8. Lily
— ? —
Lily
The hotel only had the one room left.
I gave up on the gala dress hours ago. It was soaked through from the rain we ran through to lose Victoria’s car, clinging cold and ruined, and I’d peeled it off in the bathroom and pulled on the only dry thing in my bag, an old sleep shirt that ends mid-thigh.
When I came out, Lucas was very busy looking at the ceiling.
He’s been looking at the ceiling ever since.
“You’re not asleep,” I say into the dark.
“Neither are you.”
“I can hear you thinking.”
He huffs something that’s almost a laugh. The mattress shifts as he turns onto his side to face me, and even in the dark I can feel the weight of his attention land.
“I keep thinking,” he says slowly, “that this is the worst possible night for me to be this aware of you. Victoria’s about to set the world on fire with your name in it. You’re grieving a family you just found out was lied about. And I’m lying here counting the inches between us like a teenager.”
“How many is it?”
A pause. “Six. Give or take.”
“That’s a lot of inches.”
“It’s not nearly enough.” His voice has dropped to something rough. “This is a bad idea. You know that, right? You’re raw, I’m the brother of the man who broke you, and tomorrow there are going to be a hundred reasons we shouldn’t have.”
“I know.” I close the distance to four inches. “Tell me to stay on my side, then.”
He doesn’t.
When he kisses me again, slower than the desperate crash against the wall hours ago, careful like I might shatter, one hand coming up to cradle my jaw, and I make a small wrecked sound against his mouth that erases whatever caution he was clinging to.
The six inches vanish. His hand slides to the small of my back and pulls me flush against the long warm line of him, and I’m just dragging the hem of his shirt up when-
His phone goes off on the nightstand. Then mine. Then his again, buzzing across the wood like an insect.
We freeze, foreheads together, both breathing hard.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Whatever it is. Don’t look.”
But he’s already reaching for it, because we both know what a phone going off at 4 a.m. means in our lives now, and the blue glow of the screen turns his face to stone.
He holds it so I can see.
Victoria didn’t wait for morning. The story’s already live.
By the time the sun’s up, the story is everywhere.
My face next to my mother’s - a photograph I’ve never seen before, young Catherine Maxwell with her bright smile and innocent eyes, splashed across tabloids and gossip sites and social media feeds. The headlines scream about “the murderer’s daughter” and “Maxwell family’s dark secrets.”
My phone won’t stop buzzing. Messages from numbers I don’t recognize, some sympathetic, most cruel. Interview requests. Threats. Offers of help that feel like traps.
I turn it off.
Mrs. Reid’s office is controlled chaos when Lucas and I arrive. Phones ringing, assistants rushing, lawyers conferring in tight clusters. The energy is frantic, barely contained.
“We can issue a statement,” Mrs. Reid says, spreading printouts across her conference table. Her usual composure is strained around the edges. “Retractions are possible. But retractions never get the same traction as accusations.”
I stare at the headlines. At my mother’s face, the face I see in my mirror every day. At the life I’ve barely begun to build, already under siege.
“Then we don’t play defense.”
Everyone looks at me.
“We play offense.” I stand, the room falling silent around me. “I give them a bigger story.”
***
Two hours later, I’m standing at a podium.
Media fills the ballroom wall to wall - cameras flashing in a blinding strobe, reporters jostling for position, the hungry energy of people who smell blood in the water. The room is hot, packed, suffocating.
Lucas watches from the back, his face a careful mask that doesn’t quite hide his worry.
I find him in the crowd - can’t help it, my eyes seeking him like a compass finding north. He’s wearing charcoal today, arms crossed, jaw tight with tension. I wonder what those arms would feel like wrapped around me.
Focus, Lily. National media. Career-defining moment. Stop thinking about Lucas Burton’s hands.
But I can feel his gaze on me like a physical touch, and something low in my belly tightens.
I don’t have a script. I don’t need one. I’ve been writing this speech in my head for three years.
“Yes, my grandfather was accused of terrible things.” My voice comes out steady, amplified by microphones, carried to every corner of the room. “The accusations were investigated and completely debunked thirty years ago. But I understand why this makes a good story.”
Nervous laughter ripples through the crowd.
“Let me tell you another story. A true one.”
I grip the podium edge and let the words pour out.
“Three years ago, I married a man who told me I was lucky to have him. Who isolated me from anyone who might have become a friend. Who gaslit me into believing every problem in our marriage was my fault - that I wasn’t pretty enough, smart enough…”
The murmurs shift.
“Who, I recently discovered, was never actually my husband at all.”
Phones lift higher. The flashing intensifies.
“Edward Burton committed fraud to make me believe I was married. He forged documents. He intercepted my mail. He kept a separate family the entire time - a partner he actually loved, children I never knew existed. His mother Victoria knew about all of it. She helped orchestrate it.”
I pause. Let it sink in.
“And now that I’ve discovered who I really am - that I have the resources and the family to fight back - they’re trying to bury me in scandals that were debunked before I was born.”
I look directly into the cameras.
“I’m not here to ask for sympathy. I’m not here to be a victim. I’m here to tell you: I’m not going anywhere. And if the Burton family wants a war, they should know - I learned from the best.”
***
The press conference works.
Within hours, the narrative shifts. “Wronged Wife Fights Back” starts trending.
Victoria’s charity donors begin quietly withdrawing their support, distancing themselves from the scandal.
Journalists who dismissed the Maxwell story start digging into the thirty-year-old investigation, resurfacing the evidence that cleared my family.
Lucas finds me in the green room afterward.
I’m sitting on a couch with my head in my hands, the adrenaline crash hitting me like a freight train. My body feels hollow, wrung out, held together by nothing but stubborn will.
“You were incredible.”
“I feel sick.” I look up, and I know my makeup is ruined, my eyes red-rimmed. “I just told the entire world my humiliation. Every embarrassing detail of my failure to see what was right in front of me.”
“You took the weapon out of their hands.” He sits beside me - close, but not quite touching. “That’s not weakness. That’s armor.”
I let myself lean into him. Just for a moment. His shoulder is solid and warm, and he smells like safety.
My phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number:
You think you’ve won? Check tomorrow’s papers. Edward has a plan B. And it involves your precious Lucas.
I show him the text. His face goes pale.
“What is it? What plan B?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. When he does, his voice is hollow.
“There’s something I haven’t told you. Something Edward’s been holding over me for years.”
His hands clench into fists on his thighs.
“About how my mother really died.”