Chapter 206

Aria’s POV

I couldn’t trust my own eyes. There was no way, I thought, that Liam would betray me like this. Even when the evidence had been clearly laid out before me, in my heart, I didn’t want to believe it. Even now, seeing it here, I was ready to doubt.

Yet, hearing his voice, there could be no mistake. He had said Joanna’s name, not mine. He had given her the ring – here, in front of all of these people.

In front of me.

“Yes!” Joanna said excitedly. She snatched the ring from Liam’s hand and put it on her finger herself. Holding up her hand, she turned around for the entire room to see. Everyone clapped politely. Someone whistled.

All I did was gasp.

Yet that was enough for Liam to glance over to me. The second his eyes met mine, his went wide, and he stumbled to push himself up to his feet.

“Aria?”

There was more than just fear in his eyes; there was utter devastation. Yet, even so, that paled in comparison to the emotions waging war within me. I was overwhelmed, embarrassed and shattered, everything crashing down all at once.

Without uttering more than a shaky breath, I swiveled on my high heel and started to run.

“Aria! Wait!” Liam called, arousing some curious calls from party guests.

“Liam? Whatever is the matter?”

Liam seemingly ignored them. I heard his footsteps chasing me down the walkway. He was faster than me, especially when I was trying to run in heels.

Tears ran down my face, blurring my vision and smudging my makeup into my eyes. It burned, but nothing hurt worse than the calamity within my own heart.

Liam grabbed my arm, stopping me. He hurried to stand in front of me.

I tried to push him away but he grabbed both of my wrists and kept them locked against his chest.

“Let me go!” I cried.

“Aria, please. Just let me explain!”

“I don’t want to hear it!”

“Aria, please.”

“Let me go, Liam. Let me go!”

My shouting seemed to shake something loose in him and he immediately released my wrists.

I stumbled back a few steps. Blinking, I could make out the fuzzy outline of him. He looked so handsome in his tuxedo. God, it hurt so much.

Why did I have to fall in love with him again? Why couldn’t I have kept my distance? Why did I insist on hurting myself again and again? Always running back to the man who proved time and again that he couldn’t be trusted with my heart.

“Please, Aria. If you just let me, I can explain all of this. None of it is as bad as it seems,” he said, such sweet promises.

“You always have explanations,” I said bitterly. “Is this what you were going to tell me about tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Liam replied.

“So you knew this was going to happen,” I said. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me beforehand. Why didn’t you say something?”

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he said, as if that was any kind of defense. “What are you doing here, Aria?”

“What does it matter why I’m here?” I cried. “I am here, and I just saw you propose to Joanna!”

“It’s not –”

“How long has this been going on?” I demanded. “How many weeks or months was I sitting at home with the kids while you were fooling around in the office?”

“It’s not like that,” Liam said quickly. “It’s never been like that.”

“I don’t believe you. I have no reason to believe anything you have to say!”

Liam winced like I’d slapped him. “That’s entirely fair. I was wrong to keep this from you, but I –”

“You let me believe that we could fix things between us. You let me become comfortable with you and the house. I started planning, Liam. I could see the future you promised.”

My heart was deeply splintered. It was so hard to try to hold all the broken pieces together. I felt like I kept dropping some down onto the ground. And those pieces, down in the dirt – Liam was stomping so carelessly all over them.

“That is still our future, Aria,” Liam said. “That’s what I want for us.”

“Then why did you propose to another woman?!” I shouted.

“Please, Aria.” His gaze darted nervously around. “We’re making a scene. Let’s discuss this privately.”

We were starting to make a scene. Some of the event guests were coming out of the banquet hall to watch. On the other side, the security guards near the gate were openly gaping.

Seeing this, a terrible realization washed over me.

Even though I was the one already married to Liam, I wasn’t his primary focus. In this scenario, here and now, I was the other woman. The one interrupting a touching scene.

Regardless of who married who first, or why, I was the outlier here. The one who was unwelcomed.

The special guest, invited in secret, but not by the actual host or hostess of this party.

Fresh tears stung my eyes. Shaking my head at him, I turned and started running for the gate.

Liam’s POV

How could this be happening? How as Aria here now, to see my fake proposal to Joanna?

Of course she was upset. She had every right to be, and I was saying all the wrong things, unable to articulate properly everything that was truly going on. She wasn’t listening anyway, though others were.

I knew she wanted to keep our marriage a secret, so I tried to encourage her to speak privately. However, that only set off her tears again.

Each tear sliding down her cheek was a knife straight to my heart.

I was betraying her in the worst ways, and there was little I could do to make it okay again.

“Aria!” I called out, ready to give chase once more, when someone grabbed my arm from behind.

Turning, I was ready to rip my arm away – especially after seeing it was Joanna who had stopped me. Yet, before I could move, she opened her mouth and spoke one simple sentence.

“Markus is dead.”

Aria’s POV

As I neared the gate, the security guards stepped aside, not stopping me this time. One even helpfully hailed a cab for me and held open the door.

I rushed there. Yet, before entering the car, with my last shred of hope in my chest, I looked back.

Liam hadn’t moved from where I’d left him, but someone else had joined him now – Joanna. They were speaking, her hand on his arm.

I was totally forgotten.

That was enough to totally smother the last bit of hope within me. Looking away once more, I entered the car, bound and determined to leave Liam behind again.

I’d done it once. I could do it again.

Liam’s POV

The news of Markus’s death stunned him for a moment, but his focus quickly returned to Aria. He could deal with whatever came from this news later. Aria was heartbroken, she didn’t have the full story, and she was rushing away from him.

Yanking his arm from Joanna, he looked toward where Aria had gone, only to see her enter a cab and that cab drive away.