27. Delilah
— ? —
Delilah
Backstage, my hands are shaking.
I can’t make them stop. I press them flat against my thighs, then cross my arms, then uncross them because that makes me look defensive. Adrenaline courses through my veins like electricity with nowhere to go.
The corridor is quiet compared to the chaos we left behind.
Muffled sounds from the arena - the crowd still buzzing, the announcer trying to move things along, the band starting up like nothing happened.
The walls are concrete and industrial, exposed pipes running along the ceiling, fluorescent lights humming overhead.
I walked in here to escape. To breathe. To process what just happened before I have to face anyone else.
Lucas finds me in the corridor anyway. Away from the cameras, away from the whispers, away from the wreckage of Aimie Lawson’s breakdown.
“That was incredible,” he says.
His voice echoes slightly in the empty space. He’s still in his suit from the event, but he’s loosened his tie, and his hair is mussed from running his hands through it. He looks almost as wrecked as I feel.
“That was terrifying.” I laugh, and it comes out shaky, broken. “I can’t believe I just did that.”
“You were amazing.” He reaches for my hand, then stops himself. His fingers hover in the space between us, uncertain. “Delilah, I-”
“Don’t.” I step back before he can touch me. Put distance between us like it matters. “Just because we exposed her doesn’t mean everything’s fixed between us.”
The words come out harsher than I intended.
But they’re true. Aimie being gone doesn’t erase the months of feeling invisible.
Doesn’t undo the nights I spent alone in the cottage.
Doesn’t make me forget the way he looked at me in the kitchen when I asked him to choose - like I was being unreasonable, like I was the problem.
“I know.” He swallows hard, his throat moving visibly. “But I need to say something. Here. Now.”
“Lucas-”
“Please.”
Something in his voice makes me stop. A crack in the composure he always maintains. A rawness that sounds almost painful.
He looks broken. The way Allana described him. The way Rosa said he’d been, pacing the halls at night, crying when he thought no one could hear.
I don’t want to see him like this. Don’t want to feel the pull of sympathy underneath all my anger. But I can’t look away.
“I failed you.” The words come out rough, cracked, like he’s pulling them from somewhere deep and wounded.
“I failed you in every way a husband can fail his wife. I let another woman into our home. I let her wear your clothes and cook for our daughter and I didn’t see what she was doing because I was too focused on the business. ”
“Lucas-”
“I’m not finished.” He takes a breath, steadies himself, keeps going like stopping would mean never finishing. “You asked me to choose. And I didn’t. I called you paranoid. I walked away from you when you needed me most. I let you leave our home and sleep in that cottage alone while I-”
His voice breaks.
“While I cried myself to sleep missing you.”
I stare at him.
Lucas Montoya. The man who never shows weakness. The man who runs an empire with steady hands and unwavering confidence. The man who made me feel invisible for months without seeming to notice or care.
He’s crying now. Actual tears running down his face in the middle of this corridor where anyone could walk by and see.
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I know that.” His voice shakes, but he doesn’t wipe away the tears. Doesn’t try to hide them. “But I’m begging you-”
He drops to his knees.
Right there on the concrete floor. In his expensive suit, surrounded by exposed pipes and industrial lighting. His knees hit the ground with a sound that echoes in the empty space.
“I’m begging you to give me a chance to earn it back.”
“Get up.” My voice is barely a whisper. Something in my chest cracks at the sight of him. “People will see.”
“I don’t care.” He looks up at me, eyes red, face wet. “Let them see. Let them all see. I’ll grovel in front of the whole stadium if that’s what it takes.”
“Lucas-”
“I choose you.” His voice cracks on the words, breaks apart and reforms. “I choose you, Delilah. I should have said it that day in the kitchen. I should have said it every day since. You are my wife. My partner. The only woman I have ever loved. And I will spend the rest of my life proving that to you if you let me.”
The corridor door opens.
A group of sponsors walks through - three men in expensive suits, laughing about something. They stop dead when they see Lucas Montoya on his knees in front of his wife.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t stand. Doesn’t acknowledge them at all.
Just stays there, looking up at me with those dark eyes full of tears.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
I should walk away. I should make him work harder, suffer longer, prove himself more. I should protect myself the way I’ve learned to protect myself, with walls and distance and the careful armor of not caring too much.
But I’m tired. So tired of being angry. So tired of being alone.
So tired of loving a man I’m trying not to forgive.
“Get up,” I say again.
He doesn’t.
“Lucas. Get up.”
He shakes his head slowly. “Not until you tell me there’s hope. Not until you tell me I haven’t lost you completely.”
The sponsors are staring. More people are gathering - someone must have mentioned where we went, because I can see others trickling in through the corridor doors. Whispers. Phones coming out.
And suddenly, I don’t care either.
Let them watch. Let them all watch.
“There’s hope,” I whisper.
He closes his eyes. Relief floods his face like water breaking through a dam - something releasing in him, something that’s been wound tight for months.
“But I haven’t forgiven you,” I add quickly, needing him to understand. “I don’t know when - if I could-”
“That is enough.” He finally stands, wiping his face with the back of his hand. His suit is dusty from the concrete. His eyes are still wet. He looks nothing like the polished CEO the world sees.
He looks like the man I married.
“I’ll earn it every day for the rest of our lives if that’s what you need,” he says.
“Good.” I turn to walk away, then pause. Something loosens in my chest - not forgiveness, not quite, but something close to possibility. “Start by making heart-shaped waffles tomorrow. And the day after that. And every day until I tell you to stop.”
A small smile breaks through his tears. Trembling and uncertain and beautiful.
“Yes ma’am,” he says.
I walk away. Feel his eyes on my back the whole way.
It’s not forgiveness. Not yet.
But it’s a start.