Chapter 190

William’s POV

William’s worries stayed with him, making him stay awake all night, tossing and turning in his bed. By morning, he was dead tired, dragging his way through breakfast and to the school bus. Even as tired as he was, he knew that if he stayed home, claiming to be sick, he wouldn’t find any rest.

His mind was too filled with nervous thoughts. He had to find some way to keep Mom and Dad from splitting. He didn’t want things to change. He liked having a stable home. Aria was so much nicer than Sophia.

So distracted, he didn’t pay the most attention when he finally got to schools and was walking through the hallways. Accidentally, he walked right into a kid two years his senior. The kid turned and glared down at William.

Unfortunately, William immediately recognized this kid as Todd, one of the schoolyard bullies, who was always shaking down the smaller kids for their lunch money. Todd was big for his age, and only picked on younger, smaller kids. Most people were afraid of him.

William wasn’t scared but usually gave Todd a wide berth, knowing the kid was trouble.

Right now, however, William couldn’t just walk away. Todd was glaring down at him like William had committed some mortal offense. Maybe he did. William committed the crime of walking into a bully, and now the bully was about to dole out punishment.

“What’s your problem?” Todd snapped.

“I’m trying to get to class,” William said.

“By walking into me?” Todd said, his brown lowering. His hands curled into fists. “You trying to mess with me?”

“I’m not,” William said. He tried to back up a step, but immediately bumped into one of Todd’s friends who had secretly moved behind William to block off his path. This kid wasn’t as big as Todd but he still smirked like he had the upper hand.

William wasn’t a pushover. He wasn’t going to let himself be shoved around.

But… thinking of Aria and how disappointed she would be, he tried once more to get out of this situation.

“Just let me go.”

“Or what? What you going to do, cry to your mommy?” Todd taunted. “Oh wait. Aren’t you that kid whose mom is in jail?”

Around William, all of Todd’s goons started to laugh.

Hot anger swirled up inside of William. Running on no sleep, and worried about his home life, William couldn’t think things through anymore. Instead, he yelled as he suddenly ran forward and jumped straight at Todd, tackling him.

Liam’s POV

“I’m sorry,” I said into my cell phone. “Can you repeat that? I swear I just heard you say that my son was in a fight.”

Joanna glanced up from her desk.

Ignoring her, I stood and grabbed my jacket.

“I’m sorry to say that yes, William was involved in a fight this morning,” said the woman on the phone. “The principal is waiting to speak with you and William, though he’s already been suspended. When’s the earliest you think you can get down here.”

“I’m on my way now,” I said and hung up.

Pulling on my jacket, I headed for the door.

“Liam? What’s going on?” Joanna asked.

Joanna might have infiltrated the entire rest of my life, but she would not interfere with my parenthood. William was my son, and I would take care of this.

As far as I was concerned, I’d rather if Joanna never met my kids at all. It would likely only feed into her delusions. Delusions that I was unfortunately having to play along with for the time being. Joanna might have agreed to fake our engagement, but I was harboring doubts she would let me go easily, fake or not.

Not after she waited so long to finally have me.

That was just one more struggle I would have to untangle when the time came.

Right now, however, I had bigger things to worry about. I rushed out of the headquarters building and drove to the other side of town to the kids’ school. Inside, William was waiting for me, sitting on a seat outside of the principal’s office.

The principal’s door was open, with her waiting within.

William didn’t lift his eyes up off the floor, but I could already tell he had a bruise on his cheek.

I’d been a mixture of angry and worried on the way over here, but seeing him now, with how dejected he looked, the worry started to take over.

I wanted to talk to him about it, but this hallway was not the place to do it. First, before we could have a real conversation, we had to deal with the principal.

“Ready?” I asked him.

Wordless, he hopped up from the bench and then walked into the office. I walked in behind him.

The meeting was brief, as the principal told me about the fight and then explained that William would be suspended until Monday. As she described the fight, William coiled in on himself but didn’t say one word against it, not even to defend himself.

Watching him, more and more of my anger slipped away and worry replaced it.

By the time we left the school and were walking to the car, all of my anger was gone.

“What happened, William?” I asked him.

“You heard what she said.”

“I heard what she said. I’m asking you.”

I looked at William and he glanced sideways, away from me. “I was thinking about stuff and bumped into Todd. Then he started it.”

Taking what the principal said and what William was saying now, I tried to piece together the full story. What bothered me the most, though, was what could have distracted William so much he would walk into the biggest kid in the school?

“What were you thinking about?” I asked.

“Nothing,” William said too quickly. It was an obvious lie.

“You can talk to me about anything. You know that.”

William worried his bottom lip with his teeth. “Yeah…”

“So will you talk to me about this? If something is bothering you, we can talk about it, okay? I’m on your side, even when it seems like I’m not. I’m your Dad. I always want the best for you.”

William seemed to consider those words. Then, he looked up at me. He seemed so tired; why hadn’t I noticed before? Those dark bags under his eyes weren’t normal. It was like he hadn’t slept at all last night.

Maybe he hadn’t. Whatever was bothering him must have been a big deal. Maybe he and Todd had been having trouble before this? Or was a teacher giving him issue?

I braced myself for anything that William might say.

“If you and Mom divorce, am I going to have to go back to my old mom?”

Shock struck through me like a lightning bolt, and for a long moment, I couldn’t move.

“No,” I said at once, though I wasn’t sure to which part I mean that no. All of it, probably.

Hope filled William’s eyes.

“You will never have to go back to Sophia,” I said, because that was essential. Even if Sophia wasn’t still in prison, I would fight with everything I had to keep William away from her.

The next denial was tougher. “Aria and I aren’t getting divorced.”

I wanted to comfort William, but my own worries were brewing know.

With all the secrets piling between us, and Steven in the picture now, I had no idea if what I was saying was the truth.

Even after I talked with Aria about this fake engagement, there was no guarantee she would understand. Maybe that was why I pushed off the conversation this far already.

Would Aria and I be able to weather the inevitable revealed truths?

I genuinely did not know.