The Substitute Bride

Leila almost lost her mind thinking about the matter. She kept pondering on it all the way back to Dream Garden.

In Dream Garden

After ending the phone call with Leila, Melissa was still in tears. If she did not have Charles standing in front of her in person, she would not have believed herself.

"Mom, stop crying. All the bad things are now in the past." Charles' heart melted at the sight of his mother being so overwhelmed to see him alive. He could understand how worried Melissa might have worried because of his disappearance. On top of that, she was a cancer patient herself. She looked so frail!

"I won't cry anymore. Now that you have come back, everything will be alright." Melissa tried to stop crying and smiled. Yet tears welled up and rolled down incessantly, even though her smile. She took a deep breath and grabbed his hand. Then she heaved a deep sigh and closed her eyes as if only in this way could she feel relieved.

Right at that moment, Leila walked through the door. Although she was extremely petrified in her mind, she knew that she had to appear surprised and happy at Charles' return.

The main door of Dream Garden was pushed open, and Leila came in. She looked at Charles in disbelief. She took a deep breath before feigning tears of happiness. Then she ran to him, with tears falling from her eyes.

"Charles, are you okay?"

"What? Do you want me to be in trouble?" Charles joked and stared at Leila, with a faint smile.

Suddenly, the smile disappeared from Leila's face, and she pretended to be irked by Charles' remark. She was at a loss for words for a moment.

The look on Leila's face was self-explanatory, and this did not evade Charles' attention. Yet, he said casually, "We are meeting after such a long time. And I can't even crack a joke with you?"

"Charles, Aunt Melissa is well aware of how much I was worried about you. Now you are talking like that. So I feel unhappy." Leila still looked worried. She had felt the pang of sarcasm in Charles' words.

Leila knew that Charles wouldn't normally speak to her in that way. For a minute, she felt that he must have discovered something.

David was standing next to Charles and couldn't help but bite his lips at seeing Leila's hypocrisy. He could hardly tolerate her pretense. He almost exposed this shameless w

n just a while earlier. He felt that it was not the right time. Hence, he remained silent.

"Charles, Sheryl pushed you into the sea. Are you going to let it go?" Melissa said in a cool yet stern voice. Her face lowered into her soup bowl. After speaking, she lifted her head to look at Charles.

A mild frown appeared on Charles' face one moment, but in the next moment, it was gone. Charles concealed his displeasure just in time so that neither Melissa nor Leila could see it. Then he calmed down and smiled. "Mom, I will handle it. Don't worry."

"Don't worry! You are my son. If I don't worry about you, who do you want me to worry about?"

Hearing that Charles didn't want her to get involved in this matter angered Melissa to the extent of being mad at him. She put her utensils on the table furiously and even stopped eating.

Charles was startled at Melissa's sudden outbreak of temper. Was it because he had embarrassed Leila just a while ago? It was the second time she mentioned Sheryl after he had returned to Dream Garden. Charles could not bear to hear that name at the moment. When he heard her name, he felt heartbroken.

He knew it very well that his falling into the water was not Sheryl's fault, but Leila insisted on accusing her. She was the one who had framed Sheryl. Yet he was kind enough to let her sit here safely at the moment.

Leila marked the displeasure on Charles' face. She held Melissa's hand gently to comfort her. "Aunt Melissa, Charles has just come back. There is no hurry to talk about these things."