Chapter 218

Liam’s POV

With terrible slowness, I realized what was happening right in front of me. I had thought, since Joanna and I were in this farce together, that she would have my back with Aria, who Joanna knew I loved. Yet, here, in the moment of truth, Joanna had twisted the knife once more and lied about everything.

I thought I had given her what she wanted when I had agreed to this fake marriage to help convince her parents, yet, seeing the vicious glee in her eyes here as she lied to Aria right in front of me, I realized that this had never been the case.

Maybe this part right here right now had been her plan all along. The farce might have been a trick concocted by her and Markus both to lure me into something that I would be unable to wind my way back out of.

Now, I was firmly in her trap. The only two people in the whole world who knew about our agreement were me and her. If she wouldn’t tell the truth, where did that leave me?

“Aria…” I tried, turning to her. The sight of her was devastating. Tears in her eyes, her bottom lip trembled.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, her voice so cold.

“She’s lying,” I said.

“How do I know that?” Aria asked me. She looked at me in desperation. She wanted me to prove it. I wished I could. God, I did. But I didn’t have any proof.

It was my word against Joanna’s. I’d hoped Aria would side with me, but given the depth of my recent omissions, I couldn’t fault her for having doubts.

Still, it cut into me, how deeply I’d messed everything up, if Aria was willing to believe Joanna over me.

“You just have to trust me,” I said.

Aria shook her head a few times, enough for the tears to drip down from her eyes. Then, in a rush, she turned from me and ran out of the room.

“Aria!” I called. Yet before my feet could give chase on their own, I stopped myself, and swiveled back towards Joanna. “How could you lie to her like that? I thought we had an agreement!”

Joanna smirked. “Wasn’t our agreement to keep the truth from Aria? If you keep changing the rules all the time, I can’t possibly keep up.”

“You know what she saw, and what she thought,” I spat. “You wanted her to misunderstand.”

Leaning back in her chair, Joanna let out a hearty laugh. “So what if I did? You should let that girl go, Liam. You only continue to make her life miserable.”

“She is the love of my life,” I growled.

“She was the love of your life,” Joanna corrected. “Now, you are engaged to me.”

This was absolutely ridiculous. “The engagement was fake, Joanna. You and I will never be together for real.”

I’d hoped the words would hit home, rattling her enough to realize the truth. Instead she just laughed again, louder. “You are funny today, Liam. After all that I went through to get you to propose, you think I’m just going to let you go now? That I’m going to say goodbye to all that money from Markus’s will?”

“You will never have it, Joanna. Neither of us will. I’m never going to marry you.”

“So dramatic,” she said with a sigh. She still smiled though. “If you thought with your head for one minute…”

“I am married to Aria, and that will not change.”

Finally, Joanna’s smile started to slip, but only so that she could more effectively glare at me.

“We are going to get that money from Markus’s will, Liam, whether you cooperate or not.”

She was delirious, and I was done wasting time entertaining her delusions.

Especially while Aria was out there confused and hurting.

Ignoring Joanna, I rushed out of the room and then into the stairwell. Reasoning Aria either retreated to her office, the bathroom, or her car, I started to take the stairs down two at a time.

Shortly, I spotted her on the landing between floors, her body curled up into the corner of two walls.

“Aria?” I asked, stopping.

She glanced over her shoulder at me. The sight made my heart clench tightly in my chest. She had tear tracks down her cheeks, her makeup smeared.

“Aria, please talk to me.” Slowly, I started to approach her. Yet, when I reached for her, she smacked my hand away.

“Go away, Liam.”

“No,” I said firmly. I’d never just leave her while she was like this, even if I was the cause. Her eyes were so red. Could she even make it down the rest of the stairs safely? Everything must have been a blur.

“Go,” she said louder, like that would make me.

“No, Aria. Joanna was lying. You have to know that!”

“How, Liam?”

Turning to me, I faced the full brunt of her sadness. It was overwhelming, each of her tears striking me like a punch to the heart. I didn’t know how either of us were going to survive this, but I wasn’t going to go it alone. Somehow, I would convince Aria, and we’d be in this together again.

“How can I possibly trust you when you’ve been lying to me for so long?” she asked.

“I lied. Yes, I lied, but I did it for the right reasons.”

“There’s never right reasons, Liam. My trust in you is shattered, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“It’s not up to you to fix it, Aria. It’s on me. It’s all on me. Everything is on me.”

She froze for a moment as I spoke, like my words affected her deeply. She blinked a few times, realization coming over her face.

“No,” she said, straightening a little. “No, everything isn’t on you. It’s that attitude that helped you convince yourself to keep me in the dark the first time. I want to know the truth, I want to believe you. You just need to give me a good reason. Please.”

She was desperate, but then, so was I.

Looking at her, I wanted to do anything in my power to please her. If I had a time machine, I would have gone back to beat the shit out of my past self for ever allowing this to happen. There had been so many warning signs along the way: the push for the engagement ceremony, the insistence of the guest list…

Joanna had been planning this from the start, likely with Markus’s help, and I played right into their hands at every single step.

They knew my feelings for Aria gave us a bond, and the only way to make me susceptible to any engagement would be to break that bond.

Fool as I was, I had nearly let them. Even now, everything sat on the edge of a knife. One wrong move and everything would end.

I needed to be careful here, and the only way I knew that was to answer Aria’s request with the only thing I knew I could prove – because I was the only one who could prove it.

Looking at her, with her tears and her smeared makeup, it didn’t matter. She was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

The owner of my heart.

“I can give you a reason, Aria. The best one I know,” I said.

She looked at me, expectant.

Baring my heart and soul, I told her, “I love you, and you are the only woman for me, past, present, and future.”