5. Lily #2
“I’m the one walking away.” I pick up my bag - a vintage Hermès that belonged to my grandmother, delivered to my hotel this morning with a note that said For my fierce girl. “Enjoy your lunch, Elena. And give my regards to your fiancé. He’s going to need all the support he can get.”
I turn and walk away.
Behind me, I hear Elena’s chair scrape against the floor. Hear her call out something that might be a threat or might be a plea. I don’t look back.
I don’t need to.
Outside the restaurant, the autumn air is crisp and clean.
I stop on the sidewalk, tilting my face up toward the sun, and breathe. Really breathe, for what feels like the first time in years.
I did it.
I faced her. I didn’t crumble. I stood my ground and walked away on my own terms.
You’re already learning, Eleanor had said. That’s the first rule of war.
My hands are shaking - adrenaline, not fear - but I feel more alive than I have in years. More present. More myself.
Whoever that is.
“That was quite a performance.”
I spin around, my heart lurching into my throat.
Victoria Burton emerges from a black town car idling at the curb, like a spider stepping delicately from its web. Black Chanel suit, pearls at her throat, fury barely contained behind a society smile that doesn’t reach her cold blue eyes.
My stomach drops.
Of course. Of course Elena wasn’t working alone. Of course Victoria was waiting, watching, ready to swoop in if her son’s mistress couldn’t handle the job.
“Victoria.” I force my voice to stay steady. “What a coincidence.”
“There are no coincidences in this family.” Victoria steps closer, her heels clicking against the pavement like a metronome counting down to something unpleasant. “Only moves and countermoves. Something you would do well to remember.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a fact.” Her smile sharpens. “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, Lily, but I won’t have you humiliating this family. Whatever fantasies you’ve constructed about your so-called heritage-”
“They’re not fantasies.” I stand my ground, even though every instinct screams at me to retreat. “I’ve met Eleanor Maxwell. I’ve seen the documentation. I am who I say I am.”
Something flickers in Victoria’s eyes. Something that looks almost like fear.
“The Maxwell woman is ninety years old and half-senile. Whatever she told you-”
“She told me everything.” I step closer, watching Victoria’s composure crack. “She told me how you’ve been blocking her search for twenty years. How you made sure I’d never be found. How you hand-picked me as Edward’s fake wife specifically because I was vulnerable, alone, easy to control.”
“That’s absurd-”
“Is it? Because I have documentation, Victoria. I have every door in this city about to open for me and slam in your face,” I smile, and it feels like putting on armor. “And I have a grandmother who’s spent two decades waiting for the chance to destroy you.”
Victoria’s face cycles through white, then red, then something approaching purple.
“Get in the car.” She gestures toward the open door. “Now. Before you embarrass yourself further.”
“No.”
The word lands like a slap.
Victoria actually recoils. I’ve genuinely surprised her - maybe for the first time in three years. All those family dinners, all those correction sessions, all those moments when she dismantled my personality piece by piece - and I never once said no.
“Excuse me?”
“I said no.” My voice carries - loud enough that heads turn on the sidewalk, loud enough that a woman walking her designer dog pauses to stare. “I’m not coming with you. I’m not having a private conversation with someone who helped her son commit fraud to trap me in a fake marriage.”
“Lower your voice-”
“Oh, didn’t you know?” I step closer, close enough to see the veins pulsing in Victoria’s temple. “The documents are fake, Victoria. The marriage certificate? Forged. Your son never legally married me. I was a prisoner in a gilded cage while he played house with his real family.”
People are definitely watching now. Phones are appearing. Someone is recording - I can see the telltale angle of a device held too casually to be coincidental.
Good.
Let them watch. Let them record. Let the whole city see Victoria Burton lose her composure on a public sidewalk.
“You ungrateful little-” Victoria catches herself, visibly forcing her expression back to neutral. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with. The Burton family has connections you can’t imagine. We will end you.”
“You already tried.” I shrug, channeling Eleanor’s cool dismissal. “Three years of trying to break me, and here I am. Still standing. Still breathing. And now I have something you never expected, a family of my own.”
“Eleanor Maxwell is a senile old woman with more money than sense-”
“Eleanor Maxwell is my grandmother. And she’s been waiting twenty years for the chance to make you pay for what you’ve done.” I lean in close, dropping my voice to a whisper that only Victoria can hear. “Sleep well tonight, Victoria. While you still can.”
I walk away.
Head high, shoulders back, the posture Victoria spent three years criticizing now working in my favor. Let her watch me go. Let Elena watch from the restaurant window. Let the whole city watch.
Behind me, I hear Victoria hiss into her phone: “Edward. The girl knows everything. And she’s not alone - I saw Lucas watching from across the street.”
I freeze.
Lucas.
My heart stutters, skipping a beat before racing ahead at double speed. Slowly, I turn to look.
There - across the street, leaning against a building like he’s been there all along. Dark hair falling across his forehead, hands shoved in his pockets, watching me with an expression I can’t quite read from this distance.
He came. He was watching. Protecting, even when I didn’t ask him to.
Something warm blooms in my chest, thawing a part of me I thought Edward had frozen solid.
I cross the street without thinking about it, drawn to him like a magnet, like gravity, like something inevitable.
“You were watching,” I say when I reach him.
“I was in the neighborhood.” He straightens, his eyes scanning my face for damage. “Are you okay?”
“I’m... I don’t know what I am.” The adrenaline is fading now, leaving me shaky and hollow. “I just told off my husband’s pregnant mistress and his mother in the span of ten minutes. I might be having a breakdown.”
“You’re not having a breakdown.” Lucas’s mouth curves into something that’s almost a smile. “You’re having a breakthrough.”
“Is that what this is?”
“That’s exactly what this is.” He reaches out, brushing a strand of hair from my face, and the touch sends electricity skittering down my spine. “You were incredible in there. I could hear you from outside.”
“You could hear me?”
“The window was open.” His smile widens. “‘I’m not the nobody Edward told you I was.’ I thought Elena was going to faint.”
I laugh - a surprised, slightly hysterical sound that escapes before I can stop it. “I can’t believe I said that. I can’t believe I said any of that. It just... came out.”
“It came out because it’s true.” Lucas’s hand lingers at my jaw, his thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone. “You’re not a nobody, Lily. You never were.”
The way he’s looking at me - like I’m something precious, something worth protecting, something he’d burn down the world for - makes it hard to breathe.
“Lucas...”
“I know.” He drops his hand, taking a step back. “I know we need to slow down. I know you’ve been through hell. I know this isn’t the time or place.”
“But?”
“But I spent three years watching you from a distance, telling myself I couldn’t have you.” His voice drops low, rough. “And now you’re standing in front of me, and you’re free, and you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I-”
He stops. Swallows hard.
“And you what?”
“And I want to kiss you so badly I can’t think straight.”
The confession hangs between us, heavy and electric.
I should step back. I should remind him that Victoria is probably still watching from somewhere, that Elena might emerge from the restaurant at any moment, that we’re standing on a public sidewalk in the middle of the day.
Instead, I grab his tie and pull him toward me.
The kiss is fierce and hungry and nothing like the careful tenderness of last night. This is claiming. This is declaration. This is I choose you and I want you and let them watch.
Lucas groans against my mouth, his hands finding my waist, pulling me against him until I can feel every line of his body through our clothes. I’m dimly aware that we’re making a scene, that someone is probably photographing this, that tomorrow’s gossip columns will be full of speculation.
I don’t care.