3. Lucas #2
“I know.” The words come out louder than I intend.
Raw. Desperate. “Don’t you think I know that?
Don’t you think I’ve hated myself every single day for the past three years?
I’m not here to make excuses, Lily. I’m not here to ask for forgiveness.
I’m here because you need to know what you’re dealing with, and I’m the only one who’s going to tell you. ”
She stares at me for a long moment. The fury is still there, but underneath it, something else. Something that looks almost like curiosity.
“Why?” she asks finally. “Why would you betray your own family for me?”
Because I’ve been in love with you since the moment I saw you in that borrowed dress with the crooked smile and all that impossible hope.
Because watching you disappear has been the worst kind of torture, slow and relentless and entirely my own fault.
Because if I don’t do something now, tonight, I’m going to lose whatever’s left of my soul.
I don’t say any of that.
“Because they don’t deserve your loyalty,” I say instead. “And you deserve the truth.”
I cross to her slowly, carefully, the way you’d approach a wounded animal.
She doesn’t back away this time, but she doesn’t lean in either. Just watches me with those dark eyes that have seen too much tonight. Eyes that used to sparkle with laughter and now look like they’ve forgotten what joy feels like.
I want to touch her. Want to pull her into my arms and hold her until the shaking stops. Want to do all the things I’ve imagined doing for three years while I stood on the sidelines and watched her suffer.
I don’t. I don’t have the right.
“There’s more,” I say quietly. “About Elena. About why Edward needed you in the first place.”
“More.” She laughs bitterly. “Of course there’s more. Why wouldn’t there be more?”
“Do you want to hear it?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You always have a choice, Lily. That’s something this family tried to take from you, but they didn’t succeed. You can walk out that door right now and never speak to any of us again. You can burn this whole thing to the ground. You can do whatever you want.”
She tilts her head, studying me like she’s seeing me for the first time.
“You really mean that.”
“I really do.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m done being complicit.” I hold her gaze, willing her to believe me. “I’m done watching you suffer and telling myself it’s not my problem. Whatever you decide to do next, I want to help. And if you tell me to go to hell, I’ll understand. But I’m not leaving until you know everything.”
The silence stretches between us like a held breath.
Then, slowly, she nods.
“Tell me.”
I tell her everything.
Elena Martinez. High school sweetheart who reconnected with Edward at a college reunion. She got pregnant young - barely twenty-two, still finishing her degree when Sophie was born. Then James came two years later. And now, a third on the way.
“They’re practically a family,” Lily says flatly. “A real family. While I was here playing pretend.”
“Elena’s family had scandals,” I continue, hating every word. “Her father did time for fraud. Her brother has a gambling problem that’s cost the family everything twice over. Victoria would never have accepted her as a Burton bride.”
“So he needed someone clean.” Lily’s voice is steady now, analytical. Like she’s solving a puzzle instead of watching her life fall apart. “Someone without baggage. Someone who would look good in photographs and not ask questions.”
“Someone without connections,” I correct, hating myself for knowing this. For understanding exactly how my family thinks. “Someone who wouldn’t have family comparing notes. Someone who’d be grateful enough to stay quiet because she had no one to turn to if things went wrong.”
“And I was perfect.” Her face twists with something between rage and grief. “The orphan. The foster kid. The girl who aged out of the system at eighteen and clawed her way through community college and couldn’t believe her luck when a man like Edward Burton looked twice at her.”
“Lily-”
“He used to tell me how special I was.” Her voice cracks.
“How different from all the society girls his mother kept pushing at him. How refreshing it was to meet someone real.” She laughs, and it’s the bitterest sound I’ve ever heard.
“I thought he meant it. I thought he loved me because I had nothing. Because I came from nothing.”
“You were never nothing.”
The words land between us. Too heavy. Too honest. Too close to everything I’ve been holding back for three years.
She stares at me like I’ve spoken a foreign language. Like kindness is something she’s forgotten how to recognize.
“Don’t do that,” she whispers.
“Do what?”
“Look at me like that. Say things like that. I can’t-” She presses a hand to her chest like she’s trying to hold herself together. “I can’t process you being kind to me right now, Lucas. Not when you’ve just told me everything I believed was a lie.”
“I’m not being kind. I’m being honest.” I step closer, close enough to see the tears she’s fighting to hold back.
“You were never nothing. You were never the orphan or the charity case or whatever else they made you believe. You walked into that ballroom three years ago with more light in you than anyone I’ve ever met.
And they spent every day since then trying to put it out. ”
“They succeeded.”
“No.” I shake my head fiercely. “They didn’t. Because you’re still standing here. You’re still fighting. You found that certificate, and instead of crawling into bed and crying yourself to sleep, you’re standing here demanding answers.”
“I’m standing here because I don’t know what else to do.”
“You’re standing here because you’re stronger than they ever gave you credit for.” I reach into my pocket, pull out my phone. “And because there’s something else you need to know.”
She wipes her eyes impatiently. “What now?”
“You’re not an orphan, Lily.”
The words hang in the air between us.
“What?”
“A lawyer named Margaret Reid has been trying to contact you for three months. She’s been sending letters, emails, making phone calls. Edward’s been intercepting everything.”
“That’s - that’s not possible. I would have noticed-”
“Would you?” I ask gently. “When’s the last time you checked your own mail? When’s the last time Edward didn’t ‘helpfully’ sort through everything first?”
The color drains from her face.
“Show me,” she demands. “Whatever you have, show me.”
I pull up the email chain, Mrs. Reid reaching out to me as a last resort after every attempt to contact Lily directly was blocked. I hand her the phone and watch her read.
Her hands are shaking by the time she finishes.
“My mother had family.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “A mother. A mother. My grandmother is alive, and she’s been looking for me for twenty years, and Edward-”
She can’t finish the sentence. The phone slips from her fingers, and I catch it before it hits the floor.
“Who is she?” Lily demands. “This grandmother. Who is she?”
“Eleanor Maxwell.”
I watch her face as the name registers. Everyone in Manhattan knows the Maxwell name. Old money. Real money. The kind of fortune that makes the Burtons look like middle-class pretenders.
“You’re telling me,” Lily says slowly, “that I’m related to Eleanor Maxwell?”
“Her granddaughter. Her only living heir.”
“That’s insane.”
“It’s true.”
“That’s-” She presses both hands to her temples like her head might explode. “Lucas, that doesn’t make any sense. If I was related to Eleanor Maxwell, someone would have found me years ago. Someone would have-”
“Someone buried the records.” My jaw tightens. “Someone made sure you were unfindable. Someone who didn’t want the Maxwell fortune going anywhere but exactly where they planned.”
“Who?”
I don’t answer. I don’t have to.
The realization dawns on her face like a slow-motion horror movie.
“Victoria,” she breathes.
“She has been blocking Eleanor Maxwell’s search for her granddaughter for over a decade. She knew who you were before Edward ever met you. The whole thing - your ‘chance meeting,’ your whirlwind romance, your perfect fairytale wedding-”
“It was planned.” Lily’s voice is hollow. “All of it. From the beginning.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand, and I see the steel entering her spine. The woman who’s been beaten down for three years, finally finding something to fight for. “Don’t apologize for them. Not anymore.”
Footsteps in the hallway.
We both freeze.
Edward’s voice, sharp with suspicion: “Lucas? What are you doing here at this hour?”
Lily’s face goes white.
I don’t think. I just act.
Bedroom, I mouth at her, tilting my head toward the connecting door. Fire escape. I’ll cover you.
She doesn’t hesitate. She folds the certificate, tucks it into her bodice against her heart - right over her heartbeat, I notice, and something about that detail makes my chest ache - and slips through the connecting door like a ghost.