Private Marriage, Secret Love-Chapter 71: Your Turn to Taste Being Indefensible
"Mia, Mia, put your clothes on first..." Zoe Scott grabbed a sweater and anxiously tried to pull it over Mia.
With her shoulders bare, Mia Reddington sobbed, leaning against Zoe Scott and crying heartbrokenly. "Mom."
Ronan Reddington’s hands clenched into fists, but he didn’t knock on the door. Raina Reddington’s heart sank. ’Why can’t I even have a peaceful New Year?’
Her grandmother patted her hand, silently telling her to relax—it wasn’t such a big deal.
"What happened?"
"Mom," Zoe Scott’s eyes reddened first. "Just look at this..."
"You still haven’t put on your clothes? Isn’t this embarrassing enough?"
Zoe Scott again tried to pull the sweater over Mia. "Yes, Mia. Be careful you don’t catch a cold. Just put it on for now."
"Isn’t this Raina’s room? What are you doing in here?"
At this, Mia cried even harder, pointing a finger at the door. "My brother-in-law... he..."
"What did he do?" Her grandmother pressed, determined to get to the bottom of it.
Zoe Scott’s heart ached for her daughter, so she interjected, "Look at her... Isn’t... isn’t it obvious enough?"
"Raina, you go knock on the door." Ronan Reddington instructed, his hands behind his back, his expression grave.
Sitting in the room, Ethan Lancaster heard every word of the conversation outside. ’If Mia hadn’t screamed when I threw her out, she would have just had to suffer the loss in silence. But of course, she’s the type who can never take a hit, so she had to make things this ugly.’
Raina Reddington walked to the door. Just as she raised her hand to knock, the door opened.
Ethan Lancaster had a wronged look on his face. "You’re finally back."
"Let’s go inside to talk." Her grandmother pushed Raina in first. Mia, still getting dressed, was also pushed into the room.
No one spoke first. The standoff continued, with Mia too ashamed to do anything but cry. Her grandmother, looking vexed, finally broke the silence. "Alright, speak up. What exactly happened here?"
Ethan Lancaster spread his hands. "You all saw it. I’m too embarrassed to even say some of these things out loud."
"Grandma," Mia interjected. "I came over to find my sister, but she wasn’t here. My brother-in-law started saying all sorts of strange things to me, and then he began to get handsy. I..."
Raina stood off to the side, not saying a word. Had it been anyone else, Zoe Scott would have already launched into a tirade.
"Ethan, is that what happened?" Ronan Reddington asked, suppressing his anger.
Ethan Lancaster didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He pointed at Mia. "You’re quite good at twisting the truth, aren’t you? You knew Raina wasn’t here, so you came over on the pretext of looking for her. You started saying you’re no less attractive than she is, that your legs will recover and you’ll walk again, and then, out of nowhere, you started taking off your clothes. If I hadn’t thrown you out, who knows what state of undress you’d be in by now."
Humiliated and furious, Mia shrieked, "No! I didn’t!"
"This isn’t about who can shout the loudest. The facts are obvious. If I were going to force you, you would have screamed from the very beginning. Where would a cripple like you have run?" After saying this, Ethan Lancaster’s gaze fell on Ronan Reddington beside him. "Dad, you all must have come running the moment you heard the scream, right? Was she in the hallway at that time?"
"That’s because you were afraid of getting caught, so you pushed me out!"
"Oh, so that’s how it was," Ethan Lancaster said as he sat on the edge of the bed. "Then why don’t you tell me, what is it about you that caught my eye? Or did you think I have some special fetish for people who can’t stand up, people who are paralyzed from the waist down?"
"Ethan!" Zoe Scott’s face went pale. She couldn’t stand hearing someone attack Mia by repeatedly throwing her disability in her face.
Her grandmother’s gaze swept around the room. "Everyone, get out."
"Grandma, what are you saying?" Mia, sitting in her wheelchair, looked as if she wished she could stand up that very second. "After what my brother-in-law did to me, are you all just going to ignore it?"
Her grandmother shot her a look, clearly suppressing her own frustration. "You and your sister have never gotten along. You knew perfectly well your brother-in-law was in here. Don’t you have the sense to avoid a suspicious situation? What were you doing coming into the room in the first place?"
Mia almost bit her tongue. "It was him! I ran into him at the top of the stairs just now, and he said a lot of suggestive things to me. I just wanted to ask him what he meant..."
"Mia, don’t cry." Zoe Scott gently patted her shoulder. "Mom and Dad are here."
Resting one hand on his thigh, Ethan Lancaster looked at Raina, who was standing there as if she were invisible. "Do you believe me?"
Raina, who had fallen for Mia’s schemes before, now looked at him with the camaraderie of a fellow sufferer. "Yes."
Though her voice was soft and faint, her stance was firm.
A cold sneer touched the corners of Mia’s mouth. "Of course you’d take his side."
"Ethan, no matter what, you can’t..." Zoe Scott was too prim to finish the sentence. They had all heard tales of Ethan Lancaster’s "glorious" past. A man with a reputation for being a playboy might never change, but he shouldn’t target his own family.
’It’s the New Year. Wasting any more time on this would be pointless.’
Ethan Lancaster pulled his phone from his pocket, opened a recorded video, and handed it to Ronan Reddington.
Mia raised her head in confusion. "Dad, what is that?"
What else could it be? It was nothing but a perfectly clear recording of how Mia had entered the room, stripped off her own clothes, and gotten onto the bed. Mia watched as Ronan Reddington’s expression shifted from ugly to livid. She reached out and grabbed the hem of his clothing. "Dad."
Ronan Reddington slapped her hand away. Mia must have guessed, because she lunged forward, trying to snatch the phone. "Dad, turn the volume on! Listen to what he said! Then you’ll know I’m not lying!"
But Ethan Lancaster wasn’t an idiot. The video had no sound, only images. And it had captured Mia’s face head-on, her expression showing not a shred of reluctance.
Ronan Reddington lowered his arm. Seeing her opportunity, Mia snatched the phone from him.
She cranked the volume to the maximum, but it remained silent. Zoe Scott caught a glimpse of the screen, and at that moment, anything she might say became useless. So what if Ethan Lancaster had intentionally provoked her?
That was only a claim coming from Mia’s mouth—words without proof.
She raised the phone to smash it, but Ethan Lancaster stopped her. "I’d advise against that. That phone has a lot of my important files on it. You can’t afford to replace it if you break it."
Ronan Reddington took the phone back. He handed it to Ethan Lancaster without a word, then grabbed Mia’s wheelchair and quickly pushed her out of the room.
"Dad, it wasn’t like that at all! It was my brother-in-law who told me to come to the room..."
"It was him! He told me to undress! At the top of the stairs..."
"Shut up!" Ronan Reddington roared, the first time he had ever been so furious with Mia.
Her grandmother patted Raina’s shoulder. "Get some rest."
"Okay."
The others filed out of the room, and their grandmother gently pulled the door shut behind them.
Ethan Lancaster laughed, falling back onto the bed. He spread his arms wide and said to Raina, "Now she finally knows what it tastes like to be unable to defend yourself."
