Chapter 22
The studio lights hum low, a faint, persistent sound that fills the silence around me as I stare at the ragged sketch on my desk.
Class ended hours ago, yet I’m still here, trapped by the fabric swatches scattered like fallen leaves across the table.
They’re meant to be my future, more than just designs for streams on Tempt.
They’re supposed to be pieces that walk into high-end boutiques one day, garments stitched from years of stubborn hope.
But today, that future feels brittle, fragile. Like one careless word could snap it clean in half.
Madame Adele André’s voice still echoes, sharp and unrelenting.
“You want to launch your own brand? Ma petite rêveuse, that’s cute, but completely unrealistic. Why waste time chasing a pipe dream when you could focus on something practical?”
My little dreamer.
Pretty words with teeth.
The curl of her lip as she surveyed my sketches said everything she didn’t bother to voice. Years of late nights, every sleepless, caffeine-fuelled hour, every inch of myself I’d poured into these designs, reduced to a scoff.
I chew my lip, fingers curling over the edge of the sketchbook. I want to throw it, to feel something break that isn’t me.
Who is she to decide what’s practical for me?
She may have clawed her way through the Paris fashion scene before switching her focus to teaching, but she doesn’t know me.
She doesn’t know the girl who had to rebuild herself from ruin, who learnt how to turn scars into weapons.
She has no idea how far I will go to make this dream real or the price I’ve paid to be here.
Hours later, I’m back in the safety of my flat, phone propped on the kitchen counter, FaceTiming Abbie and Cora. Their faces fill the screen in a split view—Abbie lounging on her sofa, a mug in hand, while Cora bounces April lightly on her hip.
“I swear, Adele thinks she’s some kind of fashion God,” I snap, pacing in and out of frame. “She basically told me to quit while I’m ahead.”
Abbie’s laugh comes with a slight pixelated stutter, but her grin is clear and certain. “You’re too talented to listen to that rubbish.” The screen shifts as she tucks her legs beneath her.
Cora leans closer to her camera, eyes steady and warm despite the exhaustion etched around them. “Ignore her, Lily. She doesn’t see what you’re building, but we do, and it’s going to be breathtaking.”
Their words soften the edge of my frustration, though they can’t erase the heaviness lurking beneath it.
Because under all of this—under the pacing and venting—there’s something darker.
The thought of Matt hovers like a shadow just beyond the screen.
He’s always there. Watching, waiting, ready to creep up at the most inconvenient times.
I push him away and force a brighter smile at the camera. “Enough about me. Tell me what’s going on in your lives. Cora, how’s Owen? And little April? Still keeping you on your toes?”
Cora’s tired laugh vibrates through my phone’s tiny speaker. April’s blond curls flash across the screen as she squirms in her mother’s arms. “Always. She’s growing so fast I can barely keep up. Owen’s buried in work, but we’re good. We’re… happy.”
“Are you? Really happy?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Cora’s gaze flickers away from the camera, as though she’s checking her own reflection. A soft pause. Then, “I am, more than I even thought possible.”
Abbie perks up, her face filling half of the screen. “Logan’s still driving me insane in the best way, and the café’s finally busy. The cats love the customers almost as much as I do.”
I picture her surrounded by purring chaos and grin. “Living the dream, huh?”
She shrugs, smiling sheepishly. “Something like that. It’s hard work, but it’s ours. It matters.” She reaches out of frame, probably to pet one of those cats. “Logan’s actually worse than me with them. You should see him, half the time I think the café’s his excuse to adopt more.”
Their laughter spills through the tiny speaker, light but grounding.
Still, I feel the distance. They’re there building families, businesses, and futures that look solid.
And me? I’m here, still running from shadows that stretch all the way back to London.
The kind that doesn't disappear with miles or time.
The Mafia whispers. The power plays. The ghosts we pretend don’t exist. The scars we swear have scabbed over, but one wrong move rips them open.
But with them, I can almost breathe. At least for a little while.
We drift into safer topics—their plans for summer, the new “demon” cat at Abbie’s café, April’s latest attempts to climb furniture. The conversation feels lighter, like we’re all pretending things are simple again.
Cora glances back at her camera, hesitation flickering across her face before she forces a small smile.
“Lily… I hate to even bring this up, but Owen dragged me to that engagement party yesterday. For Matt and Gianna.” Her voice softens, careful.
“I just… I thought you should know before you hear it from somewhere else.”
My heart stutters so hard I almost drop the phone as images of last night’s stream—his spiral, how frayed he looked—slam through my mind, the pieces snapping together in a jagged way that cuts.
I keep my face carefully still, acutely aware they can see every flicker. “Their engagement party?” I echo, aiming for casual but hearing the tightness in my own voice.
Cora’s mouth twists, sympathy clouding her eyes.
“Yeah. And honestly? It was ridiculous. Champagne flooding the place, photographers crawling over each other. It was more of a spectacle than a celebration. You’d have hated it.
” She gives a small laugh, but it’s gentle, trying to take the sting out of her words.
“I only went because Owen wouldn’t stop nagging me, and someone from the Points had to show up. I wish I could’ve skipped it.”
“That sounds… intense,” I huff, trying not to blink too quickly, trying not to let them see.
“You would’ve hated every second,” Cora insists, shifting April to her other arm.
“So much fake smiling, everyone pretending to be something they're not. Honestly? The only real thing there was how miserable Matt looked.” She catches herself, studying my face. “I shouldn’t even tell you that, but it’s true. ”
“Serves him right,” Abbie cuts in, her tone sharp even through the slight lag. “He made his bed when he stood aside and let his father and uncle toss you to the wolves. He deserves to lie in it and bleed for it if you ask me.”
I force a laugh, but my chest burns, and long after the call ends, I’m still sitting there, hollow and frozen. The silence presses in, broken only by the reel in my head, images I haven’t seen but can’t stop imagining, my own personal hell on repeat.
Matt with his arm draped over her shoulders, casual, possessive, like it belongs there.
The gleam of a ring on her finger, his ring.
Her painted nails skimming across his chest, clinging to his suit as they pose for a picture.
I can almost smell them together—his cologne tangled with her perfume until it turns rancid in my throat.
It makes me sick, physically sick to picture, but underneath the nausea, fury coils hot and sharp.
He let this happen. He will have stood there, letting her cling to him, letting the world believe she belonged at his side.
Like I never existed. Like every word, every touch, every moment we shared meant nothing.
And then had the fucking nerve to come into my stream acting like he owned me.
The pictures keep burning behind my eyes, and no matter how hard I try to tear them out, they stay, seared into me like punishment. And God help me, the rage feels almost cleaner than the heartbreak.
I sink onto the edge of my bed, phone still in my hand, staring at the list of messages I’ve been ignoring for weeks.
Cora’s voice echoes in my head. Engagement party. Matt and Gianna. Miserable.
Matt was always going to follow through and play the part of dutiful heir, the perfect O’Malley son, aligning power with the Cosa Nostra. I always knew that this future was waiting for him, inked into his blood long before I ever touched his skin.
But knowing doesn’t stop the ache.
I’m not there to see it unfold—the staged smiles, the crystal flutes clinking, Gianna’s hand looped through his arm like she belongs there. I should be grateful for the distance, grateful that exile has spared me that particular humiliation.
And yet.
I’m still the one banished, while he gets to stand under chandeliers, toasted like a king. The same men who forced me out of London, who erased me from their world as though I never mattered, are probably shaking his hand and calling him loyal, congratulating him on his marriage.
Fine. If Matt can parade around with her on his arm, smiling for cameras, pretending none of it ever mattered, then I can pretend too. I can bury him beneath someone else’s hands, someone else’s lips, until he’s nothing but a bad taste in my mouth.
If he wants to forget me, I’ll forget him first.
I swipe to a message thread I’d never meant to answer. Months ago, Isabella had dragged me to a gallery opening, then—as usual—got swept away, leaving me alone to study abstract canvases that made no sense. Until Louis appeared.
He was a photographer, drifting through France in search of beauty. Charming, insistent and watching me like I was a mystery he intended to solve. He’d coaxed my number out of me that night, firing off the occasional message I never bothered to answer.
Until now.
Desire, defiance, fury—they all tangle together, and before I even think, my fingers are typing back. Just a spark, a thread. Maybe I’ll see him. Maybe I’ll let someone else touch me the way Matt can’t. Maybe I’ll burn a little just to remind myself I’m still alive.
The reply is almost instant.