Chapter 234

Liam’s POV

I stared at Joanna, as the dread crept up inside of me. She was clearly trying to intimidate me though, as if hoping to see if I’d buckle under pressure, and I absolutely refused to give her that satisfaction. So I rallied myself, standing straighter, and told her plainly, “I won’t be intimidated by you, Joanna.”

She sighed, though her smile stayed fixed on her lips. “This isn’t an intimidation tactic, Liam. I am simply telling you that soon I will have all the power, while you would have known.” She paused a moment, as if to let those words sink in. “Though I could be convinced to be more generous… if certain considerations were made for me…”

She wanted Markus’s money from the will, which meant she had to be married to me. That was impossible while I was still married to Aria.

The considerations she wanted were undoubtedly my quick divorce from Aria and then a turn around to marry her instead.

That wasn’t going to happen.

“I don’t care what you threaten,” I said. “I don’t care if you take over the club and fire Aria and me. I will never stop fighting you, no matter what happens. I will never divorce Aria.”

“You are so crass,” she said. “So inconsiderate. Can you not imagine what you can do with all that money? Don’t you care that by refusing to accept it, the money will be diverted to your competitors?”

“I’m happy to help the sport,” I said. “Even if it isn’t in this team.”

I loved racing, through and through. That kind of money could help fund some teams for years to come. They might be able to focus more on racing, and be less worried about sponsorships, which was such a large part of my job otherwise.

While I knew this meant, the competing teams would likely improve their performance while my team suffered, I would still be happy to see the sport doing well. Money like that would only bolster things. Though, hopefully, with such an excess of funds, some of the teams might consider donating it to more needy causes.

None of this seemed to cross Joanna’s mind. She just seemed upset as could be with me. Her smug smile finally faded as she glared at me with a vicious sort of look in her eye. I was certain, no matter what she claimed about wanting our engagement and how much she said she wanted to be with me, that it was only because of the money.

Outside of it, I was certain she would drop me if she could. She didn’t even seem to like me all that much.

“You and I will never marry, Joanna,” I told her. “You will never have the money from the will.”

She scoffed at me. “Why must you always make things so damn difficult, Liam? If you had fallen in line all those years ago, none of this nastiness would ever have been necessary.”

“I was never going to blindly follow my father’s wishes for me. That should have been clear to you years ago.”

“You were just being difficult then. A rebellious youth who needed to get it out of his system. It’s not so cute anymore.”

The way she said that, like she was spitting the words, indicated to me that she hadn’t found it all that cute in the past either. Which was fine with me, in all honesty. I didn’t need her to find anything about me cute. I wanted her as far away from me as possible.

“I didn’t care what you thought back then,” I told her. “And I don’t care now.”

She sneered at me. “We’ll see how much you care when the entire world knows how much you’ve hurt me.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“You’ll see…” she said cryptically and would not elaborate. As she returned to her makeup, I moved to my own desk, shaking my head as I went.

At my desk, I began my work day, eager to focus on work for a while and not think about Joanna at all anymore.

Aria’s POV

I erased the number I had just wrote for the third time in a row. Jackson, standing near me, watched with a lifted brow. We were down by the track. He was about to enter his car and do a few laps. I was supposed to set up the sheet to record the times but I kept miswriting everything all over the place.

After what had happened yesterday with the interview, I was hopelessly distracted today. I hated that it was cutting in my work, which I usually prided myself on. I tried to focus, but I just kept getting distracted.

Jackson was noticing. “Something on your mind, Aria?”

There was no point in lying to him, especially when he could already see right through my attempts at professional integrity.

My mask was finally starting to crack. At home, I had to be so strong, not wanting the children to suspect anything was wrong, or that I was truly worried about anything. But my worry was breaking through now.

“Yesterday, Liam and I had a reporter come over to the house to do an interview,” I told him. “We were hoping that the truth would help elevate some of the bad press we’ve gotten lately, but it didn’t go to plan…”

I knew the bad publicity was circulating. Even around the club, people were looking at me differently, or keeping their distance. I could see them whispering around me. Though I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, it didn’t take much imagination to piece it all together.

Now, I explained to Jackson about the basics of the interview, telling him everything that happened, even the shift in Craig’s demeanor and the insults.

“We were as honest as we could be during the interview,” I said. “But with how it was spun… I can’t imagine any of this will help us in the end. It can only make things worse, and I’m so exhausted of things being worse.”

Jackson listened carefully throughout my entire story, watching me as I spoke. Even now, he waited patiently, as if to see if I had more to say.

But I didn’t have anything else.

“That asshole insulted you,” Jackson said. “I’d have done the same thing. Actually, no. I’d have punched him and then kicked his ass out.”

I laughed a little, even as I shook my head. “That wouldn’t have helped matters.”

“Maybe not, but it would have felt damn good in the moment. I can’t believe that guy from the news said that about you.”

I’d been surprised at the time, but if he was truly friends with Joanna or perhaps Markus, then I supposed it shouldn’t have been all that shocking. Those two had said far worse about me, even to my face.

As Liam’s temper cooled, he huffed a breath and then looked at me.

“Alright,” he said. “Well, there’s really only one question left to ask here.”

I couldn’t imagine what that might be. I gave Jackson a confused sort of look.

His face was earnest as he asked, “Do you love Liam?”