All Chapters of Lovely Little Liar : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

ARIANNA POVThe door closed and I stood there in the middle of the room with his words still settling and the absence of him already filling the space he had left, and I tried to work out what had just happened because it was not what I had prepared myself for.I had spent the night building for an argument, rehearsing the things I would say when he accused me of last night, of using the kiss as leverage. I had been ready for cold anger, for him to make me feel every inch of what I had done to him and then refuse to budge.Instead he had sat on the edge of the bed and told me he had prepared a place for us.Instead he had said you were right.I had not heard him say that before. Not once, in all the months we were together, not in any of the weeks since he found me. Nikolai Morozov did not say you were right. He reconsidered, he redirected, he made you feel heard while arriving at his own conclusion, but he did not say those words. And he had said them this morning, quietly, and then

NIKOLAI POV The city lights blurred past the windshield, I drove and didn't think. Or I tried not to think. The rain had started somewhere around the third intersection, a light fall that turned the road reflective and made everything look like it was happening in two places at once. I thought about the mansion, her face when I handed her the keys. Had I made a mistake moving her?No. The cabin was never sustainable and I had known that. The new place was better for Noah, better for her and I was not going to second-guess a decision I had made with full information.My phone rang, I checked the caller, and it was my father. I answered."Dinner is prepared. We've been waiting.""I'll be there shortly." I ended the call and drove.The gates of the Volkov mansion opened as I pulled in. The rain had thickened slightly and I got damp between the car and the door. The bodyguards bowed. I walked through them, into the mansion and toward the dining room.Arande saw me before I fully entere

NIKOLAI POVThe rain was heavy by the time I reached the private residence.I drove through it without the radio, without anything, the city moving past the windows in smears of orange and white. My father's voice was still in my head.How dare he talk about my mother like that? I parked, went inside and didn't turn on the main lights. The room at the back of the house had a drinks cabinet and a window that looked onto nothing. I stood there with a glass in my hand, looked at the nothing and let the memory come.THIRTY YEARS EARLIER**I was five years old.What I remember first is always the sound of voices through a door. My father’s voice was low. My mother’s asking something, in a low tone that think the children can’t hear.I got out of bed anyway.The corridor was dark, but I knew every step of it. I walked past the paintings I couldn’t see and the table with the vase my mother always straightened when she walked by. I stopped outside their door and looked through the gap.There

ARIANNA POVThe first thing I noticed was how quiet everywhere was.I lay still for a moment and let myself feel it, this texture of a morning that didn't require me to immediately brace for something.Noah was beside me, still asleep, his face completely loose.I brushed the hair from his forehead and watched him for a while, the rise and fall of him, the small sounds he made in sleep. He was safe. He was here. He was breathing. For those few minutes before the day required anything of either of us, that was the entirety of what mattered.The knock was gentle.I eased out of bed without waking him and went to the door. The maid outside smiled warmly and told me breakfast was ready, that Noah's lunch was packed, that the driver Mr. Volkov had assigned was already waiting in the compound.I thanked her, closed the door and stood for a moment looking at my son sleeping in a room that was not a cabin and not a hiding place and not a lie.Then I went to wake him up.Noah's first question

NIKOLAI POVI had expected it.That was the part that was somehow worse than any of the rest of it — that I had known, somewhere between the guard's report and the drive over, that she would do exactly this. I had sat in the back of my car reviewing documents and told myself that maybe this time she would make a different choice.She had not made a different choice.The call from the driver had come in while I was still twenty minutes from the office. He had a panicked voice, with too many apologies. I had not let him finish."How long ago."“Less than ten minutes.” He had said.I had lowered the phone, looked at the city going past the window and felt the anger settle in.I had hoped she would prove me wrong.I had ordered Petrov before the car had fully stopped moving. The instructions were simple: every vehicle leaving the school district, every nearby road, find the black jeep. The surveillance had done the rest. Seven minutes. That was all it had taken.The board meeting could wa