Chapter 22 #2
I stare at the screen, pulse quickening. This isn’t about him. It’s not even about wanting company. It’s about proving—to myself, to Matt, to the universe—that I’m not some broken, discarded secret hiding in a foreign city while the Four Points pretend I don’t exist.
I hit send before I can think too much.
The phone buzzes again almost immediately, but I set it down and walk to the window. Lyon glows outside, the Rh?ne reflecting amber streetlamps. It’s beautiful here. A city that has no idea who I was, no idea who I still am.
I press my forehead to the glass.
Maybe this is what freedom looks like—choosing someone new, even if it’s only for a night. Pretending I’m a girl who doesn’t dream of a man she can’t have, a girl who doesn’t still feel the pull of a family that cast her out.
“Your move, O’Malley,” I whisper into the dark.
The restaurant is all soft candlelight and polished silver, the kind of place that whispers elegance rather than shouts it.
I’ve been here once before, with classmates after a show, but tonight it feels different—more intimate, more dangerous, like walking a line I don’t want to cross but can’t resist.
I catch my reflection in the glass as I push open the door.
The dress I chose is deliberate—dark silk, low at the back, barely brushing the line between modesty and provocation.
My lipstick is deeper than I usually wear, and I spent far too long curling my hair for a date I’m not even sure I care about.
Texting Louis last night was my hurt in action—an impulsive flare of spite and need.
Hell, I didn’t even tell Abbie or Cora because I didn’t want anyone to see how much I still let Matt affect me. But I’m here now, and I’ll be damned if I don’t at least try to forget my stepbrother for one night.
“Lily.” Louis’ voice is warm when I approach. He stands, tall and tailored, all French charm and unthreatening strength, exactly the kind of man I should want. Not the kind of man who leaves me bruised with memories.
“You look…” he hesitates, searching for the word like it might be dangerous to speak it, hand braced on the back of the chair he pulled out for me. “Enchanting.”
I smile politely, but my chest tightens as I slip past him to take my seat. Compliments used to roll off me like water. Now they land like stones in a still pond, sending ripples through everything fragile beneath the surface.
A waiter appears with the menus as Louis dives into an endless stream of small talk—about photography, the exhibition he’s curating, how Lyon at night holds secrets—only pausing to place our orders.
His voice is soft, deliberate, intoxicating and exactly the kind of man any rational woman would want.
I am not rational.
Half the date I’m somewhere else—a different table, a different city. Matt’s broad shoulders bent over white linen. His laugh spilling across a whiskey glass at O’Neill’s. The images are a dragnet. They pull and pull until nothing else fits.
“Are you all right?” Louis’s voice tugs me back. His sea-green eyes are fixed on mine; I wish they were emerald—hotter, sharper, more dangerous.
I give him the smallest, practised smile. “Yes, sorry. It’s been a long day at the studio; the showcase is coming up. I’m sure you know how it is.”
He accepts it, reaching for his glass. “Then tonight is for forgetting.”
“To forgetting,” I murmur, and lift my glass to toast the lie.
He leans in as the evening stretches, his questions soft but persistent—where I’m from, why I moved, and whether I miss home. I answer with just enough to be interesting but not enough to matter. He wants to get to know me; I want to use him to forget.
By the time we’ve small-talked our way through dinner and dessert—with him stubbornly insisting on paying—I let him walk me home. Fighting it feels pointless. There’s an illusion of normalcy between us, fragile as tissue paper, but I cling to it anyway.
At my building, he hesitates, eyes searching mine. “Will I see you again?”
I want to say yes. I want to be the woman who moves on easily, but that’s never been me.
“Maybe,” I say, forcing a smile that feels like a mask. He leans in, slow enough for me to stop him. I don’t because I can’t stop wondering; if I kiss someone new, will that erase Matt’s touch from my memory? Will I finally be able to move on?
But kissing Louis just feels wrong. Like trying on a dress that doesn’t fit, no matter how perfect it looked on the hanger. Wrong, hollow, just another reminder of what I lost.
When I step inside my flat, I lock the door and press my back to it.
The city beyond is quiet, but inside my head it screams. Matt’s face.
His voice. The gilded ceiling in Turin, the suit that matched Gianna Salvatore’s perfect smile.
Even without being there, I can picture it all so clearly it hurts.
In another life, it should be me wearing his ring and sharing private looks with him as strangers and loved ones congratulate us.
I sink to the floor, knees pulled to my chest, letting the silence swallow me whole. The wine, the candles, Louis’ charm, they mean nothing here. The rage, the heartbreak, the ache are all that remain. And for a bitter moment, I let it consume me.
And then a reckless, bright thought strikes—Why not go out again? Why shouldn’t I let someone who isn’t him look at me the way I used to think I deserved to be looked at? Why not let another set of hands remind me I’m still alive?
I grab my phone again, thumb hovering over Louis’ name. My chest hammers, a mix of fear, defiance, and hunger. I know it’s reckless. I know it won’t fix anything. But tonight, I don’t care. I need the distraction, the sensation, the proof that I can still burn bright even if he tried to dim me.
I type a single line, reckless and impatient: Dinner again?
No hesitation. No overthinking. Just the sharp, intoxicating thrill of doing something forbidden by my own heartbreak. My finger hovers over the send button, one last flicker of reason, but reason has no place tonight.
I hit send.
Immediately, my mind spins ahead. What will it feel like?
Will it matter if he touches me? If his eyes linger too long?
I’m not looking for love. I’m not looking for someone to stay.
I just want to feel. I want to fill the emptiness with someone else’s hands, someone else’s attention.
It’s impulsive and self-destructive, but something about the danger feels perfect and fitting.
Because Matt is out there, somewhere, with his fiancé, and I’m here, on fire, letting myself be consumed. And if I have to burn to remember I’m alive, then so be it.