Chapter 83

Aria’s POV

“You should go back to the party,” I said.

Lightly, he shook his head. “I prefer it in here with you.”

My heart skipped a beat. He was hard to resist when he laid on the charm like this, and without the previous misunderstandings standing in our way, I felt myself drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

“I’m just standing here in a bathrobe. It’s not exactly exciting,” I said.

His lips quirked into a lopsided smile. “I disagree. Wherever you are is exciting to me, especially if you are underdressed.”

I rolled my eyes, even as a blush rose in my cheeks. “You are ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But you kind of like that about me.”

He was right. He always seemed to know how to put me at ease. During the course of our relationship, the chemistry between us was never our issue. If we could have eliminated the outside factors, like Sophia’s influence or the fame, Liam and I would probably still be married.

Maybe we would have had even more children by now. We might have been a real family.

Life had other plans then, which kept us apart while we sorted ourselves out. Now, however, we’d worked through those issues. I didn’t see any reason why things couldn’t progress.

“Did you really think William was mine?” Liam asked, a touch of confusion forming on his face. We already went over this, but I supposed this particularly misunderstanding – and it’s reconciliation – was surprising for us both.

Liam had no idea I thought of William’s as his, and I had no reason to doubt that he wasn’t.

“You were with Sophia so much…”

“You thought I would be unfaithful?” he asked.

“You didn’t want to make us public,” I said. It was a weak defense really, but Liam had been so popular then. As charming and as handsome as now, but also at the peak of his career. He could have had anyone in the whole world that he wanted.

I still wasn’t entirely sure why he decided to marry me of all people. I was a trainer then, but I had been just starting out. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing and fumbled a lot, to my embarrassment.

Liam had found that endearing, I supposed, but it still made me want to cringe, thinking about it.

“I’m sorry about that,” Liam said. “I never should have tried to keep you in the dark. You were the most important person in the world to me, and I should have been proud to share that.”

“Were you embarrassed by me?” I asked, a touch afraid of hearing the answer.

“No,” Liam said. “It wasn’t that.”

“Then what was it?”

He thought for a moment, his smile slipping into a deep frown. “It was so long ago. It feels like a lifetime ago. I’m a different person now. A better man.”

“I still want to hear it. What you remember, anyway,” I said. “I think the only way we can move past it is to face it. Forgive it. Then put it behind us, resolved.”

“I like the sound of moving past it. Okay.” He thought for a moment more. Then he said, “I wasn’t embarrassed by you. I just didn’t want anyone to know that I was married.”

“Why?”

“I kind of liked being a young buck. All the married guys back then seemed so tied down. They were never at the parties or the late events. I remember being worried that I’d stop getting invites.”

I lowered my head a little, trying to process this information. It was far too late to feel hurt over this, especially when I had been the one to press for these answers. Liam would have happily just let all this go without discussing it.

“That wasn’t the only reason, though,” Liam said. He crossed his arms. “I also just didn’t want to share you.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Everything else about my life was in the public eye. My weight, my habits, my hairstyle, where I had breakfast and what I ate… My entire life was under a microscope. But you… You were the one thing no one knew about. The one thing that I could keep just to myself. You weren’t tainted by the press. You were safe.”

That felt like a much better reason to want to keep someone secret. It was still selfish, sure, but it came from a place of fear and longing more than a need to appear single to get into exclusive parties.

“The press still follows you,” I pointed out.

“I’m old news,” Liam said, brushing off the comment. “But even if I wasn’t, that wouldn’t matter to me anymore.” Lifting his gaze to mine, he held my eyes prisoner with his own. “I know you, Aria. Fame wouldn’t change you at all. You’d still feel like home to me, no matter who knows it. I’m sorry I was so dense back then.”

I smiled a little. My heart felt infinitely lighter, but I tried not to show too much relief on my face, not wanting it to totally go to his head. We still had a lot we needed to work on, but we were so much closer than we had ever been before.

I might have been able to fall in love with this version of Liam, wiser and more mature. With a little time and some patience, maybe we could actually make this marriage work this time.

Resolved, I took a breath, “Liam, I –”

A knock sounded on the door, stealing my words and my courage to try to form them again.

“Hold that thought,” Liam told me.

I nodded, though knew I likely wouldn’t start again.

Liam moved to the door. “Who is it?”

“Liam? It’s Sophia. Are you okay? Everyone is worried about you.”

Liam glanced back at me. When I nodded, he turned back to the door and pulled it open.

“We’re fine, Sophia. We’ll be down in a minute.”

Sophia smirked, her eyes lighting up as she took in his bathrobe attire. Her gaze dragged down the length of him as if he was naked. He stepped back, away from her gaze.

I could understand his reasoning. Sophia looked at him like he was a piece of meat that she wanted to devour.

Unfortunately, his moving away left me more in the open.

At once, Sophia shifted her gaze from Liam to me.

When she took in the sight of me, her eyes went wide for a half-second before rage filled them so fully, it pushed out every other emotion.

Sophia pushed her way into the bedroom then stormed over to me. “What the hell do you think you are doing in here, alone with Liam, dressed like that?

Liam was wearing the exact same thing – a bathrobe and nothing else. Yet I noticed that he did not draw Sophia’s ire.

Only me.

Only ever me.

“I demand to know just what was going on in here,” Sophia snapped. “Were you trying to seduce my Liam?”

Her Liam?

“Now wait a minute,” Liam said. “Sophia –”

“Stay out of this, Liam. It’s past time for Aria and I to have a chat.”