Substitute Wife for the Mafia King R18-Chapter 293: Deception

Most probably, there wasn’t any explanation that I could give to her that she would find satisfactory besides from the truth, and that was something that I could not offer. Suddenly, the flowerpot in her hand made its fast descent onto the ground in between our feet. Had this been a dramatic scene in a movie, the flowerpot would have landed and shattered into countless pieces with a loud sound that would echo all around us. Perhaps it would all happen in slow motion just to add to the climax of the moment; however, the truth was the flower pot simply landed on the grass ground with a muffled thudding sound.

“I don’t want something like this...” she said after letting the flowerpot fall to the ground.

“I thought that you might like it, but if you don’t, you can just take it as a bad joke of some sort. You’re also right, I got this idea from a story that Anthony told me about how happy you were to receive this flower from him as a gift a long time ago,” I said while trying to keep my voice emotionless.

Dahlia stared at me with a look resembling disgust on her face.

“I should have known. It seems like you truly enjoy making a fool out of me. I guess it’s my fault for not getting used to it by now, but can you do me a favor? Can you stop dragging Anthony into these dirty games of yours?” She asked as her eyes widened and stared at me.

Despite her negative reactions, I couldn’t bring myself to blame her for anything. After all, a lot of these misunderstandings were the result of my inability to tell her the truth. I pressed my lips into a thin line as I reminded myself that there was no way that I could tell her the truth, at least not yet. I wondered how she would react if I told her the truth that giving her flowers was a stupid idea that I came up with back in the days because I didn’t have the money to buy her anything fancy. It wasn’t that I was completely broke, but that didn’t mean that I could buy her anything that would match the level of luxury of the gifts that she would normally receive. Because of that, I thought that it might not be such a bad idea for me to plant her some dahlia flowers as a gift. Looking back on it, I clearly underestimated how hard it is to plant flowers.

“I will keep that in mind,” I replied curtly.

“This is just so confusing. Everything is so confusing...” she complained before letting out a loud sigh.

I could tell that she was frustrated but there was nothing that I could do to ease her troubled mind.

“Everything that you do is so misleading. I wish that you would stop confusing me this way. Stop doing things that Anthony would do, stop acting like you’re Anthony because you’re not,” she said through gritted teeth as if each word took a lot of effort.

It pained me to see her in such a state and it pained me even more because I felt so useless for not being able to help her. It seemed that everything that I had tried to do for her seemed to end up tormenting her in one way or another. Had I been my old self, I would have had the thought of simply letting her go and setting her free; however, the me now already knew that that was impossible. I would do everything to keep her with me. If I didn’t manage to get things right this time around, I would do better to make sure that the results will be different the next time around.

Dahlia seemed to hesitate and the way that her eyes shifted to linger on the flower pot on the ground made me feel that she might have slightly regretted what she had done. If what Desmond told me is true, then the King was ready to pass away at any moment. Without a doubt, when that time comes, there will be a lot of pressure for Dahlia to do so many things in order to aid Desmond with his plan. The best that I could do was wish that she would have the time to celebrate her birthday before the storm would break.

However, it seemed that with the many things that were surely occupying her mind, Dahlia had even forgotten her own birthday. Unlike all the years before, a grand birthday celebration wasn’t held this year. The already grievous atmosphere surrounding the news of the king’s health deterioration served as the perfect excuse to hold off any kind of celebration or major event. It would be highly insensitive and disrespectful to celebrate anything when the king of the country was on the verge of passing away. Now that I thought about it that way, it might not be entirely impossible for Dahlia to forget her birthday; however, that didn’t make it any less sad.

“You are not to blame,” Dahlia said so softly that at first I thought that I had misheard her.

Her words caught me off guard and I was utterly surprised until I saw her sit down on her heels and reach out her fingers to touch the flowers that had fallen down to the ground. That was when I realized that her words were not directed at me, but she was actually talking to the dahlia flowers that she had dropped.

“The flowers are not to blame,” she repeated before her eyes glanced up to look at my face.

I wasn’t sure what brought about her sudden change in reaction, but I was certain that I would have preferred for her to be angry at me than for her to have such a sorrowful look on her face.

“Dahlia...” I called her name softly as I crouched down to offer her my hand to help her up.

I had the sudden urge to comfort her although I was also afraid that I would end up saying the wrong words and would end up hurting her instead. While I hesitated about what to say to her, the sound of someone calling my name at the top of their lungs pierced the tensful air around us.

–To be continued...