Chapter 88

Aria’s POV

Back at home, I paced back and forth in the kitchen. Joe was out in the living room, finishing his homework with the television on. I didn’t have the heart to force him to focus, not when I wanted to make certain he wouldn’t overhear this conversation.

Isabella sat on one of the kitchen chairs, watching me as I walked from the refrigerator to the dishwater and back again.

I still felt numb and cold, but freezing my emotions helped my mind to concentrate. Moving a mile a minute, my brain was making plans.

“You are sure of what you saw?” Isabella asked. “There’s definitely no mistake?”

I motioned toward the table in front of her, where the DNA test sat. For Sophia to let me so freely take it, I wondered if she had copies. She’d probably start handing them out at parties, eager to rub it into anyone’s face who had thought Liam might have actually loved me, his wife.

Isabella glanced at the letter, then back to me. “It just doesn’t make sense. After everything he’s done to try to get you two back together…”

“All lies, Isabella. Oh, I’m such an idiot. I actually let myself believe him.” When I reached the refrigerator, I swiveled on my heels to walk the other way.

I welcomed the anger. It was safer, easier than the alternative, in which I would simply break down and cry until I couldn’t anymore.

“You love him,” Isabella said. “That doesn’t make you an idiot.”

“I loved him once,” I corrected. “I should have known better than to let myself start falling again. I should have trusted my initial instincts. I knew he was spending too much time with her. He prioritized her over everything. Over me. We were supposed to be a team, a couple, us against the world. I should have known it was always us plus her.”

Isabella went quiet then, for a moment. She lifted the letter and read through it once more.

As soon as Joe and I had arrived home from Sophia’s, I had called Isabella and through my incoherent ramblings, she had somehow been able to piece together enough of what happened to know she needed to come over. I was incredibly grateful to her.

“I need to quit my job,” I said.

“Are you sure? You love that job.”

“There will be other jobs,” I said. “I can’t stand the thought of seeing him every day. Even in a professional capacity… God, it’s too much right now.”

Isabella nodded. “Okay. But then what?”

“I’ll find something else. In some other town. Joe and I will move.”

“You like this town,” Isabella said.

“I’m not going to live next door to Liam.”

“Joe likes his school,” Isabella pressed.

“He will adjust. We both will.”

“Maybe you should, I don’t know, take a couple weeks off and think about things,” Isabella said. “You are very emotional right now and –”

“Actually, I’m thinking more clearly than I have in months. I’m glad this happened, so I can finally pull the wool away from my eyes and see things for how they truly are.”

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to slow down…”

She didn’t understand. If I slowed down, then the negative emotions would catch up to me. If I didn’t keep moving as quickly as I could, I would crumble under the weight of my own pain and not be able to move at all.

I opened my mouth to tell her some if not all of this when the doorbell rang.

“Who could that be?” Isabella asked.

I knew the answer. Liam. He probably wanted to know if we’d heard any more about William. He lived right next door. It wouldn’t be any kind of burden on him to walk from his driveway to mine.

“Take Joe upstairs and keep him busy,” I said. “I don’t want Liam to see him.”

Isabella’s eyes went soft and sad, but she stood, moving at once. “Joe, why don’t you take a break and show me your car collection again?”

“Really?” Joe’s voice raised with excitement.

I waited until I could hear their footsteps heading up the stairs before I left the kitchen and went to the door.

Outside, Liam’s back was to me as he looked up at the evening sky. The lowered sun was painting the clouds a mean-looking red. It’d likely storm tonight.

“Liam,” I said.

At the sound of my voice, he swiveled around. “Aria.”

I marveled at his acting ability. He seemed to not carry a shred of guilt where I was concerned, looking at me with only affection in his gaze, along with a hint of worry that I knew was meant for William.

Before too long though, looking at me, that worry overtook everything else. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I lied.

“You don’t look fine.”

“Don’t presume to tell me how I feel,” I say, my voice like ice, revealing only part of the deep chill that froze me solid inside.

He straightened, as some confusion filled his face. “Did something happen?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

“Well, it shouldn’t. You have another family that needs you more than Joe and I ever will.”

“Aria, what are you –”

“You need to start being there for Sophia and William, Liam. This game you’re playing is over. You want to prove yourself a good man? Then be there for your son.”

“But, Aria –”

“Don’t worry about Joe and me anymore. We’ll be perfectly fine without you.”

His features shifted again, this time in alarm. “Why would you need to be without me? Aria?”

He already knew the truth. Whatever act this was that he was trying to play with me, I was done with it.

Stepping back into the house, I closed the door, slamming it right in Liam’s face.

Liam’s POV

I stared at the closed door in utter confusion.

What the hell just happened?

I’d talked to Aria only earlier today, and she’d seemed fine. Now, suddenly, I was getting the cold shoulder? Not just a cold shoulder – an arctic blizzard over my entire person.

What could have happened in the few hours since?

Could Joe have said something? But no… What could Joe have possibly said that would turn Aria on me like this?

There’s only one possible person who could shift things around this way. One person who hated the relationship between Aria and myself so much that she would relentlessly and brutally shift the truth to fit her own narrative.

One person who has been acting erratic lately.

Sophia.

What had Aria said? I needed to spend time with a different family? I needed to be there for my son?

This had Sophia’s fingerprints all over it.

With a curse, I turned back to my driveway. Cutting across the grass for time, I hopped the chain-link fence separating our properties, and rushed into my car.

Aria wasn’t likely to tell me the full extent of what was going on. I doubted she would even open the door to me again.

But Sophia?

I was tired of being shoved around, kept on the outs of what was actually going on with her and William.

It was past time I got answers.