He cups my face and drops his forehead to mine. “I won’t let you suffer,” he tells me. “Being with me won’t come at a price, I promise. It might be hard to believe right now, but trust me when I tell you that everything is going to be okay.”
I nod. “I do,” I tell him. “I do trust you.”
“Then let me take you home.”
I nod, and he grins at me with such relief in his eyes that my heart skips a beat. I always wanted my own fairytale happily ever after, but maybe that doesn’t exist. Maybe true love is just two imperfect people choosing each other despite the obstacles they’ll face together, and deciding that it’s worth it.
Because it is.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Ares
My heart feels heavy as I walk into the house I arranged for Hannah. I wish it hadn’t come to this, because despite the rift between them, I know Raven still loves Hannah. I was I didn’t stand at the center of their fallout. All I want to bring my wife is happiness, not torment. I know Raven. I know she’s still hoping that Hannah will change, but she won’t.
“Ares,” she says, smiling. That intimate and smug smile of hers irritates me. I may have been able to dispel many of the rumors she circulated, but I wasn’t able to get rid of them entirely.
“Congratulations,” I tell her. “The doctor told me you’re in the clear, and the baby is doing well. Looks like a change of scenery is exactly what you needed.”
She nods. “Yeah. I love this place. It’s much better than your place. We’ll have to renovate that. It isn’t child-friendly, and I hate the interior.”
I nod as I sit down on the sofa, opposite her. “Yeah, we’re not doing that. Raven put a lot of love into our home, and it’s staying exactly the way it is.”
She raises her brows. “I won’t let you see our daughter if the environment you’re taking her to isn’t safe for her. I already have reservations about leaving her around Raven. What if she stages some kind of accident and hurts our baby?”
I glance down at her stomach. She’s started to show now, but despite being nearly six months along, it’s barely noticeable.
“Is she? Is she mine? I’ve asked you this before, but I need the truth, Hannah.”
She hesitates for a moment before pasting on a bright smile. “Of course she is. Is this Raven again? Did you speak to her recently?”
I lean back and stare at her. “Keep my wife’s name out of your filthy mouth,” I say, smiling. “And explain this to me.”
I hand her a folder and watch her closely as she goes through it. “It’s a prenatal paternity test. Some of those blood tests the doctor did? Yeah, they weren’t all regular tests. We conducted a fetal cell analysis, comparing the genetic profile of the fetal cells in your bloodstream to mine. It wasn’t a match. I’m not the father.” I run a hand through my hair. “But then again, you already knew that, didn’t you?”
I look away, my heart breaking for Raven. I’ve put her through so much, and what for? I know that she’s always been blinded to Hannah’s flaws, but I wasn’t. I fucking failed her.
“Sincerely apologize to Raven, and I’ll let you get away with everything you put her through if she asks me to.”
Hannah laughs. “Why would I do that? I haven’t done anything to her. She’s the one who decided to run off because she couldn’t take the media’s pressure. I would never have done that to you. I’d have weathered any storm with you.”
I shake my head at her. “She was willing to help me raise a child that isn’t hers, Hannah. Her leaving had nothing to do with me — it had everything to do with you. I would never ask my wife to settle for less than she deserves, but this wasn’t about her not wanting to weather storms with me. It was about her refusing to be torn down by her own sister for the rest of her life. It was her taking away the power you thought you had over her, and taking some time to think about what her boundaries are. I, for one, respect the hell out of her for being able to do what so many of us won’t. I know I stuck around for far longer than I ever should have just because I thought it was the right thing to do, haven’t you?”
She looks away and shakes her head. “I truly do love you, Ares.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “Hannah, you don’t love anyone but yourself. And I? I don’t think I ever truly loved you at all either.”
I pause to look at her for a moment, wishing things could’ve turned out differently, even if only for Raven’s sake. “If you won’t apologize to Raven, then don’t blame me for the consequences.”
She crosses her arms and smirks at me. “I won’t,” she says, one brow raised. She truly thinks she’s got the upper hand, doesn’t she? I suppose she forgot who I am throughout the years. I allowed her to, because the version of myself that I showed her was never the real me.
“Fine,” I tell her as I grab my phone, giving my team the okay to publish the materials we prepared. I smirk as her phone starts to buzz. Within seconds, every large media outlet starts to cover the rise of her career, and every single person she slept with on the way to the top. It took me a couple of days to prepare it all, but it was well worth it.
“Do you truly believe I didn’t know about the affairs? The men you’d cheat with on set?” I chuckle. “I knew. I just didn’t give a fuck.”
I tip my head toward her phone. “I hope you enjoy the experience you gave your sister. Perhaps now, for once, you might understand what you put her through.”
I turn to walk away. “Oh, and Hannah? You will never work in the entertainment industry again. Anyone who so much as attempts to hire you is going to pay the price. I want you out of my wife’s sight. I don’t want her faced with even one single reminder of everything you put her through. You can disappear quietly, or I can make it happen forcibly. For the sake of the child you’re carrying, I suggest you think before you act.”
“Ares!” she shouts, but I ignore her pleas and walk away from her, for the very last time.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Raven
I walk through the home Ares and I built, my heart heavy. There’s no trace of Hannah left — our cleaners ensured it. Yet I can still feel her here. I wonder if the scars she left will ever fade.
I’m trembling as I sit down on the sofa, still reeling from the news that was released about her. Countless affairs, and irrefutable proof that the child she’s carrying is not Ares’s. Climbing her way to the top like that… I never would have expected that. I can’t wrap my mind around it. It’s like I never really knew her at all, and it makes me feel even worse for sacrificing so much for her.
I feel like an idiot, and I’m ashamed of my subservience. I catered to her all our lives, feeling guilty for having had the childhood she’s always wanted, when it was obvious that she lacked for nothing.
She’s always had this way of making me feel inferior, and if not for Ares, I never would’ve been able to untangle myself from her web. I don’t even dare think about what would have happened if she hadn’t walked away from her engagement. Ares and I would both still be unhappy, secretly pining after each other. I felt so guilty for wanting him, when it’s her that should’ve felt remorse for the way she manipulated us both.