A Joke, A Lifelong Regret Chapter 05
Before I’d even finished speaking, the smile on Damian’s face cracked open and let all the ugliness underneath spill out.
His gaze swept the two detectives, then landed on the camera in the journalist’s hand.
“Elena. What is this?”
He forced the panic back behind his eyes and gave me the soft, patient look that used to make me forgive everything.
“What bigamy? You’re my only wife. Did Aria say something to you again?”
He stepped toward me and tried to take my hand. “Elena, can’t you feel how much I love you?”
Even now. Even here. He was still trying to lie his way out.
The future Damian’s voice went sharp in my ear, like an alarm going off.
[What the hell is Elena Hart doing?! What do we do now? What about my Aria?]
“Enough!”
Damian spun toward the empty air and snarled, “Shut up!”
He ripped the comm device out of his own ear and smashed it on the floor.
The entire room went dead quiet.
Every actor he’d paid to be there froze. The fake clerk stood there holding a stack of documents, his face drained of color. The fake couple in the waiting chairs went rigid, not sure whether to keep performing.
Aria came rushing in from the hallway.
She saw the tension between Damian and me, and something she couldn’t suppress flashed across her face. A flicker of excitement.
She reached for my arm, moving to stand beside me the way she always had.
“Elena, did you finally come to your senses? You’re right not to go through with this. I’ll find you someone a hundred times better than Damian Vale. A thousand times better.”
Her palm was warm against my skin.
Her face held a smile I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Like she was still the friend who’d always gone to bat for me. The one who always put herself between me and whatever was coming.
I raised my hand.
And I hit her with everything I had.
The crack of the slap rang out across the room.
Aria’s head snapped sideways. A thread of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth.
Damian moved almost before she’d finished reacting. Instinct. He stepped forward and pulled Aria behind him.
“Elena, how could you do that? She’s been on your side this whole time!”
I ignored the screaming in my earpiece. I kept my eyes on Aria.
“You said you’d find me someone better than Damian.”
“So what exactly have you been doing?”
“Did you climb into his bed because you thought he was worth having? Or because you thought he was garbage and wanted your cut?”
“Aria Bellamy. Is this what you call looking out for me?”
Once the lies come apart, all you’re left with is the wreckage.
Aria pressed the back of her hand to the blood at her mouth. Her eyes were red and swollen.
“You know. Good.”
Her smile was bitter.
“At first I just wanted to prove he wasn’t good enough for you. Then I realized the way he looks at me is nothing like the way he looks at you.”
I held her gaze, cold. “So you believed him?”
Aria’s tears fell. “Elena, I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Never wanted to?”
I didn’t let her finish.
“You secretly married my fiancé. You’re carrying his child. You watched him build a fake government office to run a con on me. And you were planning to hand me your baby and let me feel grateful for the charity.”
Aria went bloodless.
Damian’s jaw tightened.
In that moment, he finally understood.,What I knew went a lot deeper than anything he’d imagined/