Substitute Wife for the Mafia King R18-Chapter 54: His Lie

My eyes widened at his words and my mouth hung open as I turned to face him. Anthony paid me no attention at all and didn’t look at me. Instead, his eyes were glued on our parents who were now staring intensely at him.

“What did you say?” his mother asked in a low whisper as she pressed her hand against her chest.

“I said, I broke the teacup,” Anthony repeated clearer this time.

Why is he...lying?

“Anthony, are you sure? Are you sure that you were the one who broke the teacup?” his mother asked again.

“Yes. I broke it. My fingertips grazed its handle, and for some strange reason, the teacup just cracked and broke,” Anthony explained quite emotionlessly.

“That’s not...” his mother said before her gaze shifted to land on me.

At that moment, I wondered if she had somehow caught on to the fact that it was actually me who had broken the teapot and not her son. The way she was staring so accusingly at me made me want to hide away. I still had no idea why Anthony was going to such lengths to protect me.

“Your maid must have made a mistake. Isn’t that right, mother?” Anthony asked with a sweet smile.

For a brief moment, his mother seemed stunned; however, it didn’t take long for the calm and pleasant expression to return to her face as she smiled at her son and then at me.

“Yes, she must have made a mistake. I will be sure to talk to her later about this,” she agreed with a smile.

“This is quite unfortunate...” my mother said as she lifted a hand to cover her mouth.

“I’m just glad that no one got hurt here,” my father quickly chimed in to dismiss the entire matter.

“Yes. It’s good enough that the two of them are unharmed...” Anthony’s father agreed after a short pause.

“Yes, let’s not let this minor matter ruin such an auspicious day for us all,” his mother readily agreed.

The tense atmosphere suddenly seemed to dissipate as all parties willingly swept the teacup incident under the rug. I glanced at Anthony to steal a look at his face, but he wouldn’t look my way. My gaze dropped to the broken pieces of the teacup that were still on the table as I wondered how things would have turned out had Anthony not stepped up to take the blame in my place.

Would they really let everything slide that easily?

...

**Later that night**

Using her illness as an excuse, Diana refused to come down for dinner and had one of the maids deliver food to my bedroom instead. After posing as Diana at dinner where I had to listen to our parents’ joyous chatter about their future plans of how to extort money from the Vulkans now that the heirs of the two family were engaged, I wanted nothing more than to find the right moment to excuse myself.

“Say, don’t you think that what happened today was a little suspicious?” my mother suddenly spoke up. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

“Are you referring to that teacup accident?” my father asked but he didn’t seem to share my mother’s suspicion.

“Yes. I mean, just think about it. Why would they serve tea in their family heirloom tea set?” my mother asked as her eyes widened in an accusing glare.

“Maybe they wanted to use it since it’s a special occasion. Nothing happened in the end so let’s not read too much into things,” my father replied without much care.

“You can say that now because nothing really went wrong for us but what if Diana had broken that teacup instead of Anthony? Don’t you think that they’re just looking for an opportunity to pick a fight with us?” my mother asked while putting forward her theories.

“You might have a point but let’s just pretend that nothing happened because in the end, nothing happened,” my father replied.

“Of course, I’ll do that. Plus, it’s not like our Diana would ever make a shallow mistake of mishandling a teacup of all things,” my mother replied followed by a laugh.

It never occurred to me before that what happened could have been some elaborate plan to frame me for breaking the teacup to cause trouble for my family. I tried to tell myself that my mother was being overly cynical about the whole thing because of the bad blood that the two families shared; however, I couldn’t quite push away the memory of seeing the teacup easily crumple just with the soft touch of my fingers.

“I’m feeling a little tired from today. If it’s fine, I’d like to head to bed a little earlier,” I told my parents with a smile.

Thinking about it wasn’t going to change anything that had happened. I did break the teacup, but Anthony did stand up to take the blame in my place. Because of that, he managed to avoid any conflict that may have arisen between our two families. It occurred to me then that that must have been the reason why he stepped into take the blame for me without any hesitation. Anthony probably wasn’t doing it for me or just for me, he was doing it to maintain peace between the two families.

“Of course. Today must have been tough on you. With everything that happened. Meeting Anthony and his family and also that teacup accident, you must be so tired. Go up and rest, Diana,” my mother replied cheerfully.

I looked from my mother’s face to my father’s face and then back again as I took in how happy and relieved they now looked. Unlike the way that they fought not just too long ago when they found out that we may not have enough money to stay afloat, the two of them seemed in high spirits and seemed to get along well. It felt like that argument didn’t truly take place or had already been long forgotten.

“Good night...” I said simply.

I headed to my own bedroom where I knew that Diana must be anxiously waiting for my return.

--To be continued...