Chapter 101

Aria’s POV

The next day, Liam arrived early to help Joe and me with our packing. We’d already discussed the details. Liam, William, Joe, and I would move into the mansion that Liam and I had once shared together.

Joe was excited because that house was so much bigger and had a pool. It hadn’t been difficult to convince him to want to move.

Now, Joe stuffed the blankets and pillows from the couch into a large cardboard box set up on the floor. I watched him from the kitchen, where Liam and I were wrapping the dishes and glasses for storage. The mansion had enough already. I had bought all new when I moved out.

“I want to clarify,” I said as I wrapped the plates in tissue paper to help keep them secure. “This move is more about helping you and Joe establish a relationship than it is about us.”

“I get it,” Liam said. He focused on putting bubble-wrap around the glasses, but I suspected that he might be using that as an excuse to avoid my gaze. “I know we’re still a ways away from how we used to be. But we’ll get there. I’m sure of it, and this is a big step in that.”

When I’d told Liam I wanted my own room at the mansion, since I wasn’t ready to share one with him, his face had gone carefully neutral, not revealing a hint of emotion. This had been incredibly suspicious. Why would he need to hide his feelings if one of those feelings wasn’t hurt?

“Thank you, Aria,” Liam said. “Not just for giving me a chance to prove myself to you, but also for letting me form this bond with Joe. He’s a good kid… I can’t get over that he’s actually mine.”

“You still think I cheated?” I asked.

Now, he looked up at me, meeting my eyes in hurry. “No. I meant, I’m such a screw-up sometimes. It’s hard to imagine that my genes helped make such a great kid. But I’m absolutely thrilled about it.”

Lowering the glasses down into a box, he looked away to concentrate. He continued speaking though, “Sophia wanted me to be William’s father so badly, but I was afraid of playing into her delusions. So I kept my distance as best I could.” He laughed a little, sounding relieved. “Overnight, I went from being a stand-in uncle, to a father of two. Honestly, I couldn’t be happier.”

He sounded genuinely happy, and it warmed my heart.

I had made the decisions I’d made to keep Joe hidden from Liam, and I couldn’t bring myself to regret them. With the information I had at the time, I had no idea that Liam would even want Joe.

Now that things were out in the open however, I was glad that he had finally learned the truth. We could all start healing now, and move forward together as a family. A family that remained somewhat fractured, but those breaks were being mended. In time, maybe we could be whole once more.

“I wanted to talk about something else, though, while we have a moment alone, Aria,” Liam said.

“Yeah?”

“I know you want to keep us a secret right now,” he said, “but how will we explain it that we live together? And is the fact that I’m Joe’s father also a secret?”

“For now,” I said.

Earlier, when I’d told Liam I wanted to keep our budding relationship private for now, he’d taken the news well enough. He’d gone stone-faced again, but recovered quickly.

“I know keeping our marriage secret hurt you in the past,” he’d said then. “So yes, of course, we’ll take things at whatever pace you want.”

Now, I could understand why he’d have questions about the technicalities of the situation. Yet, aside from Isabella and Joe’s school, no one really needed to know about the move. Isabella already knew what was happening, and the school wouldn’t ask any questions.

“Do we have to tell anyone that I live here?” I asked. “At least for now.”

“I guess not…” He seemed hesitant. “HR will have questions about it.”

“I don’t work there anymore,” I reminded him.

“Right.” After a paused, he asked, “Am I allowed to tell people that Joe is my son?”

“You can say that,” I replied. I wouldn’t deny the two their father-son relationship. “But if they ask for specifics, I would prefer if you used discretion.”

I really didn’t want to have to suddenly start fielding questions from mutual friends about why I kept Joe a secret from Liam. I’d rather, for now, they assumed that Liam was just a good guy stepping up in the absence of Joe’s real father, just as he was doing with William.

This wasn’t fair to Liam or Joe, but, even now, despite everything, my nervous heart still half-expected Liam to revert to his old ways. I would be hurt, but not surprised, for him to start putting distance between us again, once we were securely living under his roof.

Like before, he had been wonderful when we’d dated and first gotten married. Then, gradually, he became the sort of man who preferred the spotlight to the wife he kept in the shadows of his home.

Once, he had even asked me not to spend too long standing near the front windows of our home, in case the paparazzi took pictures and caught sight of me.

Those memories harden me, keeping me from wanting to surrender too much of my heart just yet. We had a long way to go before that old trust could be restored.

“I understand,” Liam said. As much as he was clearly trying to hide it, I could still hear the lilt of disappointment in his voice. With the glasses fully packed, he looked over at me again, holding my eyes for a few long moments. “I’ll prove myself worthy of you both, Aria. I promise.”

I nodded, not wanting to say aloud the words that whispered in my mind, We’ll see…

We loaded up the car with as many boxes as we could. The movers were coming later, but there was no sense in wasting space, since we were headed there anyway.

William was already at the mansion with a babysitter. We saw him watching us through the window as I pulled the car around the long driveway. As Liam, Joe, and I exited the car, William came barreling out the front door.

“You’re here!” he said, running toward Liam. He plowed into him for a hug, which Liam laughingly returned.

“Want to help with some of the boxes, kid? There’s some light ones here,” Liam said.

“I can carry a heavy one,” William told him.

“Me, too,” Joe said.

“Okay. Heavy ones… let’s see…” Liam made a show of looking at the boxes in the backseat and then in the trunk. “These two ought to do it.”

I was worried for a half a moment, thinking Liam might actually give the boys something too heavy for them to carry. Instead, he pulled out two of the lighter boxes, while pretending he had to strain to hold them up.

He gave one to William, and the other to Joe. Both boys laughed.

“You are so weak, Dad,” William said. “This isn’t heavy at all.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Joe added. “You should probably take the lighter ones.”

As the two boys started walking toward the house, I came around the car to join Liam at the trunk. Looking down, he wore a wide smile. Spotting me, it only stretched further.

“They both called me Dad,” he said, clearly pleased.

My heart ached. He seemed so happy and genuine, like this was one of the best moments of his life.

But how long would this last?

How would I recover if history repeated itself?