Chapter 222

Aria’s POV

After that perfect date with Liam and then the just-as-perfect evening with my family, I awoke feeling more hopeful than I had in a very long time. For the first time since Markus and Joanna entered our lives, I began to look forward to my future as Liam’s wife.

It might be callous, I would never wish death on anyone, but I couldn’t deny it was a relief to not have Markus in our lives any longer. I only wished he had just chosen to respect us instead of meeting his end, but given what Liam told me about his childhood, I imagined Markus accepting anything Liam did would have been incredibly unlikely.

Even so, the man had passed, and now Liam and I, one way or another, were free to live our own lives.

There was, however, Joanna still to contend with. Perhaps she had lied to me when she said she and Liam were for real, and I was the one about to be dumped. Or perhaps she had somehow fooled herself into thinking that.

I wasn’t sure. What I did know was that it was wrong.

She could kick and shout and lie all she wanted, but she would never change the truth. Liam was mine, and I was his. And our family was not going to split up – not because of her or anything else.

With a spring in my step, I prepared for work, showering and changing and putting on my makeup.

I could hear the kids getting ready too. Good. The school bus would arrive soon.

Ready, I headed down into the kitchen to start packing the kids’ lunches. One step into the room, I stopped suddenly. Liam was still here?

Even after reconciling, I was still so accustomed to him going into work early that I had simply stopped expecting him to be here to help out in the mornings.

The kids’ lunches were already packed in paper bags behind him.

Turning, he spotted me walking through the door. “Aria,” he said, somewhat haltingly, which was surprising given everything we had accomplished the day before. He must have realized he sounded off-putting, because he tried to smile then. “Ah, good morning.”

That smile did not reach his eyes. In fact, it seemed distant and odd, entirely fake.

“What’s going on?” I asked him, not wanting to play any more games. If something happened, if he changed his mind since yesterday, I would know about it right here and now. I didn’t want to ignorantly continue on with my day, thinking everything was fine, just to have the rug pulled out from under me.

Not again.

There was bliss in ignorance, but oftentimes it only made the revelation of the truth more difficult to handle.

His fake smile tightened. “Maybe you should stay home from work today.”

An odd request, made more alarming by the fact that Joanna, his fake fiancé, also worked at our same building.

“Why?” I asked him, determined not to let him walk away today without telling me the truth.

“It’s for your own good, Aria. Please. Let me handle things first, and then –”

“No,” I said firmly. “You’ve made decisions for me in the past that ended up hurting us both. I want answers. Now. Then, given those answers, we can move towards the best plan of action together, like families are supposed to do.”

Had he learned nothing from his previous mistakes? This disaster of a fake engagement was all the result of him trying to handle things on his own instead of just coming to me and talking it through. Even if we had then stuck to his original plan, I would have at least been in on it and we could have avoided miscommunications and hurt feelings.

Never again. We made that mistake once, but I’ll be damned before I let it happen again.

“We don’t lie to each other, remember?” I prompted. “I want the truth, Liam.”

“You’re right,” he said and pushed a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t going to lie to you, but I’ve been doing a hell of a job avoiding the truth. I’m sorry, Aria.” He sighed. “The truth is… I got a weird call from one of the shareholders this morning, accusing me of publically disrespecting Joanna…”

That was strange… It wasn’t even 8 am yet. “Why would they call so early?” I asked.

“Because they saw the news,” Liam said. “Aria, someone got a picture of you and me on that hot air balloon yesterday, kissing, and now it’s being shown by the press like you and I are having an affair.”

Well, I had wanted honesty, and there it was. It still hit me like a punch to the gut.

Me? I was the other woman?

The entire thing was extremely ridiculous and yet it still cut into me deeply. My old insecurities were coming back to bite me, but I couldn’t be mad at Liam about them this time. After all, this was my fault.

In the past, when Liam had kept me tucked away as his secret wife, my insecurities had festered and grown. Liam had hurt me time and time again.

He had been at fault for that past.

But this time, the decision to keep our relationship a secret had been entirely my own. I was afraid Liam would hurt me again, and tried to keep things secret to protect myself. Yet, in doing so, I’d only managed to hurt myself.

If I had been more straightforward about my relationship with Liam from the start, making public our marriage, then perhaps this entire series of events could have been avoided.

I felt like a fool now, facing the hurt that I knew was yet to come and knowing it was all of my own design.

“Stay home today, Aria,” Liam said. “You shouldn’t have to face any public scrutiny for this. I’ll head into the office and try to smooth everything over.”

“Okay,” I said, annoyed at myself and upset at the situation. I hated hiding away, but Liam was right. If people saw me right now, they would only attack me, not having the facts.

For my own sake, and for Liam’s too, who would want to defend me in such situations, I would let him handle things.

For now.

“I will be returning to work tomorrow,” I said.

“But –”

“I won’t hide away forever,” I said. “Especially not with the race this weekend. The drivers need me.”

Liam eventually relented. “Okay. I’ll try to smooth things over before then.”

That left me worried, but choosing to trust Liam meant that I had to trust him in this.

Liam’s POV

I had a challenge in front of me heading into work that day. I needed to somehow protect Aria and my reputations without revealing that we were in fact married. Aria had not told me yet that I could reveal that to the world, so, in my efforts to prove my loyalty to her, I needed to continue to keep that promise.

It certainly made things more difficult, though, and even heading into the stairwell, I had no idea what I was going to do.

I was so distracted, I did not immediately notice Jackson waiting for me on the first landing up the stairs.

His arms were crossed, his face furious. He glared at me with open fury.

“What the hell have you been doing?” Jackson demanded of me. Before I could answer, he continued, “Aria deserves better than this, and I want to know exactly what you are going to do to fix this mess.”