Substitute Wife for the Mafia King R18-Chapter 281: The Last King

“Wait. I don’t want to do this...” I managed to say after he freed my lips and I found my voice again.

My heart thumped loudly in my chest, and frankly, I was very surprised at the way that my body was reacting to his advances.

Perhaps it was because of my lack of experience at the time, but I had thought that I wouldn’t feel this way or react this way if I was with someone other than Anthony.

“Are you sure? It looks like you were enjoying it,” the prince said as he kept on staring at my face.

The way his gray eyes seemed to bore into me made me feel like he could read my mind. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling at the moment, but I was certain that I had ventured into very dangerous territories.

“All I need to do is fake being your girlfriend. This shouldn’t be part of the deal,” I pointed out as I tried to calm myself down.

“You’re right, this isn’t part of the deal but I am sure that it can help you forget everything that you need to. I told you that you could use me however you want, Dahlia,” he said in a seductive whisper as he reached out his fingers and caressed the side of my cheek.

My entire body froze stiffly while at the same time I felt a spark of electrical current running through my body from where his fingers came into contact with my skin.

“I’m not sure...” I murmured as I forced my eyes away from his.

“How about you give me thirty seconds and see if I can change your mind?” The prince whispered right into my ear before he showed me a very charming smile.

...

**Back to the present**

Once again he was asking me for those precious thirty seconds for him to change my mind. In the past, I didn’t deal with his seduction very well and he became my first lover even though our relationship was supposed to be a fabricated one. The situation that I was in now with Brandon didn’t seem so different now that I thought about it this way. Our relationship was fabricated and I was sleeping with him very very often.

Had it been myself in the past, I probably would have gone along with what Desmond wanted, and that was why I didn’t quite understand why my body and mind seem to wholly reject the idea of getting intimate with him. When Desmond came closer, I instinctively put up my hands to push him away. It felt like even if I had to use all the force in my body to get away from him, I would do it without any hesitation.

Just the thought of doing it with him disgusted me and made me feel twistingly sick inside. I couldn’t imagine us doing it the way that we used to, and that made me realize that something inside of me must have changed although I didn’t know what it was or what had happened to cause that change. There wasn’t enough time for me to dissect my own thoughts and feelings to come to an understanding because I had to focus on getting away from Desmond. The hardest part was that I needed to turn him down in such a way that our deal would still be on the table.

“I can’t give you those precious thirty seconds, but I can promise you that I will help you with everything else in your plan,” I promised him as I pleaded with him with my eyes.

I wanted him to know just how desperately I needed his cooperation even though I wasn’t willing to give myself to him. Back then everything worked according to his plan so perfectly that I was extremely surprised at how simple-minded the press and the people in the country were. The people had no problem seeing what they wanted and it proved so easy to guide their attention where we wanted it.

The media was filled with news about us in our seemingly blossoming relationship. The paparazzi followed us everywhere that we went to cover everything that we did together. A lot of the news was focused on us, but also on me, and that worked to distract them from what the prince was working on. It didn’t take long for all news regarding his work to be swallowed up by news related to our relationship. Desmond probably had the same thing in mind this time around and that made me wonder what he was working on in the midst of all the chaos related to his father’s upcoming passing. Desmond looked at me with clear surprise as if he hadn’t expected me to put up any resistance. I wasn’t sure who was more surprised out of the two of us, but it was clear that I had changed.

“I’ll help you with everything that you want me to...except for this one thing,” I said firmly and clearly without backing down.

It just felt like this was something that I was no longer willing to make a compromise on.

“Is that so?” He asked with clear disappointment in his tone.

I nodded my head a couple of times to reaffirm my decision. After staring at me silently for a couple of seconds, it seemed that he managed to recover his composure. To my relief Desmond backed away and I could breathe easily again. He returned to his seat with a solemn expression on his face while I wondered what I could do to ease his sense of disappointment.

“What do you have in mind? Surely, you have something planned, right?” I asked while I tried to get us right down to business.

That was when I realized that even in the past when he made a deal with me to protect me in exchange for me to help him with his goals, he never really got around to telling me what his real goals were in the end.

What is Desmond trying to achieve?

Desmond interlaced the fingers of his hands together before resting his chin on them while his eyes stared directly at me from across the table. I felt my chest clenching in anticipation of his answer. It only made sense for him to share his goals with me if we wanted to partner up for this.

“I want to be the last king,” Desmond finally replied to my question.

–To be continued...