Chapter 83

Aria’s POV

Even from where I am sitting in an adjoining room, I hear Sheila’s arrival and her announcement.

“Lucian’s… date?” I gasp.

Through the doorway, I watched as Lucian turned to look at me, our eyes locking across the room.

My already wounded heart urged him to deny Sheila’s claims. Instead, he just silently continued to look at me.

Outwardly, I tried to maintain a calm composure. Inwardly, my heart was breaking all over again.

Turning my gaze away from Lucian, I focused on Julia instead. Her frown had deepened considerable with Sheila’s arrival. Harold, unfortunately, had grown considerably paler.

“Why don’t I get you some water?” I said to him as I started to stand. In part, I’d hoped to hide in the kitchen to compose myself for a minute or two, before I would be forced to deal with Sheila and whatever fresh drama she hoped to unleash on me and this family gathering.

“No,” Harold said. “Don’t go. Stay here with us.” He stared at me with intent, so I sat back down. Maybe he was afraid I might just up and leave entirely.

I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. But, from the start, I had suspected Sheila would be here. For her to have missed at least some of the gathering had been a blessing in my book.

Yet, as much as I hated her presence and what it might mean for Harold’s health, I had also been banking on her dramatics as a distraction for me to sneak away and find my diary.

Though, I wasn’t too sure how well my odds would be. With how much Sheila and Lucian had removed my presence from the rest of the house, what were the chances they had left my personal bedroom entirely untouched?

I wasn’t holding my breath. But I still needed to find that diary before Lucian did, or it fell into the wrong hands, like Sheila’s. Sheila would only use the secrets in that diary against me. Lucian might be more discrete, but the humiliation would be immeasurable.

Now that we were at the end of our relationship, I would hate for him to know how I felt for him in the beginning, and all the struggles I’d overcome to try to stay with him, burying my past as Dr. A, giving up my old dreams to become the best homemaker I could be.

“I hope you can see now,” I told Julia and Harold. “Lucian has entirely moved on. Our divorce is what’s best for both of us.”

“He does not mean it,” Julia said. “He allows Sheila to get away with so many things, but he does not love her. You must see that, Aria.”

“I don’t know what I see,” I told her. “But I know what I know. Even if he doesn’t love her –” Which I doubted. “—He treats her with a softness and leniency that he has never shown to me. That alone gives me suspicion, and tells me I am unwelcome.”

“Not unwelcome,” Julia insisted. “Never unwelcome.”

“My pictures are gone. Have you noticed?” I pointed out. “A thousand memories. Gone, like they never happened at all. Even the things I bought to decorate the house with. Remember the vase that was there? Gone.”

“Perhaps they are only in storage,” Julia said, though she sounded less sure.

“I’m sorry, Julia. It’s clear to me. It’s time to move on.”

I had to. For the sake of my wounded heart and my child that deserved better than to watch her mother and father endure a marriage of forced politeness, with no real love.

I wanted someone who would look at me with passion – much like Lucian had that last night we’d slept together, when he sought me out on his own and made love to me in a way that dripped with desperate desire.

Somewhere, under Lucian’s calm façade, I was certain lurked the man who had held me with such intensity. The man who showed his emotions freely, and chased them rather than holding them at bay. For years, as a diligent wife, I had waited patiently for him to take notice of me and love me as a husband should.

For too long I waited. Sheila didn’t seem to have to wait long at all.

With disgust, I wondered if they had started trying for children yet. Would Julia and Harold eventually change their minds about Sheila, if she produced them grandchildren?

Instinctively, I placed a hand on my own belly. It had only grown slightly so far, not enough to be noticeable.

I wished my pregnancy could have been a happier occasion. Lucian and I could have held hands and shared our joy at a family gathering just like this one. He might have kissed me. Julia would have likely cried. Happiness might have filled Harold, instead of stress.

Yet, this was not the way of things. It wasn’t and couldn’t be.

Perhaps Sheila would bring them the joy that I could not.

Lucian’s POV

“Sheila, don’t do this,” I said, putting my best warning tone into my whispered voice.

Her smile was too wide, it seemed unnatural on her face, especially when combined with the crazed look in her eye. She was on the edge, I could tell, and I had no idea how to coax her back from it before she could make everything worse.

My intent, in keeping her away from this party, had been to stop something like this from happening. Yet, in her rage, here she was, and everything was worse.

First she had told the entire room that she was my date – which was entirely untrue. Aria had even heard, I could tell from the way she seemed to fold into herself there for a moment.

Yet that seemed like only the beginning of the bombshells she was preparing to drop.

“I didn’t want to make this a war,” Sheila said, eying me. “But you made things difficult, Lucian. You kept this party from me. And worse, you invited her. You think I don’t see her there. I do. I bet everyone here has gotten the wrong impression, thinking Aria is here with you. Am I so wrong for wanting to correct it?”

“No one is here with anyone,” I told her. “This is a family gathering.”

“Don’t bullshit me. I can see the way you look at her, even from here. I’m not blind, and neither is anyone else in the room.”

“Sheila, don’t make things worse.”

Her lip curled. “Then stop me, Lucian.” Turning, she shouted, “Everyone! I have an important announcement to make.”

I grabbed her arm. She looked at me fiercely.

“Stop,” I growled, compelling her with my alpha influence.

Yet, her rage was too strong. Looking at me, her words fell like poison from her lips. “As Aria and Lucian have mutually rejected each other, soon, Lucian will make me his wife instead.”

Suddenly the room went very quiet.

My stomach flipped like I might be sick.

She’d always been unpredictable, even infuriating at times, but I’d never thought she’d be this vindictive.

Perhaps I should have. She’d always been this way.

Even so, as the silence persisted, someone whispered.

“Has Sheila lost her mind?”