Chapter 209

Liam’s POV

“I don’t care what you think, Joanna,” I said coldly. With everything going on, now she wanted to threaten me? Didn’t she realize that without Aria, I had nothing left to lose? “With Markus gone, I have no reason to stay in this relationship.”

“We had an agreement,” Joanna said. Her anger showed, making her face red with frustration and rage.

“And I saw that agreement through,” I replied. “I proposed.” The words tasted like ash in my mouth.

“We haven’t convinced my parents,” Joanna said. “You need to stick around longer to –”

“No, I don’t, Joanna.”

She glared. “What about your reputation? When everyone sees how you just abandon me, they won’t treat you kindly.”

“I don’t care about my reputation,” I said. With my own anger towards Joanna, and towards myself, came a bit of clarity. “The only thing I care about is my family. About Aria. And I’ve hurt her too much already.”

“I’d be careful what I say if I were you,” Joanna said, her voice crass and cutting, making her words sound like a threat. “If you go against me, I can be even worse than Markus.”

“I don’t care, Joanna. Do your worst. Nothing you can do to me now could be worse than what’s already been done.”

“You agreed to this,” Joanna insisted. “You are going back on it.”

“I did agree to this, and that was one of the biggest mistakes of my entire life. This entire thing was a mistake, one that I deeply regret. But I’m going to fix things now. As much as I can. I’m not going to let you or Markus or anyone else scare me into hurting the person I love any longer…”

I turned away from her, something I should have done a long time ago and started walking away.

“Liam!” she called out. “Stop!”

I didn’t, eager to get away from her as fast as I could.

Yet, before I could make it to the gate, a new voice called out for me. “Are you Markus’s son, Liam?”

Looking over, I saw an official looking man in an expensive suit stopped at the gate by security. He was an older man, near sixty, with thinning hair and carrying a briefcase. His eyes looked larger through his thick glasses.

As I gaped at him, unsure how to reply, Joanna moved closer to me.

“He is,” she said.

The man looked at her. “And you are Joanna.”

“His fiancé, yes,” Joanna said.

I shot her a sideways glare.

“Yes, I was looking for you too. You both were on Markus’s will,” the man says.

“His will?” I asked. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“My name is Mr. Peters,” the man said. “I’m one of Markus’s lawyers, and the executor of his will. Markus directly referenced both of you, and spoke with some urgency about how quickly he wanted things settled after his death.”

“I’m in his will?” Joanna said with sudden delight. Her anger at me seemed to wither away, and its place was the greed and excitement of someone about to come into even more exurbanite wealth.

“Yes,” Mr. Peters said. “You both are. Now, if you’d come with me back to my office, we can get this matter settled as soon as possible. The others are already there and waiting.”

Confusion crossed my mind. “The others?” But then I shook my head, remembering my true purpose, what I truly cared about – Aria.

“I don’t have time for this tonight,” I said.

“Liam,” Joanna scolded.

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” Mr. Peters said. “But I truly think you will want to hear this. It won’t take long, and it could change your entire life.”

Aria’s POV

Back in the kitchen, I unloaded everything on Isabelle, revealing all that happened. More tears fell, from both of us, and eventually, when my story was done, we found ourselves sitting at the kitchen table.

“I’m so sorry,” Isabelle said, her face downtrodden, her own make staining streaks down her face. We must have looked like quite the pair. It’d be laughable if my heart wasn’t so very heavy. “I totally misread the entire situation. When I saw that ring…”

“How could you think anything but what you did?” I said. “I don’t blame you one bit, Isabelle. You couldn’t have known what he was really planning on doing. And neither could I.”

“At least this explains why he looked so torn about it,” she said. “Maybe that counts for something?”

“No,” I said, hardening my heart. I wasn’t going to make excuses for his actions. I didn’t care how conflicted he was. In the end, he had chosen Joanna, not me.

“Well,” Isabelle said. “That ring was ugly anyway. That rock was so huge. Thinking on it, I thought for sure you’d hate it. It was gaudy as hell. Perfect for her, though.”

Her comment lifted my spirits, if only for a moment before they crashed back down. “I’d seen that ring before. She wore it around constantly.”

“He didn’t even buy her a new one?” Isabelle asked.

“Doesn’t seem like it, no.” Granted, I didn’t look all that closely.

“I don’t know, Aria,” Isabelle said. “None of this seems right.”

“Tell that to him,” I said. “Even if he was coerced or whatever else, he could have told me about it. He had so many chances, none of them he took. Instead, he kept his secrets and destroyed everything between us, all in one evening.”

“Yeah…”

“Isabelle, I need you to be as outraged about this as I am,” I said. My heart was shattered in pieces, I needed my best friend to commiserate with me.

“Of course, I’m outraged. He’s a dick,” Isabelle snapped, coming alive again with anger. “But it just doesn’t make sense. He was so in love with you. At Christmas, I was sure you guys were going to be an official couple again. I just… I don’t understand what happened.”

“You said it, he’s a dick,” I said firmly. Right now, I didn’t care at all for his reasoning. Nothing in the word he could say would make what he did any better. Isabelle seemed to realize that, the longer I stewed in my own anger and pain.

“What are you going to do?” she asked me after a moment of quiet.

“Honestly?” I said. “I have no idea. I guess I need a divorce attorney…” Lowering my head into my hands, my grief swelled once more. “I’ve never felt this lost, Isabelle. Not even when I left him the first time.”

Back then, I had been so focused on my pregnancy and then on raising Joe. There hadn’t been time to consider anything else.

Now, there were so many more entanglements. I didn’t even begin to know how to untie them.

“Maybe you don’t have to do anything right now,” Isabelle said. “Maybe survival is enough.”

But that didn’t feel good enough. If it was just me, I could have crumpled up, but now, with the kids…

“I have to pull myself together. The kids need me to be strong.”

“Not tonight they don’t,” Isabelle said. “They’re already asleep. Right now. Just focus on you and what you need. Whatever the kids need? I got this. Tomorrow you can worry about that.”

But that was just the thing wasn’t it? There was an aching, spreading chasm in my chest, and I didn’t know how to fix it myself.

I wanted Liam. I wanted things to go back to the way they were before he broke everything.

But this time, there was no going back.

And I didn’t know how to go on again without him.