Substitute Wife for the Mafia King R18-Chapter 241: Must Have Been Pity

Her eyes widened before she quickly averted her eyes from mine. Seeing her meek and vulnerable side was quite a rare sight and that made me want to spend my time savoring it. At the same time, I felt an overwhelming urge to protect her. She would probably get very mad at me if she were to find out that I was acting this way just to tease her. She was right that my mother was mentally unstable, but her tantrums would have gone on regardless of what Dahlia did or didn’t do.

“I already said that I’m sorry...” she muttered.

“I don’t want your words of apology,” I replied coldly.

Dahlia eye’s returned to meet mine and I could sense the frustration in her gaze as she glared at me. She let out a sigh after a moment of silence as if she had made up her mind to give in.

“Then, what is it that you want?” she asked, although without much interest.

“Not much. I’ll let everything slide, if you tell me why you said those things,” I replied.

My words must have shocked her even more than before. As for me, I thought that this would serve as an even more entertaining way to punish her. On top of that, if this would help her understand herself a little more, then I would say that we would be winning on all fronts in terms of progress. I wondered as I stared directly into her eyes if she remembers that something very similar had happened before in the distant past.

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at,” Dahlia replied as she openly frowned.

“Are you sure about that? You can take your time to think it through, I’m not in a rush,” I replied casually.

The frown between her brows only deepened. There was a very big difference between not knowing or understanding how you feel and simply not willing to admit it. I wondered which was the case for Dahlia. Did she really not know the reason why she felt so compelled to say those things to my mother?

“There’s nothing for me to think about. I just said whatever entered my mind. It’s my fault for not applying all the right filters before letting those words out of my mouth. I know that it’s my bad and that I shouldn’t have said those things, especially when I’m supposed to be playing Diana,” she replied in a clipped tone.

“I have to say that I never thought that you would let your emotions get the best of you,” I commented passively.

“It...wasn’t like me...” she admitted after a moment of silence.

“So, why did you say those things?” I repeated my question again.

“I...I don’t know...” she muttered.

“Are you sure that you don’t or are you just pretending not to know?” I continued to press.

Dahlia narrowed her eyes at me and I knew that that was a signal that I was getting on her nerves. However, her discontent also meant that I had managed to press for her to work to understand her feelings and the reasons behind her choice of actions better. Dahlia stared at me silently for a moment before her lips curved into a smirk and then she scoffed. I watched as he brought her hands up to cover her mouth as she shook her head from side to side. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

“What is it that you want to hear from me? Do you want me to tell you that I did all of that because I felt sorry for you? Is that it? Do you want me to admit that I felt pity for you?” she asked before letting out another scoff.

I felt like all the questions that she had asked were very valid ones. For a moment, I began questioning myself about what I wanted to hear from her. What did I truly expect her to say?

Her words and the harsh reality of our situation reminded me that there was no magical switch that would turn on to create understanding between us. Just like Dahlia didn’t quite understand herself, perhaps I also didn’t understand myself as well as I thought that I did.

What exactly am I hoping for?

Whatever it was that I was hoping for was clearly not pity from her. If anything, I’ve long gotten over the unfortunate circumstances of my birth and my associated childhood. More than coming to terms with it, I had learnt to take advantage of it and turned all of my misfortunes into opportunities that led to the rise of my power in the underworld. My existence was so prominent that even the next king could no longer ignore it.

What exactly did I hope for her to say to me?

“Pity...” I said that word and felt a strange taste in my mouth.

“That’s right. What else could it have been? It must have been hard for you to have...such a relationship with your mother. I guess the relationship that I share with my mother is quite similar so I know that it couldn’t have been easy for you...” Dahlia said with a firm nod of her head.

It seemed that was what she had chosen to tell herself. Taking the easy way out must have felt too tempting for her to ignore. Sometimes, I wished I could choose to take the easy way out too. That thought filled my mouth with a bitter taste and made my throat feel painfully dry.

“Was this what you felt then as well? Just pity...” I asked while hating how disappointed I sounded.

“What are you even talking about?” she asked with clear suspicion.

It felt like I had just dug myself a deep hole and then jumped right into it without thinking of how or if I could manage to climb out of it. Then, when I thought that I had made that stupid move because of Dahlia, it no longer seemed stupid to me. Dahlia looked confused and that made me wonder how she would react if I recounted that episode from the past.

Would she remember it the way that I still remember it so vividly in my mind?

–To be continued...