Begin Again novel Chapter 193

"When did you start seeing a therapist?" Lois didn't even give him a chance to answer her first question before she fired her next.

And Liam just stood there in the middle of his kitchen, wondering how things had gone so horribly wrong so quickly.

He knew it was bound to happen someday, and in a way, had tried to prepare himself for this eventuality. But he never expected his secret to come out just when everything in his life seemed to be spinning out of control.

He'd barely begun to deal with Aleksei's threat, was still recovering from Eden's deception, and now this shit with a possible breach in Linda's office—

"Son? Are you there? Say something! When did you start seeing a shrink?" Clarke broke through his thoughts with demands of his own.

"Two years ago," Liam replied as he sat down at the breakfast counter and absently massaged his temple.

"Sweet Jesus," Lois burst into tears. "I knew it. I knew everything was too much for you. Why didn't you tell us? We shouldn't have forced you to take over the company."

Before Liam could assure her his therapy visits had nothing to do with him taking over the company, his mom was already in the middle of her very long tear-filled rant of self-blame and self-loathing, and he had to hear all about how she'd failed him 'so terribly' as a mother. His fragile mental health was all her fault. She should have supported him when he didn't want to quit racing. Clearly, the crushing weight of taking over as CEO and his father's illness had put him under a lot of strain.

"Mom—" Liam tried to cut in again, but Clarke jumped in with his remorse and apologies.

"I'm so sorry, son. Why didn't you tell us you are struggling? We could have eased some of the pressure."

"I'm not struggling," Liam said sternly.

His parents hardly noticed, though, because they were now squabbling, with all kinds of crazy accusations being thrown around.

"I told you we should have put Matthew or Julian in charge! Now, look at what we did to Liam." Lois screamed and cried and sniffled.

"Are you honestly blaming me for this? Are you saying it's my fault? This is his birthright. He had to take over at some point!" Clarke ranted back at her.

"Well, if the shoe fits!"

And it went on, the fiery back and forth, the flames of their anger nowhere close to dying out.

At some point, Liam thought he'd lose his mind from all their irrational screaming. But he knew better than to interrupt them when they were locked in one of their very rare but intense arguments.

So while he cradled the cordless handset between his ear and shoulder and half-heartedly listened to the screaming match on the other end of the line, he scrolled through his iPhone to check out the shit show he wouldn't have known he was starring in if it wasn't for his parents' call, his mind flying into cleanup mode as he scoured the internet.

A 4K quality photo of him with Eden in his arms as they left the Convention Centre last night was splashed all over the front pages of online tabloids, and in the four hours that it had been up, it had racked up an impressive number of comments.

Very few—about ten or so—were as nice as one would expect from people on the internet. The rest were all trolls demanding to know the identity of the 'very basic-looking' woman hanging on to him like a manpurse.

Liam stopped at comment #55, feeling sick to his stomach at the vitriol. He pushed his phone away briefly, pissed out of his head at the stuff they'd written about Eden. Thank heavens they couldn't make out her face. Her messy hair had done a good job of hiding it, so chances of the trolls uncovering her identity were slim to none.

His biggest worry, though, was Eden waking up to this shit. He had to shut it down real quick.

"A very handsome Hollywood star, dear—I wouldn't mind being carried by him—" His mom chuckled on their side.

Her comment riled Clarke up to no end, and they were at it once again, with his father threatening to ship her off to Hollywood if she wanted.

While his folks carried on with their skirmish, Liam went deeper down the rabbit hole, searching for the source of the leak of his therapy visits.

He found it in the form of chatter splashed on the celebrity gossip pages of Dirt magazine.

But other than several high-quality photos of him taken on two separate occasions outside Linda's office and vague speculations, there wasn't much about his reasons for his weekly therapy sessions.

But every man and his dog with a computer and an internet connection had come out to play in the comments section and left a theory or two about his mental health.

Overnight, everyone, including the crazies who never left their parents' basements, had become experts on his health and wellbeing, and numerous diagnoses were being thrown around.

A thousand or so people believed he had an alcohol problem. Not exactly untrue or farfetched, considering the amount of booze he had been consuming over the past few weeks.

An impressive number of anons suggested he had a split personality disorder. Liam could see this being the running theory at the office too. After all, there was a reason he'd earned his infamous moniker.

One person, though, came very close to the truth—maybe too close—by suggesting there was nothing wrong with his mental health. His problem was physical. The devil dick that had pleased many a woman in the past no longer worked as it should, and after trying numerous sex gurus, a therapist on the 5th floor of Medical Mews was his last hope.

Granted, it was one person, and the comment hadn't received many upvotes. But for Liam, it was one person too many. And he knew once people started paying attention to the comment, it was only a matter of time before it gained traction, and the rumour that so happened to touch on a lot of truths spun out of control.

He had to find the reporter and get a retraction —