In Love With Mr. Billionaire - Chapter 38: Chapter 38

A part of Aaron's face was hidden in the shadows of the closed window blinds and the dimly lit night lamp of the room. The eerie darkness around didn't seem to bother him. The little evening light escaping from the edges of the opaque blinds draped over the windows, translated the raging fury burning inside him, directly to his face.
"Aaron," I whispered. My heart was breaking to see him in that state, even more knowing I was the one who had caused it.
For a moment, I thought he didn't hear me. Then, I saw the first twitch in his eyes. Aaron raised his head to look at me, his eyes telling me everything that I needed to know. As he got up from the bed to walk towards me, I felt the warm tears run down my eyes. I didn't want to cry. It was me who had hurt him, yet I felt at a loss of control of everything—even my emotions.
"I'm sorry." There was nothing else I could say other than the truth. The truth, not being what I had done to him, but how much I despised myself for falling into the trap.
Aaron stared back at me, not saying a word. His face lacked any sort of emotions. His eyes were the ones that conveyed how angry he was. And for the first time, the anger in them was not on my behalf, but it was directed at me. For breaking his trust in me. For not listening to him when he had warned me of it. For doing the one thing that he would not be able to forgive me for.
I took my eyes away from his face, unable to look at him. I waited for him to say something, yell at me, scream at me, blame me for breaking his trust—anything other than simply stare at me. I'd deserve all of his anger, in every form.
I flinched and squeezed my eyes shut when I saw him raise his hand. Instead of the impact that I was expecting, his fingers touched the bruised portion of my cheek. It hurt, though his touch was as soft as that of a feather.
"Who did this?" Aaron asked, his voice was deadly calm. When I opened my eyes to look at him, so was his face: not a hint of emotion.
The calm in his demeanor scared me. I had made a mistake by going to James' place despite Aaron's attempts to convince me otherwise. Though the signature had opened the path for me to find my mother, I had broken Aaron's trust in me. He would never be able to trust me like the way he used to.
In the process of trying to bring the stolen part of my past back into my life, I had sacrificed my wonderful future with the man I loved.
"I'm sorry, Aaron. I'm so sorry for not listening to you. I shouldn't have gone there," I said between uncontrollable sobs. He kept staring at my swollen cheek and I took that time to explain as much as I could. I didn't want him to hate me, but if he did, I was going to understand. I had made a horrible mistake. But before that I wanted him to know the whole truth. I wanted him to know that even though it was my mistake, my intention was never to betray him.
"I was about to leave the moment I came to know he called me there to ask me for your money. I really was. But then he offered me my mother's address for four hundred thousand dollars. I could not see anything beyond that address that would lead me to my mother. When I signed the e-check, I checked the amount. I don't know how it got converted to a million. I just- I just wanted to have that address," my voice was heavy, choked with emotions, breaking at several points.
Aaron frowned, his thumb wiping the tears off my face. "Your mother's address? Isn't she dead?"
I shook my head, relieved that he was talking.
After years and years of being stuck in a house where screaming and shouting was a regular activity, where a single mistake would lead to physical pain, I had never realized until now how much more disturbing silence was.
"James told everyone that she died. The ones who were close to my mother, he made them believe that she left him one day and never came back. Everyone believed him, but that's not the truth. He-" I swallowed hard, remembering that day once again. After all this time, speaking about it was still making me choke up.
"He never loved her. He used to beat her almost everyday. When he found Juliea and the wealth associated with her, he dragged my mom out of his house. He threatened her not to come back. I was his guarantee token for keeping her away. That was the last time I saw her. Dylan couldn't find her. You know the work he does. If he can't find her, no one else can. So, when he offered me her address in return for the money, I took it. I'm sorry for doing this to you. I never knew he was going to manipulate the amount. I'm sorry, Aaron. I don't care about your money. I don't want it. I'm not like them," I was whispering by the end of it, unable to speak higher.
"I'm sorry for breaking your trust. You have all the right to be angry with me. But please believe me, Aaron. I was not betraying you. I can never do that to you. I'm not-" No more words came out of my throat as the emotions took over.
The tears were blurring my vision. I could not see his face, which was a blessing because seeing the hurt in them would be worse than the preceding anger.
I dropped my eyes to the ground. I wasn't sobbing but unending drops of tears slid down my cheeks to the ground in a continuous motion. That was when I felt a pair of hands wrap around me.
For an instant, I was too surprised to react. There were a lot of outcomes that had run through my mind. A lot of possible ways that I had expected Aaron to react. This one was nowhere close to the list. Aaron was hugging me. Even after everything, he was still hugging me.
I brought my hands up to wrap them around him, just as he was. Unlike his embrace, holding me tight in his arms, mine had no strength in it.
"I know how you feel. He did the same with my father. You're not them, Caroline. I know you're not like them," Aaron whispered in my hair. He was gently caressing my hair as he spoke, and that was my breaking point. I cried my heart out as the fear of being misunderstood, the fear of losing him, evaporated in thin air and the relief paired with the knowledge of his arms around me settled in.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled between sobs.
Aaron picked me up in his arms and carried me to the couch, sitting down himself then holding me on his lap.
"I never told you why I hate James. I should have told you this a long time back," Aaron said. I wiped my tears by the back of my hand and looked at him. The anger was gone, but his face was hard.
"My father and I never had a normal relationship, work was always a priority for him. Mom was the medium between us. She was the one who bound us together. After her accident, we both drifted apart. He stopped working like he used to, stopped attending events, kind of just locked himself inside his house. I felt he was going into depression, but I could not do anything to help him. We never had that kind of relationship and I wasn't the sanest person at that time to support him. I was in pain too. So when James showed up and extended a helping hand, becoming my father's confidant, helping him cope with the loss, I never cared to dig deeper about him. I had started looking after the company and that was what kept me sane during that phase. It wasn't until later that I found out James was using my father for money. By the time I realized what he was planning to do, my father was already the biggest investor in James' company. My company's name was associated with his and that was what gave him the boost in the business world. Take away deceit and manipulation and James has no skill to get to where he is. There is not a single penny that he has earned by being honest. He is a horrible man and I know he was no better to you, was he?" Aaron said, looking into my eyes.
His words reminded me of the short conversation I had had with Dylan about James. 'He is a shit businessman, Caro,' he had said. I had laughed at it then, not knowing he was simply stating the truth.
The newly found, pure, unempathetic hatred that I felt for James grew with knowing what he had done to Aaron and his father. How can someone find a person at their weakest point and still think of taking advantage of their situation? But wasn't that what my father's biggest skill was?
I rested my head on Aaron's chest and wrapped my hands around his muscular frame. For a moment I hesitated, trying to hold back the words, but I needed to get it all off my chest.
And that's what I did.
I told him everything, every little detail of my past that I've been too scared to speak until now. I told him how I used to be locked in my room as a precautionary measure to not be at the receiving end of my drunk father's anger. I told him what he did with my mother after finding a woman with wealth. I told him how I used to suffer in that abusive household. How I was forced to break contact with the few people who genuinely cared about me. That when Dylan started his company to fight cyber risks and provide security to others who needed it, it was seen as a threat to the unethical means used by him to run his own company. I told him how I was not allowed to have an opinion. How I was always at a fault. And how every attempt of getting away from him would lead to a greater punishment than the last one.
"When I met you, I didn't want to be anywhere near you because I knew James wanted to set you up with Lahaina. I tried to push you away, I tried to not have feelings for you because they wanted me to do that. I was never allowed to make my own decisions, have my own choices. He wanted you to fall for Lahaina's charms so that she could be a medium to get his hands on your wealth. When that didn't work, he asked me to do that for him. I refused. But today-" I closed my eyes with shame. "That's exactly what I did today."
Aaron rubbed my back, hugging me even tighter. "How can you not be angry with me? How can you not even after everything I did today?" I looked up at him.
Instead of looking back at me, Aaron was staring into the distance. His jaw muscles tensed, his eyes sharp. It was like within a moment someone had sucked all the warmth out of his body, leaving the freezing shell behind.
Aaron made me sit on the couch beside him and looked away. Was he avoiding eye contact with me? But why?
"Because I just realized I did the same with you," Aaron said, his voice having dropped to an unheard low. "Maybe what I did with you was worse."
"What are you talking about?" I asked. He had never been anything but the best to me.
Aaron got up from the couch and took a few steps away as if he needed that space to say whatever he was going to say to me. His fingers found their way back to his already messy hair. He was still avoiding my eyes.
"You don't want me to think that you married me for my money? I believe you, Caroline. I never doubted you. When Carter informed me about the transaction, I was furious. I was angry at you but not for betraying me, for believing James. I know how manipulative he can get. I've had that experience first hand. I knew there was going to be a reason, and there was. You miss your mother and you did it for her. You were never with me for my money, Caroline. It was me who married you to keep my company," he blurted out.
I waited for him to say more because what I was hearing didn't make any sense. How was his company related to me?
With a deep sigh, Aaron continued. "James manipulated my father to create a contract that if I don't marry Lahaina, I was going to lose half of my company to him. I knew I had to sign it to keep my company. That was why I was with her at the charity event."
Aaron turned to walk back to me. He knelt to the ground and took my hands in his, his face was now in a state of emotional frenzy.
"I used to like you a lot by that time, Caroline. I have liked you since the first time we met. But we were still getting to know each other, marriage was never on my mind. That's when my father told me about the contract. I was not going to allow James to control me like he was controlling my father. I knew it was never going to be Lahaina. I got my assistant to alter the names in it and signed it on the night of the charity event. For a while I thought James was going to tell you all about it. But when I found out you didn't know about it, I preferred to keep it that way. I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't want you to know the truth. I didn't want you to pull back from the contract. I liked you Caroline, have no doubt in that, but I was trying to save my company," he said, looking straight into my eyes.
"You chose the person whom you love over money, I prioritized my company over you," Aaron said with unfiltered honesty.
I took a sharp intake of breath and pulled my hands away from his hold. I searched his face for any hints that he was only messing with me. Was he only doing this because I had hurt him earlier? But what I saw reflected in those eyes were pain and hurt and regret. And none of them were caused by me.
Aaron looked down at his hands when I pulled back mine. "I forgive you for what you did today, Caroline. It was a mistake. You had the best of intentions. What I did, on the other hand, was a conscious decision. And I hope you will forgive me too." He raised from his spot, his eyes fixed on me. For a brief moment he simply stood there, then he turned around and walked out of the room, leaving me alone in the eerie gloom of the night lamp.
I sat there on the couch, numb, not knowing what I was supposed to do? How was I supposed to react to finding out that my marriage was a contract? James had tried to force me to say yes to Aaron after he had proposed. I, being kept far from the truth, had thought it to be my own choice. What was I supposed to do on finding out it was never my choice? That Aaron had already made a deal with my father? How was I supposed to react to finding out that the one relationship that I had thought to be above all the materialistic things in the world, was in itself a business deal?
I closed my eyes and rested my head on the arm of the couch. With all the stress of facing my father, the anxiety during the whole meeting, and everything that had followed it, was starting to take a toll on me. The ache around my temple was unbearable. Still, it was nothing compared to what I was feeling inside my chest.
For only God knows how long I sat in the same position, until I realized I needed to do something about it. Sitting and sulking about what had happened was only making it worse in my head. I needed some clarity, some objectivity, to accept everything that had happened within the last few hours. The only way to do that was battle one thing at a time.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Carter's number. Aaron had saved it in my phone for emergency purposes and this sure as hell was one.
"Good evening, Mrs Woodwords. How may I help you?" Carter's polite voice answered the phone on the first ring.
"There was a transaction that I needed to talk to you about," I told him. "A million dollars were transferred from my account to James Marshall's."
"Yes. It was a huge amount so I myself informed Mr Woodwords about it," Carter confirmed. "Mr Woodwords told me not to do anything about it. Is there a problem you need my help with?"
"The e-check that I signed was for four hundred thousand dollars. A million was not even talked about let alone being legally signed. I believe James manipulated the amount with the banker named Judy who was with them. Can you please do something about the transaction? Is there a way to get the money back?" I asked with a little hope.
"If it's proven that the transaction was illegal, then it will be fairly easy to get it all back. I'll look into the matter. Please keep your phone nearby, I might need your help with the details," Carter said before he ended the call to work on it.
I put the phone on the table and closed my eyes. Where had Aaron gone? I was supposed to be angry at him for lying to me all this while, for starting our relationship with a secret, but no matter how much I tried, I was not angry at him.
The regret was clear in his eyes. He said he married me to save his company, but what about all the time he spent with me. All those moments where he made me feel special and loved.
After years of living in a house where I was blamed for the mistakes I never made, Aaron had given me a chance to explain myself when I actually did make the biggest mistake of my life. It was surreal in itself. But that was not it. Aaron had held me close, had talked to me, related to me, and when I thought he was going to be convinced that I had betrayed him, he had still taken my side.
That had to count for something. Every happy moment that I spent with him had to count for something.
The news about the contract was a heavy weight on my heart, but what about his feelings for me? Those can't be faked, right?