and future wife, so it's only right that I listen to her no matter what."

"Are you actually admitting that you're scared of her?" Gary almost choked from laughing too hard.

"Yes, what's wrong with that? I'm going to say it as it is," Liam answered seriously. He did not think it was funny at all.

Gary laughed again.

Ernest could not stop himself from laughing along.

When Celeste saw Liam and Maria's blushing faces, she laughed too.

However, Liam retorted, "Aren't you secretly afraid of your girlfriend too? I think fear is a reflection of how deep your love for her is."

"Well, if you put it like that, we're definitely afraid of our girlfriends as well. Isn't that right, Ernest?" Gary asked, turning to Ernest.

However, Ernest smiled and replied, "Why are you bringing me into this?"

Ernest's reply left Gary speechless. He glared at Ernest, gritted his teeth, and said, "You're in London by yourself now. When your girlfriend arrives, I think you're going to be the one that's going to fear your girlfriend the most."

Ernest merely smiled without saying anything.

Seeing that Ernest did not respond, Maria smiled and said, "Let's wait and see. We'll revisit this topic when Leah's here. Let's see how Ernest answers the question at that time, okay?"

Gary nodded. "I think that's a great idea. When the time comes, I'll definitely tell on him."

"Of course." Maria nodded and smiled deviously at Ernest.

Ernest rolled his eyes and said helplessly, "You guys are so childish. We were talking about Gary going to Boston with Celeste, weren't we? Why are we suddenly talking about me? Let's get back on track." "He's getting shy. All right, well stop teasing you," Liam piped up.

Ernest kept silent. Seeing that the others had decided to gang up and tease him, he took out his mobile phone and scrolled through it.

Maria had also lost interest in the topic. "All right, let's stop joking around. Since Celeste and Gary are going to Boston soon, why don't we hold a little farewell party? It's Sunday today, so how about a barbecue party?"

"Will Uncle Jones and Aunt Smith be okay with that?" Celeste asked, looking at Maria worriedly.

At that moment, Heinz's voice came from the stairs. "Of course. You can have a barbecue, but make sure to cook the food properly. It's not good for pregnant women to eat raw or undercooked meat."

"No problem. How long have you two been standing there?" Maria asked when she noticed that Heinz and Grace were standing on the stairs.

"We've been here for a long while," Heinz replied vaguely to keep her guessing. They had actually been there since Celeste announced that she was going to Boston.

It was interesting to listen to the children's bickering.

They had stood there and listened to their conversation, and were in no hurry to do downstairs.

"Don't tell me that you two have been here since the beginning?" Maria asked in surprise.

Heinz smiled and replied, "Well, since the cat's out of the bag, I'm here to announce that I'm fearful of my wife too. In the Jones family, our wives have the final say in everything. Maria, why don't you ask your aunt when we arrived?"

Maria let out a loud shriek when she heard that, blushing profusely. "It seems like you guys heard everything."

Heinz smiled wordlessly.

After a moment's pause, Grace glared at Heinz and said, "Why are you teasing them? Maria, it's okay. He was only joking."

Maria immediately buried her face in Liam's shoulder.

Liam also blushed, but he soon managed to compose himself and put it out of his mind.

Celeste got up and went to greet Grace. Then, she held Grace's arm and helped her onto a sofa.

Heinz had guessed that Celeste was going to that when he saw her walking over, so he stood and watched.

He looked at Celeste with approval in his eyes, thinking how considerate she was.

Soon, they were all seated.

Then, Celeste and Maria went to help the butler with preparing the food for the barbecue.

Meanwhile, at the hospital.

Cindy got someone to call Alex to the hospital.

Alex was annoyed that he had to waste his weekend visiting Cindy at the hospital. "Why did you want to see me?" he asked.

"I have something to ask of you, obviously." Cindy smiled and continued, "I have something here with me. Could you please pass it to Heinz?"

As she spoke, Cindy took a hard drive from under her pillow and handed it to Alex.

He frowned and asked, "What's this?"

Cindy smiled again. "Just something I did. It might be my final piece of work. Why don't you go back and have a look? You may even enjoy it."