The Hockey Roommate's Filthy Desire novel Chapter 158

Chapter 158

ARIA’S POV

When I drove away from Julian at the hockey rink, my hands were shaking so violently I could barely keep the car on the road. I didn’t bother to go back to the office. There was no point.

My mind was completely shattered, spinning in a million different directions, and the walls of my own company would have only suffocated me.

I went straight home, desperate to find a way to calm down, but absolutely nothing was working. I had never been so intensely pissed off in my entire life.

The rage felt like a physical fire burning under my skin. In a desperate bid to shock my system and cool the anger, I filled the bathroom tub and ended up soaking myself in the freezing cold water.

I submerged my entire body, staring up at the ceiling, but even the icy water couldn’t extinguish the fire. Eventually. I dragged myself out, threw on some clothes, and went to pick up Amelia from school.

Even during the drive to her school and back, the fury refused to leave me. My thoughts were a toxic loop. How could I have been so incredibly foolish?

I had packed up our lives and left the quiet safety of the city so hurriedly, without even telling Brandon what was happening. just to come back here and find out it was all a massive, orchestrated lie.

Fred’s terrified voice kept echoing in my head. Julian was such a bastard.

By the time we got back inside the house, the emotional pressure cook was ready to explode. At some point, I almost completely transferred the aggression onto Amelia.

The poor little girl was just being her usual curious self, trailing behind me and asking a lot of questions about my day. “Amelia, just shut up and leave me alone!”

I suddenly yelled, my voice cracking with a harshness I had never used with her before.

Amelia immediately froze. She took a physical step back from me, her large eyes wide with sudden fear and hurt.

The moment I saw her expression, a wave of intense guilt washed over me. I couldn’t even look my own daughter in the face. My chest tightened so hard I could barely breathe.

“I’m sorry. I’m just sorry, Amelia,” I whispered hurriedly, unable to meet her gaze. Without giving heťa chance to answer, turned away and left her standing inside the house.

I walked out onto the balcony, closing the glass door behind me, and collapsed into a chair. The tears came instantly. I sat there, buried in my hands, crying my eyes out as the emotional weight crashed down on me.

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My life was already so incredibly hard. I was fighting so many battles on so many fronts, and now, I was turning into the kind of mother who took out her adult stress on her innocent child.

A dark fear wrapped around my heart. I genuinely feared what Amelia would think about me now. I feared I was ruining her perception of me.

While I was lost in my spiral of misery, the sky darkened and it began to pour. The rain came down hard, heavy drops soaking through my clothes and plastering my hair to my face, but I didn’t move.

I didn’t care. I just sat there in the middle of the downpour, letting the cold rain mix with my hot tears, feeling entirely

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Chapter 15s

ghs. A few minutes later, the balcony door slid open quietly

I didn’t turn around, but soon, Amelia came out in search of me. She was holding a large, dry towel tightly in her small

hands.

“Mommy,” she pleaded softly, her little voice trembling slightly against the sound of the falling rain. “Please leave the rain. You’re going to get sick.

I didn’t want my daughter to see me broken like this, I swallowed the lump in my throat, wiped my face quickly, and stood up. I took a deep breath and looked down at her.

“Amelia… I am so sorry for yelling at you inside. Mommy shouldn’t have done that.”

Amelia didn’t look angry at all. Instead, she offered me a warm, beautiful smile. She stood on her tiptoes, pulled my head down slightly, and gently kissed my forehead.

“It’s okay, Mommy,” she said, her voice filled with an understanding that belonged to someone much older. “I should have known you were having a really bad day. I shouldn’t have added to it by asking so many questions.”

I stood there, completely stunned and deeply touched by Amelia’s incredible maturity. My eyes welled up again, but this time out of pure gratitude.

I wrapped my arms around her for a brief second, and then I walked back inside the house with her, wrapping the dry towel around my shivering shoulders.

up

I set my keys down on the counter, and just as I did, my phone screen suddenly lit up with a notification. I picked it and frowned. It was a text message from Blake.

It was quite strange for him to text me out of the blue, especially at an hour like this. Curious, I tapped the notification open. The moment I read the very first line, I already knew exactly who was actually behind the message.

My jaw clenched tightly, and I gnashed my teeth in pure irritation. My immediate instinct was to close the app and put the phone aside without reading another word, but a stubborn part of me forced my eyes to keep moving down the screen.

I read the long epistle all the way to the very end.

When I finished, I let out a loud, bitter hiss. His father. Julian was claiming his father was the mastermind.

Even if it really was his father who blackmailed Fred, Julian still had a hand in this mess as far as I was concerned. His family was an inescapable web of manipulation.

I didn’t know if I could bring myself to trust a single word that came out of Julian’s mouth anymore. the rage burning in my heart was so heavy, so all–consuming, that in that moment, I completely forgot I had once loved the exact same man.

Aggressively, I switched off the phone entirely, refusing to let him occupy another second of my thoughts. I went into the bathroom, cleaned myself up, and climbed straight into bed, pulling the covers over my head to block out the rest of the world.

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