My brows shoot up.
She and Liam weren’t married?
Why didn’t she tell me that? I actually love the idea of being Aria’s first—and only—husband, but I don’t like being lied to.
It reminds me too much of Rachael and all the other people I should never have trusted.
“Listen, Daddy,” Aria begins, but Bob cuts her off before she can finish.
“You lied to your parents about something as sacred as a marriage. Do you have any idea how that would tear your mother apart?”
Aria sighs. “I felt like I had to, Dad. I wasn’t trying to—”
“You wanted to avoid the embarrassment of telling your parents you’d decided to have a baby out of wedlock,” Bob says. “You were raised better than that, Aria. When I think of all the times I—”
“It wasn’t a decision, Dad,” she says, raising her voice to be heard over her father’s rant. “Liam didn’t want to get married. What was I supposed to do?”
“So, you thought you could trap him into marriage with a baby, is that it?”
“Of course not! God, that’s terrible, Daddy, I would never do something like that,” Aria says, making me proud of her for standing up to the old wretch. “I wasn’t trying to trap, Liam. We didn’t even mean to get pregnant, it just happened. Sometimes babies just happen.”
Bob’s grunt makes it clear what he thinks of that. “Which is exactly why we need to get you away from Nash Geary before it ‘just happens’ again and we’re related by blood to that bunch of trailer trash.”
I almost lose it right then, I almost stand up and shout through the window for Bob to get his ass out of my house and never set foot on my property again, when Aria says—
“You know what you sound like when you talk that way, Dad?” Her words vibrate with anger. “You sound like a nasty, narrow-minded, old bigot. You sound like all the people who make this world a terrible, unfair, shitty place to live.”
“Aria Beth, don’t you—”
“And it breaks my heart,” she says, her voice trembling, “because I know you’re better than that. I know you’re a kind, loving man who is a wonderful father to me and a wonderful grandfather to my baby. But when you act like this… I don’t know who this person is, but I don’t agree with him. And I don’t like him, and I don’t want him hanging around, looking down on the people I love.”
I swallow hard, shame tightening the muscles around my neck. I shouldn’t be spying on Aria. I should have trusted her without needing to sneak around and eavesdrop.
“And that’s why I lied about being married to Liam,” she continues with a sniff that makes me think she’s either crying or trying hard not to. “I didn’t want you looking down on my baby just because I wasn’t married when she was born. There is nothing wrong with Felicity, and there’s nothing wrong with the Geary family, either.”
“I know there’s nothing wrong with Felicity,” Bob says. “Don’t cry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Well you did, Dad. You more than upset me. You made me afraid of what’s going to happen to my family.”
“What do you mean?” Bob asks carefully, sounding as if he’s beginning to realize what a pile he’s stepped in.
“I’m not going to divorce Nash. He’s my husband and I love him,” Aria says, sending another guilt dart cutting straight into my heart. “He’s a good man, and he’s done nothing to deserve the way you look down on him and his family.”
“Nothing?” Bob shouts. “Taking advantage of a fifteen-year-old girl isn’t nothing, it’s—”
“That was over a decade ago, Dad,” Aria shouts back. “It’s time to get the hell over it.”
“I will not get the hell over it! I’m your father. And if you’d been able to see the way you looked standing next to that boy that night…” His breath rushes out. “You were still a baby, sugar. You looked like you were twelve years old, and he was a full-grown man.”
“Dad, please. Nash was only three years older,” Aria says, obviously close to losing her patience. “It doesn’t matter what—”
“It damned well does matter!” Bob is so loud I’m not surprised when, a moment later, Felicity begins to cry out from her bedroom, calling for Mama in a worried voice.
“What the hell was he doing, wanting to sleep with a girl who still looked like a child?” Bob rages on, ignoring Aria’s request that he lower his voice before he scares the baby. “He was a child molester. That’s the only thing I can think of.”
“Daddy!” Aria scolds, the shock and outrage mixing in her tone mirroring the revulsion rising in my chest.
I stand, heading for the back door, no longer caring if Aria or Bob see me coming.