Betrayed By My Fiancé, I Married His Most Powerful Enemy

Chapter 9: My Ex is a Clown

Five minutes after the live ended my phone buzzed. Liam’s name on the screen. I picked up and he asked me to come to his office. His voice had shifted back into the warm register he used when he wanted something and thought charm was the fastest route to it.

I smoothed my blouse, checked my expression in the dark screen of my phone and walked down the corridor.

His office door was already open. He was standing by the window with his hands in his pockets.

"You did well today," he said, not sparing me a glance.

"Thank you," I said simply.

"I made a reservation." He said, turning to me with a smile on his face. "Chez Margaux. Your favorite."

I kept my face completely still. Chez Margaux was not my favorite. It had never been my favorite. It was Amara’s favorite. The one she had dragged us both to for her birthday five years running, the one where she always ordered the duck confit and made Liam taste it off her fork while I pretended not to notice. I had smiled through every single dinner there and eaten food I found perfectly acceptable and never once said a word about it because that was what I did. I smiled. I adjusted. I made room.

He did not even know the difference.

I brushed it off and looked at him evenly. "I just want to go home, Liam. It has been a long day, I am so tired."

"Just one more thing," he said, and his voice shifted into something more careful.

"Before you go." He gestured toward the chair across from his desk and sat down himself, leaning back with the particular posture of a man delivering a verdict he had already decided on. "Valerie, your image has hit the bottom. Today helped but it was not enough. I have set up some public appearances to help you rebuild." He paused. "And since Amara is still recovering, I think it would be good for you to go visit her. Bring some things. Take care of her for the cameras. Sympathy votes will help you both."

I looked at his face and thought about how long I had been looking at it without actually seeing it. The casual calculation behind everything he said to me. The way he framed every request as something that would benefit me while arranging it entirely for his own purposes and I realized Caspian was right about one thing, Liam was manipulative and I wondered what else my new husband knows about my ex boyfriend.

Amara was in that hospital bed and she had clearly planned something. Liam had agreed to it. And now he was asking me to walk directly into it with a smile and a fruit basket and a grateful expression.

"And it will be broadcast live for a few minutes," he added, almost as an afterthought.

I let a beat of silence pass. Then I let my eyes fill with tears. I had been doing it all afternoon and my body had gotten very efficient at it.

"Liam," I said quietly. "Have I not done enough today?"

He blinked. "Valerie —"

"I sat in front of a hundred and sixty thousand people and took the blame for everything. Everything Liam." My voice broke precisely where I needed it to. "I did not defend myself. I did not say a single word about what I have actually been through. I just stood there and I absorbed all of it because you asked me to." I pressed my fingers against my eyes and shook my head. "And now you want me to go to that hospital and smile for cameras next to the woman who —" I stopped. Swallowed. Let him fill in the rest himself. "Is this what it is going to be like? Every time I think I have done enough, there is one more thing?"

He said nothing. The guilt was moving across his face in slow uncomfortable waves. He reached for me and I turned my head away just slightly, just enough.

"Why do you want to humiliate me more?" I whispered.

"That is not what this is," he said, but his voice had lost its authority completely. He did not insist on the dinner reservation. He did not push back on anything I had said. He just sat there looking like a man who had gotten exactly what he wanted and somehow still managed to feel bad about it.

I noticed that. The reservation he had dropped without a fight. The way he let me cry without pressing harder. Liam always pressed harder when he knew he was right. The fact that he was not pressing told me everything about what was waiting for me at that hospital.

"Will it help the company?" I whispered

" Yes it will."

I took a slow breath. Lifted my chin. "I will go," I said.

He blinked. "You are willing?"

"I have been meaning to visit her since the injury," I said wiping the tears from my eyes. "This is the perfect opportunity."

He relaxed so visibly I nearly laughed. He had genuinely expected me to refuse. Amara had clearly expected defiance or tears or a door slammed on the way out. She got none of those things. She got me agreeing pleasantly and reaching for my bag.

I was escorted through the reporters still massed outside the building, got into the car that had been arranged and settled back into the seat. The moment the door closed I pulled out my phone.

I texted Caspian: "Hey New Husband, If you see anything online in a few minutes please do not be alarmed. I have a plan. Can someone pick me up from St Luke’s Hospital later? I do not know where our new home is yet and I would like to start my wifely duties"

Three minutes passed. Then his reply came through

"Good girl. Be cautious and stay safe. I will pick you up myself."

I pressed my lips together very hard to keep from smiling at my phone in the back of a car being driven to a hospital where my fiancé’s pregnant mistress was apparently waiting to humiliate me on a live stream.

I sent a quick follow up to Nicole: "Liam has arranged for me to visit Amara at the hospital. I am almost there. Are you ready?"

Her reply was immediate. "Anyone with half a brain could see the mistress is trying to humiliate you. I have been ready for days. We have pictures and a video."

"Release the pictures," I typed back. "Hold the video. I want to give them some time to fight first. When they are at their absolute worst, drop it. I want Amara to fall from her highest point."

Nicole took a moment to respond and when she did her voice had shifted into something quieter and more real. "Valerie. Even with everything being thrown at you today, there is a small group out there still standing in your corner. Something good is coming out of this."

"Be careful Nicole,I will try my best to be smart on my end." I wrote back.

I deleted the entire conversation thread, set my phone face down on my knee and looked out the window at the city moving past outside.

The corner of my mouth tilted upward. Just slightly. Just enough.

St Luke’s Hospital appeared at the end of the block.

I picked up my bag and got ready.