Paper Promise: The Substitute Bride - Chapter 12: Chapter 12

When the door closed behind the last guest, I let out a sigh of relief. At last, that party - which had felt more like an elegant torture session - was over.
I collapsed on the living room sofa and closed my eyes for a moment, savoring the silence.
“Laura.”
It was a shrill voice that I knew well.
I opened my eyes immediately. My stepmother Eve was standing in the doorway, her red nails drumming on the door frame. Her sneaky gaze stared at me.
“I thought you’d left by now,” I replied, straightening up on the sofa and instinctively adjusting my dress.
She advanced with her feline gait, always calculating each step. The glint in her eyes alerted me - I knew that look well.
“Your father is waiting for me in the cab,” she said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “But before we go...” She paused theatrically. “I saw you got lucky at the card game tonight.”
My hand instinctively touched the bag where I kept my winnings. It wasn’t much, but it represented the first time in years that I’d gotten some money that was genuinely mine.
“It would only be fair for you to share it with me,” she continued, stretching out her perfectly manicured hand. “Your father’s medicines are getting more and more expensive, and you know how frail he is and the problems with the banks.”
The blood rushed to my face.
“And what did you do with my mother’s money?” The words escaped before I could stop them, laden with years of resentment. “All the money she left me, which you would ‘manage’ until I turned twenty-one. Where is it?”
Eve rolled her eyes, her face hardening immediately.
“That story again,” she sighed, her voice now filled with impatience. “Don’t be spiteful, Laura. You’ve always been too dramatic. Just like your mother.”
I clenched my fists and took a deep breath. It wasn’t just the money - it was the principle, the memory of my mother being constantly diminished.
“I promised to help Alice with the bookshop,” I said firmly. “She needs the money for the loan and I gave my word.”
Eva’s smile disappeared completely, giving way to an expression I’d known since I was a child - the one that preceded her worst attitudes.
“You ungrateful little snake,” she hissed between her teeth. “I raised you. I did! When your mother died and your father fell into that depression, who was there? Who made sure you had decent clothes and could go to the best places?”
I swallowed. Years of confrontation had taught me that arguing only made matters worse. With trembling hands, I opened my purse and took out half the bills.
“That should be enough for the medicine,” I muttered, holding out the money.
But in one swift movement, Eve didn’t just take what I offered - she snatched the entire bag out of my hand with surprising force. Her nimble fingers rummaged around inside, pulling out all the remaining notes.
“Molly needs money too,” she declared casually, as if commenting on the weather. My stepsister, her favorite daughter, always took priority. “That job she got doesn’t pay enough for the lifestyle she deserves.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to get my money back. But we were in the Reynolds mansion - my fiancé’s family, people I still needed to impress. A scandal would be unforgivable. So I remained motionless, watching as Eve put my money away in her own designer handbag.
She draped the shawl over her shoulders and smiled victoriously.
“Your father will be pleased to know that you’re contributing to the family.”
And then, with a slight nod, she turned to leave.
It was at that moment that I noticed a silent figure at the top of the stairs. Catherine Reynolds, my mother-in-law, was watching the scene with her piercing eyes. Our gazes met for a moment. There was no pity on her face - just a kind of cold appraisal, as if she were analyzing defective merchandise.
Compared to the humiliation, the financial loss felt trivial. The Reynolds matriarch had witnessed my complete inability to stand up for myself, to set limits. The message was simple in her eyes: weakness was not tolerated in that family.
On shaky legs after the confrontation, I walked to the kitchen in search of something to calm my nerves. A strong cup of tea might help me sleep and forget that disastrous night.
I pushed open the kitchen door and froze in the doorway.
James was there, leaning against the counter, but he wasn’t alone. Next to him, a ravishingly beautiful woman was watching him with an intimate smile. Her dark hair fell in perfect waves over her shoulders, exposed by a dress that seemed to have been designed exclusively for her slender body. When they saw me, they both interrupted what seemed to be a whispered conversation.
The silence hung for a few awkward seconds before James pulled himself together.
“Laura, my wife,” he said, as if the situation were perfectly normal.
He turned to the woman with cold casualness. “You can wait for me in the bedroom. You know the way.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a clear and direct instruction. The woman smiled, gave me an appraising look and left the kitchen with the confidence of someone who knew the house well.
As her footsteps moved away down the corridor, I faced James. The man I married. The man who had just sent another woman to his bedroom in front of his own wife.
“What kind of human being are you?” I asked, my voice low but firm.
James poured himself a whisky with precise gestures, as if we were discussing the weather.
“Don’t be fooled by that love-struck husband act.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“I’m talking about Annie.”
The name finally seemed to capture his attention. Annie.
“She’s an adult,” he retorted, shrugging his shoulders in a gesture of indifference that revolted me.
“She’s a woman who believed in you,” I said, my voice rising slightly. “A woman you promised to marry.”
“There are no innocents in this story, Laura,” he cut in, setting his glass down hard on the counter. “Everyone knows the rules of the game.”
Something inside me, something that had been dormant for a long time, finally woke up.
“You’re such an insecure man that you enjoy destroying women,” I said, surprising myself with the clarity of that remark.
James’ face transformed instantly. His cynical smile disappeared, replaced by an expression I had never seen before. In two steps, he was in front of me, his fingers closing around my arms with enough force to leave marks.
His eyes, normally calculating and cold, now brimmed with a pure hatred that made me recoil internally. For a terrifying instant, I saw myself reflected in those eyes - not as his fiancée, but as an object that had dared to defy him.
The shrill whistle of the kettle cut through the air, snapping us back to reality. James blinked, as if awakened from a trance, and slowly released my arms. The moment of restrained violence passed, but the revelation remained: I had seen his true face.
“Be careful with your words, Laura,” he murmured, regaining his composure. “I don’t like being analyzed.”
He straightened his jacket with precise gestures and walked towards the door.
“Think carefully about what you really want. The Reynolds’ name opens a lot of doors, but it requires... adaptations.”
And with those words, he left, leaving me alone with the kettle whistling and a devastating clarity about the man he was.