Chapter 4
Hands spanning my waist. Hungry groans rip through the air like wildfire.
Fire licking up my spine with every touch, every curse, every desperate whimper.
My skirt is shoved up to my waist, knickers pushed to the side, as two thick fingers sink deep inside me.
Oh my God. Is this heaven or hell? Am I a sinner or saint? Or something broken in between?
“God, Lil’, you feel fucking incredible.
Tell me you want this, please.” His voice is ragged, pleas falling from lips swollen from my kisses, bleeding from my bite.
Hearing him beg, my eyes roll back, high on the rush, the ache, the promise.
He’s mine. No matter what the world thinks.
He belongs to me and only me. They’ll see.
“Please,” I plead, voice thick with need. “I need you, I need this. I’ve waited so long for this moment.”
The space between us disappears in a heartbeat as he leans down, claiming my mouth again.
The sharp tang of vodka mixes with him, the taste is intoxicating, making me wonder if he’s drunk.
But I shake it off, fist tangled in his hair, pulling him deeper.
I need us to become one—so fused, so entwined that nothing and no one could ever tear us apart.
Reaching between us—
The shrill shriek of my phone jolts me awake from my…
dream? Nightmare? Who knows anymore. Groaning, I scramble for it, silencing the persistent noise.
Squinting at the screen, six missed calls glare back at me, alongside twenty frantic group chat messages.
Before I can clear the sleep from my eyes, the phone vibrates with an incoming FaceTime call.
“What on earth made you think calling before the sun was even up was a good idea?” I groan, rubbing a fist into my eye and yawning wide.
“Oh, stop exaggerating. It’s after nine.” Cora sighs before disappearing from the frame. Moments later, she returns, April—her nearly two-year-old toddler—perched on her hip with a chunk of Cora’s blonde hair in her chubby little fist.
“You’re turning into Abbie with this allergy to mornings,” she teases with a roll of her eyes.
“Not all of us are morning people, you know,” Abbie chimes in, sighing from somewhere in the background.
Looking at my two best friends, the ache of homesickness tries to claw in. Batting it away, I sit up and prop my phone against my bent knees, twisting my hair into a messy bun. It still looks like shit, but it’s better than the rat’s nest it was.
“Yeah, just because April had you up before the birds doesn’t mean the rest of us need to be awake,” I complain, stretching with a yawn. “My first class isn’t for another two hours.”
Abbie’s in her dressing room, debating a dozen outfit options before settling on a leather halter top and skin-tight jeans.
“Logan’s going to lose his mind,” I whistle, watching her twirl.
“Oh, honey, that’s the plan.” She smirks, flicking her red hair over her shoulder and narrowing her eyes at me. “Now, what the hell happened to your hair?”
“That’s beside the point. I was up until after four, which means I’ve only had like five hours’ sleep. Does this look like a face that thrives on anything less than a full eight hours?” I circle my face with an exaggerated look of horror.
“Why the hell were you up so late? Are your roommates keeping you up?” Cora’s voice softens, concern threading through her words. “I have far more money than I need, I don’t understand why you won’t just let me help you out.”
I can already see the wheels turning, and while I love her more than life itself, I need to shut down her worries before she spirals into full mother-hen mode. The absolute last thing I need is for her to dig past my carefully constructed walls that keep Lily’s Loves separate from my reality.
“Unruffle those feathers, babe. I was making new samples and lost track of time. My roommates are angels, I promise.”
Not exactly a lie—more like bending the truth—because they don’t exist. Camming at all hours of the day doesn’t exactly lend itself to being a good roommate.
But saying I have roommates is an easier way to explain my refusal of help than confessing how I can afford to live on my own when I’ve been cut off.
Keeping Lily’s Loves from them hadn’t started as a lie, but it became one.
By the time they drew me into their twosome, I’d already sunk too deep into the rabbit hole with only Matt for company.
It had become my private sin, a slice of forbidden joy I guarded from the Four Points.
And then life began to spin out of control before any of us could blink, and suddenly, there was never a right time to tell them.
“Uhuhuh, that reminds me. I’ve been talking to my dad about fighting your case. Everyone with a brain knows what Jen was up to had nothing to do with you, but those damn emails paint a different picture, one that’s proving difficult to erase.”
The mention of Mother dearest twists my gut into knots.
Growing up, I always knew she was far from mother of the year. She was never happy with me; nothing I did was ever good enough. God forbid she caught me eating anything outside her carefully controlled diet plan.
I’d hoped her marrying Ciaran would dull her sharp edges, that the influence of the other wives and not having to work so hard to make ends meet might dilute her venom. But I could never have predicted how far down the path of corruption she’d already gone. How utterly rotten she was at her core.
And now? Being painted with the same brush? It stings like acid.
“Cora.” I sigh, staring at her poised, sharp Mafia heiress face on the screen.
Maybe one day she’ll have the power to change things.
But that day isn’t today. Jonathan O’Neill still runs the Points with an iron grip, and, last I heard, shows no signs of slowing down, not while there are still names to uncover, bodies to bury, and secrets to drag into the light.
Maybe after he feels like he’s avenged Helen, he’ll hand over the reins, but even then, there’s still the rest of the older generation to contend with.
And as much as I know he wasn’t cruel—not really, not to me—he still made the decision to cast me out. Even if it was to shield me from Ciaran’s wrath, it doesn’t change the facts.
And the facts are that every one of those bastards turned their backs on me when I needed them most. The Four Points say blood is everything, but mine was never thick enough. They turned their backs on me in an instant, like I was nothing. Like I never belonged. And Christ, does it burn.
Even if they welcomed me home tomorrow, I don’t know if I’d ever feel like I truly belonged or if I could ever put my blind trust in them again. Hell, I don’t know if I would even want to head back to London.
“Babe, don’t ‘Cora’ her. We just want to bring you home. We miss you, we’re worried about you.” Abbie’s voice cuts through, fierce and tender all at once—red curls wild, eyeliner sharp, eyes far too perceptive. I feel it land inside me, a warmth that isn’t mine, and a pang that is.
Looking at the two of them, I realise they’ve found their peace. Their people, a love that doesn’t just hold you but chooses you, time and time again.
A love I’ve only ever witnessed from the outside. Brushed against in passing, but never been able to claim as my own.
They have everything I’ve ever wanted for myself, and Christ, how I ache for it. For the certainty of belonging. For the comfort of being wanted without compromise, without walls, without the constant fight to be enough.
I swallow the envy and let it soften into something else, something quieter, something tinged with hope.
Maybe one day I’ll find that, too. Maybe one day I’ll have someone who chooses me, relentlessly, even when the world tries to strip me away. Someone who won’t leave me more broken than they found me.
Maybe in another universe—one without secrets, betrayal, and family names like loaded guns—things could have been different. But then again… maybe not. Maybe we were always cursed to carry this bone-deep ache while our best friends live out their happily-ever-afters.
I glance toward the window, where soft morning light filters through sheer curtains, casting long shadows across the floorboards.
Lyon stirs beneath me—the low hum of traffic, clinking cutlery in nearby cafés, the smell of bread rising from the boulangerie downstairs.
It’s a city that feels like a dream stitched together with silk and steel.
But inside me, chaos stirs. A storm that won’t settle.
Matt.
His name lives in the back of my mind, haunting me like a song I heard once on the radio, one I can’t stop signing along to. His voice echoes in quiet moments, tangled in memories too soft to touch and too sharp to forget. We were doomed from the start, and we knew it.
But for a while, we loved like we didn’t care, like we were invincible.
And now we’re paying the price.
Or maybe only I am.
“Listen, at the end of the day, what more can we do?” I rub at my temple, exhausted at the prospect of revisiting a conversation we've had a hundred times this week alone. “I would have given them access to anything they wanted to prove my innocence. But they didn’t want that, Cor. They wanted an easy fix. A way to get rid of any reminders of Jen and, by extension, Angus. And if what Brennan found out about my birth father is true? There was no way in hell I ever stood a chance.” My voice cracks, but I push through it.
“And the worst part? I get it. I fucking get it.”
A long silence stretches, broken only by soft sighs on both ends. We’ve had this conversation before. More times than I can count.
“France is my home now,” I say, my voice barely more than a breath. “So please… can we just let it go?”
They nod, promising they’ll try. I nod back, promising I’m fine. We spin tiny white lies between us like fragile threads, each one trembling with the hope that maybe, someday, those lies will stitch themselves into truth.
When the call ends, I force myself up, pushing the weight of the past back into its cage. If I stay still too long, it’ll swallow me whole, which is something I can't afford. Not today, tomorrow, or anytime soon.
Instead, I lose myself in the ritual of getting ready—curling my hair until it tumbles in soft waves, tracing smoky liner across my lids, painting my lips a daring berry shade.
The act itself is almost meditative, forcing my mind to slow, to settle in the present, to revel in the freedom of shaping myself however I choose each day.
Makeup finished, I slide into a buttery-soft baby white silk blouse and a baby pink leather midi skirt so tight it clings to my hips and ass like a second skin, leaving no room for underwear, and I shiver at the delicious defiance of it.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I look like someone who has her shit together.
You’d never know I’m a few wrong moves away from spiralling.
Perfect. I snap a few pictures—some for my Tempt page, some just for me—and head into the kitchen.
Flicking on the old coffee machine, I step out onto my narrow balcony.
The cool iron railing bites into my palms as I look out over the streets below.
Lyon is loud and alive beneath me. I used to pray for a chance to come here, to study fashion in the city of couture, to create something that made people feel.
I thought if I could get here, I could outrun the weight of expectations and obligations.
But I never pictured coming here like this. Exiled. With no other options and no one to turn to. Since the moment I landed, I’ve been stitching together a new life one thread at a time, one untouched by bloodlines and betrayal.
I’m not the girl they cast out. Not the burden Jen left behind.
And if my stepbrother wants to keep watching me fall apart night after night, tip after tip?
He can pay for the privilege.
Because in the end?
I’m going to make every one of those bastards pay.