4

Chapter 4

Julian Cross

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As I stood there looking at her, I couldn’t help but wonder how we got to this point. Everything was perfect between us. I loved her genuinely and I thought she felt the same way about me but I was wrong.

Aria was talking like she was innocent.

Of course, she would paint herself as the perfect wife with no flaws.

If I didn’t know her too well, I would have fallen for lies. But I could finally see through her.

“Mistake? Was getting married to me a mistake?” she asked, her voice almost breaking.

God. She was such a good actress.

“Yes, Aria. It was a mistake.”

I was tired of telling her to sign the divorce papers. I was sick of repeating myself.

Why wouldn’t she just listen to me and sign it, so we would go our separate ways and she would be free to do whatever the hell she wanted to do with her life.

“Wow,” she muttered under her breath. “Wow.”

I didn’t say anything.

I just took off my shirt and placed it inside the laundry basket. I had a long night and I wanted to sleep, but Aria was just making things worse for me.

“You know what? You’re a weak man,” she spat at me. “You don’t have the courage to tell me that you’re leaving because of your ex. You want to do something but you’re not even brave enough to do it well.”

I held back a chuckle.

Even if I wanted to leave my wife because of someone else, the last person I would leave for was my ex-girlfriend, Angel.

Aria was just making assumptions, and even though I tried to tell her that it wasn’t because of Angel, she wouldn’t believe it.

Well, I already knew why she was emphasizing it. It was because she was also guilty of the crime, and she wanted me to be a bad person just like her.

“I don’t love you anymore, Aria. And why can’t you accept that’s the real reason why I’ve decided to end our marriage?”

Those words were hard to say, but I forced them out of my throat either way because I couldn’t tell her the real reason why I wanted a divorce.

I still loved Aria dearly, and this decision was the most difficult decision I’d had to make in my entire life.

My chest hurt when I saw the broken look on her face, and the tears that she forced to hold back.

But everything was her fault and she needed to face the consequences of her actions.

“Do you mean what you just said right now?” she asked after staring at me for a long moment.

“I said it earlier too, and you heard me. So yes, I mean every single word.”

I knew that Aria wouldn’t just accept the divorce papers, so I had to think of something to say to her that would make her give up on me.

She placed her hand over her mouth, and she paced around the room for a few seconds.

“How long has she been around?” she finally continued, staring at me with her blazing eyes.

“Who?”

“Angel.”

I swallowed hard. “I told you not to bring her up. Angel has nothing to do with this.”

She gave me a dirty stare. “Angel has everything to do with this. Your pictures are all over the Internet.”

Those pictures didn’t mean anything.

I only linked up with Angel because of a work meeting. And she wasn’t even going to stay in New York for long.

And as for the pictures, I did them on purpose, just so Aria would see them and hurt the same way I was hurting.

“I don’t know what you want me to say anymore,” I whispered as I sat on the bed. “Just sign the divorce papers, so both of us can move on.”

I didn’t even understand why the same person who ruined our marriage in the first place was acting like it meant everything to her.

She was fully aware of what she did, but probably had no idea I had found out about it.

All the times she asked me to tell her the real reason why I wanted to end things, I was tempted to say it. But it was too humiliating to admit.

I’d been living with the pain for about a month. I thought I could just ignore it and let what she did slide, but the more I pretended like everything was okay, the angrier I got.

The only solution was to distance myself from her. And when I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to talk to my lawyer about getting a divorce.

At least, that way we wouldn’t be together and she wouldn’t have to owe me any loyalty.

Aria didn’t say anything else for a few more minutes. I wondered what was going through her mind.

Maybe she would finally do the math and figure out the reason why I wanted to end things on her own.

But one thing I knew for sure was that I wasn’t going to talk about what she did with her. It would only make me feel worse because I would have to relive those moments and picture everything again.

I didn’t want to go through it for the second time.

“Is this really what you want?” Aria’s voice snapped me out of my reverie. “You want to throw everything down the drain?”

I let out a wistful sigh.

She was the one who ruined everything.

“Stop acting like you’re a saint!” The words left my mouth before I knew it. “Stop behaving like you didn’t ruin this marriage.”

The last straw for me was when she disregarded our anniversary. That was when I knew that she actually didn’t love me anymore.

And that was when I knew that our marriage was done.

Aria looked at me in shock. “What are you talking about? You know I’ll never do anything to put our marriage in jeopardy.”

My jaw clenched.

Was she really looking me in the eyes and lying to me?