11. Edward
Edward
" W hatever my Mother told you, let me explain."
The words tumbled out before I could stop them, desperate and raw in a way that would have horrified me an hour ago.
But watching Lili collapse in tears while Cece guarded her like a fierce protector had shattered every careful wall I'd built around my emotions.
Cece's glare could have melted steel. " I think you've done quite enough for one evening."
"Please." I looked past her to Lili, who sat curled in the chair like a wounded animal. "Five minutes. That's all I'm asking."
"Five minutes to do what?" Lili's voice was hoarse from crying, but there was steel beneath the hurt. She stood slowly, like someone gathering armor. "Five minutes to spin another story? To make me feel like an idiot for believing you actually cared?"
"I never used you for anything. Christ, Lili, I didn't even know about the accelerations of the acquisition until a couple days ago."
"Well, I'll be damned." Her laugh was bitter as winter wind. "Don't you dare lie to me again. Your Mother laid it all out—how you've been planning this for months, how getting close to me was just good business strategy."
"My Mother is many things, but she's not infallible. She doesn't know everything about my work, and she certainly doesn't know anything about what I feel for you."
"What you feel for me?" Lili's voice cracked. "You mean the feelings that were so strong you couldn't be bothered to mention you were about to destroy my entire life?"
Every word she spoke was justified. Every accusation, earned. I'd failed her in the most fundamental way possible—not by lying, but by being a coward.
By choosing the easy path of silence over the difficult path of honesty.
I could see Cece preparing to intervene again, but something in my expression must have stopped her. Instead, she squeezed Lili's shoulder and stepped back slightly.
"The review of acquisition completed this morning," I said quietly.
"Malcolm called me before dawn with the acquisition papers.
Project Wildflower, they called it. Your company's UK division, hemorrhaging money, ripe for acquisition.
I stared at your name on those documents and felt like I was going to be sick. "
"How convenient." But I caught the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, the way her breathing had gone ragged.
"You want the truth? The whole truth?" I ran a hand through my hair, destroying what remained of my careful styling. "Yes, my firm is acquiring your company. Yes, I've known since the very beginning. And yes, I should have told you immediately."
"Finally, some honesty."
"But everything else—every moment we've shared, every conversation, every touch—none of that was calculated.
None of that was business." I stepped closer, my voice dropping.
"And the fact that you could think I'd be capable of that kind of manipulation tells me exactly how little you understand what's been happening between us. "
"Then explain it to me." Her eyes blazed with hurt and fury. "Explain how the man I've been falling for just happens to work for the company that's about to ship me back to Texas. Explain the coincidence."
"There is no explanation that doesn't sound insane.
" I felt my own control slipping, months of careful composure finally cracking.
"The truth is, I'm a man who's spent all my life building a career, following a path laid out for me since I was born.
I've never questioned an acquisition, never let personal feelings interfere with professional obligations. "
"Until now?"
"Until you." The words came out raw, unfiltered. "Until I met a woman who makes me laugh at things that aren't supposed to be funny. Who sees beauty in gardens most people would call weeds. Who can command a room full of aristocrats one minute and worry about her Mother's feelings the next."
Lili's facade wavered, but she held firm.
"Don't try to sweet-talk me, Edward. Pretty words don't change the facts."
"The facts?" I moved closer, close enough to smell the faint scent of her perfume.
"The fact is, I've been professionally compromised since the moment I found you in my bed.
In legal terms, I have a conflict of interest so severe it could end my career.
In personal terms, I stopped being objective about anything the moment you looked at me like I was worth trusting. "
"So you decided to say nothing? To let me find out from your Mother in the cruelest way possible?"
"I was trying to find a way to fix it first." The admission felt like tearing open my chest. "I've been calling contacts, trying to find another buyer, another solution—anything that would let me keep you and my career."
"And?"
"And I failed. There is no solution that doesn't require me to choose between everything I've worked for and everything I want."
The silence stretched between us, heavy with implications we both understood.
"What do you want, Edward?" Lili's voice was quieter now, dangerous in its softness.
The question hung in the air like a challenge.
Fifteen years of training told me to give the safe answer, the professional answer. But looking at her face—beautiful and broken and still somehow trusting enough to ask—I found myself incapable of anything but honesty.
"I want you ." The words came out like a confession.
"I want to wake up to your laugh and fall asleep to your voice.
I want to watch you turn a room full of skeptics into believers with nothing but passion and charm.
I want to build something real with someone who sees the world as full of possibility instead of problems to be solved. "
"But?"
"But I don't know how to be that man. I am Edward Grosvenor—the heir, the lawyer, the perfect son. I don't know who I am without those titles, and I'm terrified that if I strip them all away for you, there won't be anything left worth loving."
Something shifted in her expression—not forgiveness, but understanding. "Your Mother said I was everything your family needed protection from."
"My Mother fears anything she can't control. And you, Lili Anderton, are entirely uncontrollable."
"Is that bad?"
"It's terrifying." I moved closer, drawn by something stronger than logic. "It's also the most beautiful thing I've ever encountered."
She studied my face for a long moment, searching for deception, for calculation, for any trace of the manipulation Mother had accused me of.
"I don't know how to trust you," she whispered finally.
"Then don't trust me. Trust this." I reached for her hands, feeling the tremor that ran through her at the contact. "Trust what happens when we're together. Trust the way you feel when I look at you, the way your breath changes when I touch you."
Her eyes searched mine, and I could see the exact moment when the wall she'd built around her heart began to crack. Not crumble—that would take time—but show the first hairline fractures that let light seep through.
"Edward..."
"I know I've handled this badly. I know I should have told you in the first place instead of hoping I could fix everything. But I need you to know—whatever happens with the acquisition, whatever my Mother said, what I feel for you is real."
The space between us seemed to crackle with electricity. I clocked the second her anger began to transform into something else—something dangerous and desperate and absolutely essential.
"This is insane," she breathed.
"Completely."
"Your career—"
"Will survive or it won't."
"Your family—"
"Can learn to adjust."
"The acquisition—"
"Is tomorrow's problem."
She looked up at me then, really looked at me, and I could see she had made her choice. Not forgiveness—but a decision to trust the connection between us despite every rational reason not to.
"Cece," she said without breaking eye contact with me, "would you mind giving us some privacy?"
I heard Cece's sharp intake of breath. "Lili, are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
The silence stretched taut as a wire between us. I could see Cece weighing her options—stay and protect her friend or trust that sometimes the most dangerous choice was also the right one?
After a moment's hesitation, Cece gathered her things. "If he hurts you again," she said to me in passing, "I know where to hide the body."
"Noted," I replied, my attention entirely focused on the woman in front of me.
When we were alone, the air between us felt charged with possibility and peril in equal measure.
"What happens now?" Lili asked.
"I don't know." I cupped her face in my hands, thumbs tracing the tear tracks on her cheeks. "I only know that walking away from you isn't an option anymore."
"Even if it costs you everything?"
"Especially then."
When she kissed me, it was with the fierce urgency of someone who'd almost lost something precious. I responded with equal desperation, pouring every word I couldn't say into the touch of my lips against hers.
This kiss was different from our first—rawer, needier, tinged with the knowledge of how easily it could all disappear. Her hands fisted in my shirt, holding me close as if I might vanish if she let go.
My hands shook as I touched her face, still hardly believing she was letting me this close after everything.
"Edward," she whispered against my mouth, and the way she said my name—like a prayer, like a promise—nearly undid me completely.
"Tell me what you need," I murmured, trailing kisses along her jaw.
"You. Just you."
The words broke something fundamental in my chest. All the careful control I'd maintained crumbled in the face of her simple honesty.
"Not here," I said, glancing around the public alcove.
"Your room?"
"My room."