Aurelia let out a teasing laugh. “Aren’t you just muddying your waters? Now, everyone sees you as a heartbreaker, a Casanova who loves women and leaves them. You can’t blame Beverley, can you?”
Leopold pressed a hand to his forehead. “Is that what you think of me, too?”
“You did abandon me, and that’s a fact,” Aurelia shot back without missing a beat.
He sighed in resignation. “I told you it was only temporary. I was always going to be back.”
Aurelia rolled her eyes, her irritation palpable. “I don’t care about your excuses. I hold grudges, Leopold. You left me high and dry, so it’s only fair I do the same to you. What goes around, comes around.”
A shadow of pain flitted across his eyes.
“You’ve already left me once,” he said. “You disappeared for three years, got cozy with Arnold, and even had a child. Isn’t that revenge enough?”
His voice grew hoarse as if scorched by the hurt.
Aurelia glanced at him with a ghost of melancholy. “Don’t tell me couldn't let go of that, so you divorced me and married Megan to punish me?”
“I’m not that petty. If I truly cared, I wouldn’t want you back. Just knowing you’re alive is a comfort to me.”
He turned and walked to the window, gazing into the blackness of the Twilight Club outside. His voice seemed to drift from a distant place, mournful and lost.
“It was my negligence that put you and Liam in danger. I failed to protect you, so fate took you away from me.”
He faced her again, his gaze unwavering, pain spreading across his handsome features. Then, like a gust of wind, he rushed over and pulled her into a fierce embrace.
“I can’t make the same mistake again. I can’t lose you, Aurelia.”
Her heart surged like a tidal wave, a stampede of emotions overwhelming her.
She had kept Liam's secret for so long, a tinge of guilt in her heart. But until the threat of AK Group was neutralized, she couldn’t reveal Liam's true identity, or he’d be in as much danger as Kane.
“I’m not that important to you,” she said, her voice distant. “If we hadn’t met that summer in Hawaii, you’d have forgotten me in a couple of years, found a new pretty wife, and started a new life.”
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