Chapter 105

Aria’s POV

Adoption?!

“Uh. No. No, that’s not why I’m here,” I said, stumbling over my words in shock. I hadn’t meant for this to be any kind of newsworthy event. I just wanted to support the orphanage that had taken care of me after my parents died.

“What other reason could you have for being here?” the reporter rudely asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, equally as rudely. If he wasn’t going to be decent to me, I had no cause to be decent to him in return. I waved down a taxi. “If you’ll excuse me.”

I’d hoped that would have been the end of it, but I should have known better. All it really took was for the reporter to go into the orphanage and ask the headmaster what I had been doing there. The headmaster wasn’t sworn to secrecy, and he probably didn’t see the harm in sharing that I’d donated such a large sum.

The news, apparently, spread like wildfire. When I woke up in the morning, my face was on the very front page of the news.

Ex-Luna Donates Wealth To Orphanage.

The pack was apparently shocked by my generosity. It seemed, from reading the article attached to my photo, that most of them had assumed, given my poor background and recent divorce, that I would be more frugal with my money.

They’d always liked making assumptions and generalizations about me in the past, so I should have known this too would have been no exception.

I chucked the newspaper aside, annoyed with it all suddenly. Maybe, because I’d been Luna in the past, I’d always had a certain level of patience for how much I was generally disliked in the pack. But now, halfway out the door as I was, I had no patience for it.

Cathy spotted the newspaper I had cast aside. Picking it up off the floor, she folded it nicer and set it aside.

“The pack seems to have come around on you,” she said.

“Too little too late,” I reminded her.

She hummed. “I heard people talking about this last night.” Cathy had worked late at the hospital. “When the news broke. No one could believe it at first, but then everyone immediately turned around. They couldn’t praise you enough.”

“I didn’t do any of this for praise,” I said. “I just wanted to put that money to good use, and the orphanage is always in need of money.”

I remembered my time there, when they’d barely had enough socks and clothes for all of us. We were always at the mercy of other’s generosity. Hopefully, these funds would give them the buffer they needed to stock up on new clothes for a while.

“That’s part of the appeal,” Cathy said. “People think you donated your entire savings to orphans. I’ve never seen someone’s reputation soar this sky-high this quickly. Not even Dr. A achieved this.”

“None of that matters,” I said. “I’m still leaving the pack soon, no matter how much public perception changes.”

Cathy shrugged. “I know. It’s just nice, is all. You should have been getting this praise from the start.”

But I didn’t. Everyone had despised me then, thinking me unworthy of marrying the king. It seemed a cruel joke for their perception to change about me now, after the divorce, when I was ready to leave the pack.

“I even heard one co-worker say… Well…” Cathy cleared her throat, stopping herself.

“What?” I asked, curious.

Cathy gave me a sad sort of smile. “She said, ‘Lucian should have never let her get away.’”

Lucian’s POV

Seeing Aria’s photo in the paper, Lucian leaves the house before Sheila woke up. It had taken him hours to calm her down the night before. She kept begging and crying for him to marry her as soon as possible.

Lucian told her again and again that he needed time. She didn’t want to hear it. She wanted reassurances.

In the end, Lucian still refused to give it, and Sheila, furious, ran to her room and barricaded herself behind the door.

I’d already given the maids the day off, not wanting them to have to deal with her today either. I knew, when I returned home today, I would be walking into sheer destruction.

Yet, at the moment, I didn’t care about that. In my office, I read the article on Aria and her generous donation again and again, pride and affection swelling within me.

It was clear, from her statements to the reporter on the scene that she hadn’t wanted anyone to know about the real reason she had been at the orphanage.

Such a large donation. Where had she gotten all that money? Did she truly clean out her bank account, like the reporter surmised?

But then how was she going to afford to move?

On one hand, I was exceedingly proud of her for her kindness and her generosity. She hadn’t needed anyone to know she was giving this gift. She just wanted to give it for the sake of giving, not to have anyone see.

Yet, for as proud of her as I was, I was also worried. The amount reported in the paper was sizeable. If not her entire savings, how much did it cut into her funds?

She might have been my ex-wife, but I still felt responsible for her. I wouldn’t let her be destitute while I continued to bask in the luxury assigned to my title.

I had left the door to my office open. From the hallway, I hear some of the employees talking.

“I always knew that Aria was a good one,” one woman said.

“Me too,” said another. “She treated everyone here so kindly. Lucian was truly a fool to let her get away.”

“Hopefully the next Luna is half as kind,” said the first woman.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” said the other. “There aren’t any other women in the world like Aria. I don’t know about Dr. A, but certainly not Sheila.”

I should go out there and scold them for speaking about Sheila that way, but I found I didn’t really want to move from my chair. After all, they weren’t lying.

Sheila was nothing like Aria. Not in patience, or kindness, or generosity. Not even in appearance, as Aria was naturally lovely.

I had made a terrible mistake letting her get away. I had been a fool to mistreat her. If I could, I would alter things in the past to ensure that I appreciated her as she wanted and deserved while it had still been within my rights to do so.

Now, I no longer had any rights, not even to be proud of her. She was my ex, through and through, and I needed to learn to embrace that.

Yet…

I still worried how she would survive without the money. Perhaps she was going to depend on Jasper? But no, that was too foolhardy. If things went south, as they were sure to do knowing Jasper, then she would be trapped, dependent on him in a way she should never have to be.

I knew she wanted to be independent, so I worried. And worried. And worried.

I worried so much that, even though I had promised myself I would give Aria space, I still picked up the phone and dialed her number.

The phone rang and rang and rang.

No answer.