23 Mother-In-Law [1]

*Screech–!*

The tires of a yellow taxi violently screeched against the asphalt road as it came to a stop in front of a spacious residence, with two people hurriedly getting out of it.

"...Thanks for the fast ride, Rob. Here's the pay, and you can keep the change!"

Damien quickly handed the driver the money, thanking him for taking the trouble of driving much faster than he used to just to get them here on time. 

If it wasn't for this man, they would've definitely been late to arrive, probably ruining Damien's first impression on Sierra's mother.

"Hey, no problem man. Glad to be of service!"

The young man behind the wheels accepted the extra change with a smile on his face, before bidding goodbye to the two and driving away into the night.

Meanwhile, Damien and Sierra silently stood side-by-side in front of a small front yard garden, staring at the white door of the house ahead with bated breaths.

"...Wow, that's a big house you live in."

With an amazed sigh, Damien suddenly let out an offhand comment as he scanned the house. Sierra gave him a confused side glance, before softly shaking her head in realization.

"All the other houses in the neighborhood literally have the same size... You know, you can just say so if you're nervous instead of pretending to be 'The Boss' all the time."

"..."

Damien's cheeks twitched at her exasperated words, but otherwise he remained completely silent. 

"Huff..."

After a few seconds passed with them simply standing in place like that, he suddenly took in a deep breath of fresh air, before walking ahead with a determined look on his face.

Sierra also followed after him, soon joining him at the entrance door while standing by his side with a visibly nervous expression.

*Ding-dong!*

As soon as the doorbell rang, there was a sound of something heavy falling to the ground inside the house, before the hurried footsteps of someone running towards the door reached their ears, along with the unintelligible curse from a woman. 

Damien gave the girl standing beside him a sidelong glance, to which she avoided his gaze with a slightly embarrassed expression on her face. 

'...Ah, right. She was like that in the novel.'

Brief descriptions of Sierra's mother that were mentioned in the original novel floated into his mind one by one, including all the various ways to win her over to his side. 

Thankfully, unlike his previous self who had to play every game by ear, now he literally had the wisdom of Gods accompanying him on this road, and he was determined to take full advantage of it!

'Damn it, I should've brought a bouquet of daisies for her!'

He softly clicked his tongue at the missed opportunity, before discarding all of his previous nervousness and donning the mask of deception he had become so used to in the recent years. 

He has long since been a master at playing these games, and the situation here was nothing different. As long as he stuck to his usual self and confidently carried out his plans, there would be nothing to worry about!

*Thunk–!*

In a moment, the locked door in front of them slowly opened and a disheveled-looking brunette lady stepped out from inside, wearing an immensely relieved expression on her face as she gazed at the forcibly smiling girl standing beside himself.

"Oh, my Sia, you're okay! I was so, so worried...!"

She then leaned forward, pulling the awkwardly fidgeting Sierra into a tight hug and burying the girl's face into the deep valley between the two prominent mountains looming on her chest. 

All of her motherly concerns were then slowly poured over her mildly suffocating daughter, as she tearfully pleaded with her over and over to never do something like this again.

"Uhh... I'm fine, Mom. I promise I'll never do something like this..."

The girl also hugged her back despite her struggles to breathe properly, feeling quite overwhelmed by this sudden emotional breakdown of her mother. 

Even before coming back, she already knew her mother was going to be seriously mad at her, but never did she expect something like this to happen...

"Sniff... Never do something like this again, okay? You have no idea how worried I was, thinking someone kidnapped you or something. I really didn't know what to do, and you weren't answering my calls either... A-And then I completely freaked out...!"

"It's okay, Mom. I'm fine, and I'm here. Something like this will never happen again!"

...It was only after she repeated her promise multiple times that Julia finally released her daughter, freeing her from that overwhelming chokehold of love, while continuing to sniffle and wipe her tears intermittently.

Damien was silently standing on the side like a bystander all this time, caught off-guard by the sudden emotional outburst from the lady. 

From her character traits he knew from the novel, he honestly thought her first action would be to thoroughly grill him like he was a marinated piece of meat. But instead, she hadn't even glanced in his direction since she opened that door.

And now, amidst her crying and sniffling, it was becoming quite difficult for him to butt into this mother-daughter conversation without making things awkward.

"...Ohh, thank God nothing bad happened to my baby."

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait very long until Julia Alden finally composed herself, wiping the last traces of tears from her eyes, before her temperament abruptly changed as she shot a sharp look at him.

"Huff... Sia, now would you mind if I had a little chat with your friend over here? In the meantime, you can go rest in your room upstairs, okay?"

"...Mom, the thing is—"

Seeing that Sierra was getting a little anxious on his behalf, Damien quickly cut her off midway. 

As much as he appreciated her sweet and lovely concern toward him, his deceptive methods would work much better if he was the only actor in the room.

"—It's fine, Sia. You should do as your mother says. I needed to talk to her about some stuff too."

Looking at him as he calmly smiled in her direction, Sierra paused for a moment, before nodding and quietly leaving for the stairs inside. 

"..."

Julia saw their entire exchange with a deep frown on her beautiful face, silently following her daughter's movements with her amber-colored eyes until she disappeared from their sight. 

She then opened the front door a little wider, while gesturing at Damien with her eyes to get inside. 

Damien saw no reason to refuse her invitation, taking large strides into the house as Julia closed the door behind him with a loud thud.

"...Seeing that you brought her back in time as you promised, I'll grant you permission to sit."

With her eyes narrowed, Julia rudely pointed at the single-seater couch sitting at the center of the living room, causing the corner of Damien's eyes to subtly twitch for a moment. 

'She really prepared an interrogation setup in here...'

Still, he raised no complaints about her treatment of him, quietly taking his seat at the spot pointed by the obviously angry and suspicious woman. 

The last thing he needed to do now was anger her further and cause a rift to develop in the already unnatural relationship between him and Sierra.

"...Good. Now that you've made yourself comfortable, mind telling me why you were on my daughter's phone this morning? And please don't try to lie about this, because my daughter will tell me sooner or later."

After he sat down, Julia then took her seat on the opposite side of him, before immediately beginning the intense grilling he had been anticipating all this while. 

"Well, first of all—"

Looking completely unperturbed by her hostile gaze and tone, Damien offered her a harmless smile, continuing with his unfinished words.

"—thank you for hosting me so late into the night, Miss....?"

"Introductions can wait till later. Before that, I asked you a question."

...Unfortunately, his first attempt at smoothing things over failed spectacularly, as it seemed like the woman was a little too dissatisfied with the trick he pulled that morning. 

A bit exasperated, Damien pursed his lips for a moment, before forcing another smile on his face. With a sigh, he then began speaking once again.

"...Well, I'll just call you my mother-in-law then. So what happened was, last night, I found your daughter in a dark alley with a bunch of—"

After dropping that cocky statement first, he then seriously began summarizing the events her daughter had gone through since last night, along with an extremely toned-down and brightly painted version of his own involvement in all of this.

Of course, his preposterous way of addressing her immediately shocked and infuriated Julia, but before she could dwell on those feelings, his vivid descriptions of the terrible event her daughter had to go through took away all of her attention.

In between describing the thug event, he also told her how Sierra and her best friend Milia knew him from quite a long time ago, and about how it was his decision to bring her to his own house instead of sending her home.

"Did...Did something like that really happen?"

"Yes. I have no reason to lie to you now, do I?"

The strict expression on Julia's face slowly loosened as she mentally re-evaluated the person sitting in front of her. 

"Oh, oh my God... How could something like that happen in our city? What are the police even doing?!"

...If things really happened in the way he described, then this young man would have saved her daughter from experiencing a truly horrible incident. And in that case, there would be no amount of thanking that could fully express the extent of her gratitude to him.

After her husband died in a military mission years ago, her little daughter became the only reason she had been living her life. She couldn't even imagine what she would do if something really happened to Sierra.

...The only thing she knew was that it wouldn't be anything good.

Looking at the composed young man sitting in front of her, Julia allowed herself to relax a little. 

She then heaved a light sigh, before addressing him in an apologetic tone.

"...Sorry for speaking like that to you earlier. My daughter was missing, and after knowing that there was someone unknown replying to me using my daughter's phone, I just..."

The woman who seemed excessively strict a few moments ago was nowhere to be seen anymore. 

Now, she looked so stressed out of her mind that Damien almost thought she was going to deflate like a popped balloon the next moment.

"I completely understand. It's okay for you to worry like that. Hell, I would too if I was in your place, mother-in-law."

Damien sympathetically nodded to her words, wearing a deeply understanding expression on his face, deciding that it was just the perfect time to go ahead with his agenda. 

Julia seemed a bit peeved about him calling her 'mother-in-law' at their first meeting like that. After all, the way he did it just screamed of a playboy's confidence to her. 

But unfortunately, she couldn't really scold him right now. At least not without pricking her own conscience. 

In the end, she just sighed, re-initiating the self-introductions she had postponed earlier, hoping that it would put a stop to what she thought to be his petty revenge.

"...Haah, my name is Julia. You can call me whatever you like, but please stop with the mother-in-law. First of all, it will take a lot more from you for me to approve of you, and secondly, relationships these days don't tend to last very long, so you will have to figure that with—"

"—And I am called Collins, Damien Collins. And once again, nice to meet you, mother-in-law."

Unfortunately for her, though, Damien was going to stick with this way of calling her, all the way till she officially became what he called her now!