Chapter 82

Aria’s POV

“What… did you just say?” Liam asked, his face crumpled up with both disbelief and confusion.

I didn’t think I had said anything confusing. I knew Liam was protective of me, and I understood that instinct. Especially because I had almost drowned thanks to Sophia’s little vicious prank.

Yet still, the way Liam scolded her didn’t sit right with me. She was the mother of his child and he had treated her like she was a child herself.

“I said you shouldn’t have been so harsh to Sophia.”

“No, not that part. That part I understood,” Liam said. “What I need you to correct is if I just heard you refer to Sophia as the mother of my child?”

“Yes…?” Why was that giving him pause? Wasn’t that a well-known fact? “Did you think I didn’t know?”

He shook his head a little, and some of the confusion cleared away. Not all of it, though.

“Aria, I don’t think you understand…”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” I said. I really didn’t want to get into it. The last thing I wanted to hear from Liam right now was about how my abandoning him forced him into the arms and bed of another. I might break just from the thought of it.

“We apparently very much mean to.”

“No, Liam, I’m serious. I don’t want to hear about it.”

“Aria, listen –”

“Liam, please stop –”

“William is not my son.”

My mouth remained open with words I had fully intended to say, but my brain immediately stopped. My heart picked up speed. I struggled to understand at first. What could he mean? Weren’t he and Sophia…?

It took several long moments for me to fully realize that the past I had assumed was reality, was in fact not so.

Liam sighed while pushing his hand through his wet hair. It slicked back under his fingers, but the moment his hand was gone, the damp strands dropped again, some creeping down over his forehead.

“Sophia thought William was mine at first, which confused the hell out of me. Since her brother died, I’ve only ever thought of her as my sister. Even in my drunkest moments, I wasn’t even tempted. But she was so sure when she accused me of giving her a baby.

“Then, when I pressed for details, I learned the truth. She’d been at a party, and someone put something in her drink. She thought she had a one night stand with me, but I was never there. Some asshole drugged her and took advantage of her, and William was the result.”

This new information was difficult to process, since it was such at odds with everything I had perceived to be true.

“Ever since her brother… my best friend Steven… he died… It was my fault.” Liam lowered his head. His words were stunted now. This was clearly difficult for him to talk about.

My own heart heavy at the sight and sound of his pain, I stepped closer to him.

Looking up at me, he gave me a small smile. It didn’t last for very long before it slipped off his lips again.

“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault, Liam,” I said, hoping to erase some of the clear, haunting pain from his eyes.

“I was too hungover to race… I’d gone out drinking the night before. I was such an irresponsible asshole then. And a cocky son of a bitch as well. I thought I’d be the best even at my worst. But my headache was so bad, it hurt to even stand with the pit-crew.

“Steve was a fellow driver. He was good too, but he hadn’t been picked up yet by a professional team. He kept bouncing around with different cars and crews, filling in wherever he could, looking for his shot at the big time.”

“You gave him that shot,” I said.

Liam closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m not a hero in this, Aria. Don’t think my intentions were pure. I just wanted to sleep off my hangover, and I knew he’d do a decent job. He was eager for the chance, and I took advantage of that.”

“So he filled in for you.”

“He did.” Liam swallowed thickly. “And then… he crashed…”

“Oh, Liam.” I took another, wider step, moving right up against his side. I reached out my hand and placed it on his arm.

He looked at me, his eyes haunted but… softening…

I felt like an invisible gap that had stretched between us for years was finally closing.

“It should have been me,” he said quietly, barely a breath.

“No, Liam. You can’t think like that. Steve wouldn’t want you to carry this guilt.”

“We can’t know what he would have wanted,” Liam said, looking away. “He’s dead, because I was too hungover to drive my own damn car. If I had been sober… If I had driven my own car… Maybe I still would have crashed. Maybe I would have died. But at least then he would have been safe. And Sophia would still have her brother.”

Things became clearer then.

Liam was consistently so devoted to Sophia because he was trying to fill the shoes of her brother, the man whose death Liam felt that he had caused.

If only he had shared this with me during our marriage, I would have understood so many things. Maybe everything would have been different.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” I asked gently. I didn’t want to accuse him, especially when he was already carrying around so much guilt, but I wanted to understand.

We couldn’t go back into the past to fix things, but we could work on correcting course now. For that, I needed all the information that I had apparently been missing, without even realizing it.

Liam closed his eyes, blocking me out for a moment. Then he said quietly, “I was ashamed. I didn’t want you to know about my past. You loved me, and I was worried that if you knew the truth of what I had done, that would change.”

“It wouldn’t have,” I replied quickly and concisely, so there could be no more misunderstandings. “You were reckless and immature, and you made a mistake. But it was only a mistake, Liam. You didn’t send your friend to his death. He was in that car because that was where he wanted to be.”

“He shouldn’t have been…”

“He wanted the chance to prove himself, you said it yourself. If he wasn’t in your car, he would have tried to be in someone else’s.”

“My car was the one that killed him.”

“No one killed him, Liam. It was a terrible accident.”

Liam stared deep into my eyes. I pushed all my emotion to the forefront, hoping he could see how genuine I was when I had said those words.

I did not blame him for this, and I doubted his friend would have either.

Liam had made a tragic mistake, but he wasn’t the one who crashed the car. He had no reason to believe that Steve wouldn’t be capable.

And he has spent so many years since then trying to make up for it by supporting Sophia as a brother would.

Sophia was the one who consistently overstepped.

In Liam’s eyes, I could see the subtle shift. Before, when he started his story, he’d been closed off and hurt, but now, he was starting to thaw.

My comfort was working.

Pushing up onto my toes, I leaned into him and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

His eyes went wide. When I pulled away, he looked at me in question.

I’d thought I’d just answered pretty clearly.

With this years’ long misunderstanding finally cleared, my heart was no longer as closed as it had been before.