SWNOVELS Departure with a Belly Chapter 373
Chapter 373
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The question stumped Claudia, and she froze, staring at him. Eventually, she realized
what was up. Does he know? He knows I took the credit? No way. He was unconscious
back then, and Victoria lost her memory. There’s no way he could’ve found out unless
Victoria regained her memories, but it’s been years. She should’ve remembered a long
time ago. That means she never remembered, so what happened?
If she did regain her memory, she would’ve come over and fought me for what I did. Or
she might tell the whole world she was the one who saved Alaric. This is nothing.
Probably paranoid because of the dream. This is actually a good chance. If I make
myself out to be a poor, poor girl, he’s going to take pity on me. It’ll be easy for me to
convince him to marry me then.
If I can’t do that, I’ll threaten him with another suicide. I’m in the hospital anyway. The
medical staff can save me if anything happens. It’s no big deal. Thus, she came up with
a plan to make herself look as pitiful as possible. If the plan worked, Alaric would be
shackled to the favor even more, and she could even make him marry her.
She started lying through her teeth. “I lost most of my strength, but I held on because I
really, really wanted to save you. I didn’t want to die either. We were both so young, so I
mustered up all my strength to pull you up.”
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Chapter 373 Lies
Alaric looked at her coolly, not the least bit fazed by the story. “And how did you get
back up on land?”
“Um, I crawled my way up after I saved you.” Claudia didn’t jump into the river, nor did
she save him, but she could imagine the scene, so she made things up. Victoria
must’ve tried to get back onto dry land after she saved Alaric. So that was what she
told him.
Alaric’s lips twitched. “So, you’re saying that you got up onto dry land all by yourself
after you saved me even when you had barely any strength left.”
Thinking there was no problem with that statement, Claudia nodded.
A moment later, Alaric snapped, “Liar.”
Shocked, Claudia said, “What? I–I didn’t lie. Y–You don’t believe me?”
“The currents were too powerful to swim in, so you couldn’t have dragged me back up
to land yourself.”
“B–But I used up
all my strength, that’s how.”
Alaric grabbed her hand. “If you did use all your strength to do that, then why weren’t
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your hands injured? I remember that your arms were fine. The only place injured was
your wrist.”
In order to make things more believable, Claudia cut open her wrist with a stone.
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Alaric chuckled. “You cut your wrist with a stone, didn’t you? At least you weren’t a total
idiot. You actually tried to make things more believable.”
Claudia’s eyes went wide. “D–Did someone tell you something?”
Alaric smirked. “Take a guess.”
Panic set in immediately. Claudia thought he was asking her about the past just to
know more about the process, but she thought wrong. If he knows the truth, I’m done
for. I can’t let that happen. She started getting nervous and spoke without thinking. “No,
I did save you. Don’t listen to Victoria. She’s just trying to make you pity her. She’s trying
to make you dump me.”
Ah, finally. She let something slip. Alaric narrowed his eyes and hissed coldly, “I don’t
remember telling you who told me the story.”
Claudia froze.
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“You and I were the only ones there, weren’t we? Why did you think Victoria was the one
who told me anything? If she wasn’t there in the first place, then you wouldn’t have even
cared about what she told me, would you?” Sharply, he added, “So that means we were
not alone. There was someone else.”
“No, no!” Claudia shook her head violently, looking away. “I have no idea what you’re
talking about. We were alone, and I was the one who saved you. I–I just brought Victoria
up because you sought her out last night. You did, didn’t you? So that’s why you’re
taking this attitude with me. I know I shouldn’t have drugged you, but I was too worried
that Victoria might take you away, so I… I made a mistake. You can’t call me a liar just
because of one incident. I did save you. Don’t fall for her lies. She must be trying to trick.
you. She’s making things up just to sabotage me because of what happened last night.”
Agitated, she tried to move closer to Alaric, but he got up and put some distance
between them. The refusal to get close to her was not lost on Claudia, and she stood
petrified. It was just like that time he interrogated her about the texts. I can’t believe it.
He’s already pulled the same trick once, and I fell for it again. I shouldn’t have brought
Victoria up. That was stupid of me.
What Alaric said next crushed her. “Just stop acting. She’s gotten her memories back.”
What? She regained her memories? Who did? Victoria? Claudia’s eyes went wide, and
she was in a stupor.
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Alaric stepped ahead, the look in his eyes chillingly cold.
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“You took the credit for someone else’s work. They risked their lives for it, and you stole
the fruit of their labor. How low can you go, Claudia?”
“I did not! She lied to you!”
Alaric said sharply, “Oh, someone did lie to me, but it was not her.”
Claudia froze for a long, long time while staring at him, and then she laughed. “Yeah, we
weren’t alone, but so what? So what if she was there? I risked my life to save you. Just
because she was there with us doesn’t mean you can prove that she saved you.”
“Ah, so you confess.”
“So what? You’d suspect me but not her? She regained her memories after a decade?
Give me a break. That’s like a fairy tale, and you immediately bought the story? If you
never thought of believing me at all, then why did you even come here?”