Liam’s POV“We signed a contract. That’s legally binding, right? Is there no way I can get out of this by some sort of legal means,” Emma turned to face me and asked, tears welling in her eyes.Fuck. I hate seeing her cry.Unfortunately, there was no way out.The contract she signed had a segment in it that talked about how the initial agreement was subject to change if any unforeseen circumstances came up. I don’t know if she read over that part or not, but she signed the contract regardless, so she’s stuck.My jaw, which had been clenched for a good part of the time during their whole conversation, relaxed as I saw the look on Emma’s face. I had had some anger towards her because of the comment she made before she and I stepped into the dining room but that all disappeared within seconds as I looked into her now tear-filled eyes.It broke my heart to do so, but I shook my head in response to her question to signify that there was indeed no way out for her.“No,” she whispered, foll
Emma’s POV“Oh my God,” I repeated, but slower this time as the realization really sunk in me.He planned this.Mr. Henderson planned this.The bastard!“Emma, you were not supposed to hear that,” Mr. Henderson spoke up as he cleared his throat and recovered from the shock of hearing my voice the first time. “Eavesdropping is rude”.“It’s not eavesdropping if I was just about entering the room, is it?” I snapped back. “My goodness,” I scoffed as I took long strides toward where I was previously sitting at the dining table.One thing and one thing only was on my mind.I needed to get the hell out of this house. “I’m leaving,” I said, shortly, as I picked up my purse and my phone from the table.I contemplated picking up the gift Maria had presented me with because I didn’t see the need to have it anymore, but I eventually decided to take it along with me.“This conversation is not over”, Mr. Henderson stated.“As far as I’m concerned, it is,” I paused to answer him. “You want me to ha
Emma’s POVAs soon as those words left my mouth, the front door opened. It startled us a bit, so we both sat up and looked over to see who had just walked in. Obviously, it was Liam. He walked in looking so dejected, but his demeanor just looked like pretense to me, as if he was only looking that way to try and sympathize with me. I may have been wrong, of course, but that’s what I thought at the time. “I know you don’t mean that, Emma,” he said as he walked further into the apartment. “Yes, I do,” I responded, then looked away from him and resumed the position I was in Sammy’s arms. “Hello, Samantha,” he greeted Sammy.I know this is totally off-topic from my current situation, but I’ve always found it funny how Liam doesn’t stick to one name when talking to Sammy. If it’s in a casual situation or something, he calls her either Sammy or Samantha. Many a time, though, in such situations, he refers to her as Sammy. However, whenever the situation requires the tiniest amount of se
Emma’s POVIt’s been two weeks since the news. Liam and I have barely said two words to each other since that night, especially after Sammy left us. To be honest, yes, I was mad at him, but I didn’t necessarily not want to talk to him. I just didn’t know what I was to say. I expect he felt the same way too, considering he’d been spending most nights out, probably with Anna, since then and I don’t even blame him. Whenever we would cross paths in the apartment, it was always very awkward between us. Sometimes, when he’s even coming down the stairs, and he notices me just chilling in the living room, he’d pretend like he had forgotten something upstairs and would proceed to stay there until I vacated the area and went up to my room. There have been many of those instances. He’d wait to hear the click of my bedroom door and then about five minutes later, I’m guessing, in a means not to seem obvious or whatever, he’d come out of his room and go downstairs to watch TV. It’s been crazy for
Emma’s POV“Emma,” Liam called out my name as he knocked on my bedroom door. “Are you up? We need to talk”.Ugh. “What’s up?” I asked as I swung the door up.“First off, good morning,” he greeted, clearing his throat and averting his gaze from me.“Good morning. Is something the matter?” I asked, confused as to why he looked away.“Could you maybe put on a shirt please and meet me downstairs? I want us to talk,” he answered, as he jeered his head toward my top half.“Oh please,” I said, rolling my eyes. “It’s just a bra top, Liam. It’s not as if I’m naked.“Sorry”.“Whatever. I’ll be down in a minute”.“Thanks,” he replied, then turned around and went downstairs.Once he was out of sight, I quickly put on a top and slippers, then headed down to meet him.“Coffee?” he asked, holding a cup of freshly brewed coffee towards me.“Sure,” I grabbed the cup from him. “Thanks,” I said, taking a sip of the coffee and sitting on one of the stools surrounding the kitchen island. “So what’s up?”“
Emma’s POV“My God,” I scoffed. “Are you actually for real?” I asked.He remained silent as though he was reveling in the nonsense that had just escaped his mouth.“Fuck you, Liam. From the bottom of my heart right now, all I have to say to you is fuck you. This affects you as much as it affects me. You really opened your mouth to let out such a silly statement, and you believe you made sense. Please tell me, how the fuck do you simply not ever having thought of becoming a father match up with what I’m going through? Tell me! I reluctantly gave up three years of my life to get married to you to offset my father’s debts. While still amid the news of the marriage being broken to me, your call came in for me to meet you in your office the following day or so, so pardon me for not calming down to read the terms of the agreement before signing it, considering you were acting like a total prick to me that morning and all that was going through my mind was the wish that my life would be fast
Liam’s POVShit. I fucked up again. After Emma ran upstairs, I stared down at the mess I’d created for a while before heaving a deep sigh and moving to clean it up. I first tried to locate all the glass pieces, both big and small shards, as well, before getting a wet rag to dab up the spilled coffee. I managed to do all that without getting hurt, but unknown to me, I still had one glass piece left that I didn’t initially see. As I had finished wiping off the coffee on the floor, I moved over to the sink to rinse off the rag I had used. When I was done doing that, I placed my arms on both sides of the counters by the sink, but unknown to me, there was a huge piece of glass on the left side. I didn’t see it, of course, so it dug right into the palm of my hand. “Fuck,” I screamed out, cupping my left hand in my right hand. On a normal day, I wouldn’t scream as loud, but this one went deep. With the kind of pain that was radiating through my hand, it felt as though I needed stitches.
Liam’s POV“Thank you for bringing me in,” I said to Emma, turning to look at her. We were about five minutes into our trip back to the apartment and as much as I understood that she was still pissed at me, I hated the awkwardness of driving with her in the car in complete silence. “Mhm,” she responded, focusing her attention on the road in front of us. “Don’t mention it,” she muttered after a couple of seconds. While I was looking at her, I noticed she wasn’t wearing the same shorts and shirt she had been wearing earlier this morning when we were going at it with each other. She was now wearing a short pink dress and slippers, and she obviously didn’t change just to take me to the hospital, so it was clear she had a reason for being so dressed up. She was dressed like she was going out. To be fair, she did say she had somewhere to be before we left the hospital. “Where are you going?” I blurted out my question, not thinking about the fact that it actually wasn’t my business where
Emma's POVAbout ten minutes after Maria and I got into our feelings with each other, Liam and his father returned to the dining room. Mr. Henderson looked fresh again in his change of clothes, but Liam, on the other hand, looked tired and stressed out. Clearly, the entire situation that had just unfolded in front of him stressed him out, but he didn’t say anything about it for the entire time the lunch went on. From one o’clock or so, till five minutes past three o’clock, the four of us ate lunch and made small conversations about anything else but the elephant in the room. While I found it a bit weird that everyone chose not to say anything about what happened, I obviously couldn’t comment on anything because, at the end of the day, I don’t have much of a say in what’s going on. It’s not like Mr. Henderson is my husband, neither is he my father, so yeah, I couldn’t exactly say much. Once we were done eating and had spent the extra hour at their place for our food to digest, Liam a
Emma’s POVTo cut the whole story short, Liam spoke. A lot. He said far much more than I could even remember, and what’s crazy is he just said these things a few minutes ago. He took his father’s go-ahead for him to say what was on his mind quite literally, and when I say literally, I mean literally. Unexpected to all of us, Liam started addressing issues from far before I came into his life. Issues he’s had with his father, and his mother, from when he was a little boy, actually. There was also him talking about how he felt closer to his grandfather than anyone else before his passing and how his passing really affected him because he knew that he wasn’t ever going to feel that type of pure love again from a father figure, let alone his father. He talked about how he always felt unloved by his parents because, while his father drowned himself in work most of the time, his mother drowned herself in work and societal events and gatherings, so it felt like she was even more absent. The
Emma’s POV“Okay,” Liam spoke up. “We’re listening. Why’d you call us over here today?” he asked. “First of all,” Mrs. Henderson cleared her throat. “Your father and I want to wish you both a happy anniversary”. Oh, so she remembered. “You remembered?” I squeaked out. “Are you kidding me, dear?” she asked with a small smile on her lips. “How could I forget? I mean after all the planning that went into that wedding and how invested I was, not just in the wedding but in your hopeful love story. With all that in mind, there was absolutely no way I could forget the day you got married to Liam; fake wedding or not. I was personally very happy that day because I liked you, so nothing was going to make me forget it”. “Oh…” I was speechless. “Thank you, Maria”.At the mention of her name, her smile instantly grew. I knew she hated me calling her Mrs. Henderson and I hated calling her that just as much because I believed we had formed a bond that went beyond me calling her that. So, while
Emma’s POVAs we pulled into the driveway of the Henderson house, I could see Liam visibly tense up already. From the way his fingers tightened on the steering wheel, to the way his jaw began to clench, it was clear he wanted to be anywhere but here right now. “Are you good?” I asked him, placing my hand on his that was still gripping the steering wheel even after he had parked the car. At the feel of my hand on his, the hold he had on the steering wheel instantly loosened, and I could thankfully feel the tension ease from his body under my touch. “I’m better now,” he said, mustering up a weak smile, as he held my hand and brought it up to his lips to place a kiss on it. “Thank you”. “Hey,” I rubbed the back of his neck. “Everything’s going to be alright. Besides, I have a feeling that we’re here to receive some good news. Nothing that’s going to spoil either of our moods. Okay?”“Okay,” he nodded, then turned off the car. As he started to open his door, I held him back again for
Emma’s POV“Happy anniversary, baby,” Liam said, cheesing from ear to ear, as he walked into my room with a tray filled with waffles, bacon, eggs, an assortment of fruits, and two glasses of orange juice.“For me?” I smiled as I looked up from my phone. “Yes, ma’am,” he nodded, placing the tray on the nightstand next to me. “Happy anniversary, my love,” he said again, as he bent down to hug me. “I love you,” he pecked my cheek. “Happy anniversary, Liam,” I cooed in response, hugging him tightly, making sure to sniff him in the process. “How early did you wake up for you to have taken a shower and made me breakfast?” I asked, genuinely wondering. “Early enough,” he shrugged his shoulders, hopping into the bed and squeezing closely next to me. “I see that,” I turned my head to face him. “Did you sleep in here with me though? Because I don’t even remember sleeping off. I had planned to come over to yours after taking a bath, but I guess I must have fallen asleep after doing that”. “
Emma’s POV“So, talk to me. What’s going on in that big head of yours?” I joked. “Rude,” he scoffed, feigning a hurt look. “Whatever,” I chuckled, unwrapping my hands from his waist. “This seems like serious talk, so let’s go over to the living room please”. “Alright,” he nodded, pushing himself off the counter that he was resting on and following behind me until we got to the living room and sat comfortably on the couch. “Now,” I moved a bit closer to him. “Talk to me”. “Okay,” he cleared his throat, evidently nervous. “I don’t know if you know… but tomorrow is our first anniversary,” he stated, then averted his gaze from me. “Is that it?” I chuckled. “What do you mean?” he asked with furrowed brows. “I mean, is that all that’s bothering you?”“Yes, it is. Now can you please stop laughing,” he grumbled. “Sorry,” I stifled a laugh. “Listen,” I grabbed hold of his hands. Can I be honest with you?”“Sure,” he nodded, fiddling with my hands. “I know”. “Seriously?” he looked of
Emma’s POVIt had been a long day at the office, but thankfully, it was finally over. As I packed up my sketches that I planned to work on over the weekend, my phone buzzed on the table, but I didn’t pick it up immediately because if it was something important, I’d have assumed the person would call me. After about ten minutes of putting my stuff together, I was done packing up for the day and finally picked up my phone to check the time. The time wasn’t what caught my eye though. It was my notification; specifically, the one that came ten minutes ago which I ignored. It was a notification from my Reminders app, reminding me of what tomorrow is – Liam and I’s first anniversary. Shit. How the hell could I have forgotten? And especially now that Liam and I are actually in true love with each other, and we’ve been so good with each other these past couple of weeks too, fuck!As I walked out of the office, I began brainstorming the excuse I was going to give Liam for forgetting about t
Liam’s POVWhen Ryan and I were done eating, we immediately began our journey back home. “So, have you decided what you’re going to do yet?”“About what?” I asked, optimistic that the meaning behind that question wasn’t the same as when he asked me this same question ten minutes ago. “About you and Emma, silly,” he scoffed, looking at me like I was dumb. “No, Ryan. I have not decided what to do, just like I hadn’t decided ten minutes ago when you asked me the same damn question,” I said, tightening my fingers on the steering wheel momentarily, before letting out a deep breath in annoyance and releasing my grip on the wheel. “My bad,” he rolled his eyes. “I’m just trying to be helpful,” he murmured. “Then be helpful by suggesting what I should do!” I raised my tone slightly and kissed my teeth. “You being helpful isn’t you asking me the same question repetitively at ten-minute intervals hoping that my response would be different? Helping would be you trying to help me brainstorm o
Liam’s POVIt had been a week since Emma had made her choice to be with me and for this last week, I’ve probably been the happiest man on this earth. Now, our first anniversary was in three days, and I had no idea what to do. Before we got married, I remember while I was having one of the pre-wedding discussions with my mother, she said she would love for Emma and me to throw a party or a ball or something in that regard to commemorate the milestone, while also making sure we appear as a happily married couple in the public light. However, with how things are going in the family right now, with my dad’s sickness and the rift between Emma and my parents, that party that my mother would have wanted us to have just doesn’t seem probable. And to be honest, I haven’t even had a talk with Emma about this anniversary of ours, so God knows if she actually remembers that it’s even coming up or not. “Liam! Where are you!?” Ryan yelled, pulling me out of my thoughts as he stepped into the apa