The Substitute Bride

The love she'd shown to Charles might have been excessive, but Vicky had no plans to quit. If it meant that Charles would still be around her, she'd do anything she could. Besides, compared to the accident she went through, it was nothing to confront indifference, as long as Charles was around.

After their dinner, Charles excused himself and claimed that he had business to deal with, but Vicky quickly grabbed his arm and insisted on going with him.

"It's something urgent, and I'm on a schedule, so even if you go with me, I can't spare any time for you. Please just stay home and let go of me. Don't put me in an awkward position," Charles said, furrowing his eyebrows and glancing down at her hands, which were still holding on to his arm.

Seeing where Charles was looking, Vicky lowered her head, pretending that she was embarrassed.

"Oh, okay. Please just go. It's okay for me to be alone, but please come back as soon as you're available. Don't forget that I'm waiting for you!" she repeated the things that she had said before. It seemed that there was nothing to talk about between them, except for asking Charles to stay.

"Well, I need to go now," Charles said as soon as he stepped away from her grasp.

He strode out of the house without looking back and met with David, who was waiting for him at the gate.

"What happened with the investigation? Anything new?" Charles asked the moment he got into the car. Based on the time he calculated, they should have some progress by now.

"Yes, Mr. Lu," David nodded, his voice excited.

He drove away from the house for a bit further, but then pulled over for a moment to have a proper conversation.

"We checked the surveillance video of the house and found that she took a taxi the other day. We then followed the route she took and reached a pub called Dark Night," David reported with an annoyed face.

Charles was confused to see such an expression on David. In the meantime, he couldn't believe that there was someone who dared to insult him in this city.

David hesitated for a second before saying, "Mr. Lu, we went there, and we asked the bartender to take a look at their monitoring system, but they turned us down,"

Charles was even more confused because it was impossible for a small pub to reject him.

"Who's the owner?" Charles asked coldly, and he wondered if the boss was as blind as a bat to dare to offend him.

David stole a glance at Charles and continued, "Mr. Lu, Isla is one of the bosses of that pub."

"Isla? That Isla?" Charles asked and awkwardly massaged his temples.

"Yes, she didn't even allow me to step into the pub. She told me to get lost before I could finish talking and warned me never to try to come in again," David added, distressed.

The lead that they were closely following stopped there, and they could do no

lked to their beds.

Sheryl kissed both Shirley and Clark before leaving their room and closing the door behind her as quietly as when she had entered.

She stretched and walked back to her room to sleep as usual, but her eyes barely closed when her phone rang, and a quick glance showed that the call was from Isla.

"Are you sleeping, Sher?" Isla voice was anxious on the other side of the line.

"I was about to if you hadn't called me," Sheryl replied drowsily and wanted to hang up as soon as possible.

"Get up and join me at Dark Night. I want to show you something! It's urgent!" Isla blurted out and hung up before Sheryl could utter another word.

Sheryl sat up on her bed abruptly, wondering if it was just a dream, but when she saw the phone in her hand, she had to accept that it was real. She sighed and reluctantly got up.

Quickly changing out of her clothes, she exited her room and found both Shirley and Clark were standing in the living room.

"What are you two doing here? Go back to sleep!" she said while looking at both of them, confused.

"Mommy, Clark and I waited for you to come back today. You haven't played with us for so long...It's the weekend tomorrow; why don't we play for a while? Please!" Shirley grabbed their mother's arm and shook it with her lips turned into a pout.

Clark also nodded in approval behind her. Sheryl looked at them with a helpless smile.

"Sorry for that, kids. Mommy was so busy the past few days and didn't spend time with you. I promise I'll make up to you. Can you please wait for a day or two?" She squatted down to their level and looked into their eyes, begging for their forgiveness.

"It's okay, Mommy. We don't blame you. But can we sleep in your bed tonight?" Shirley asked and looked back expectantly at their mother.

At the same time, Clark stepped forward with the same intention as his younger sister.