4. Lily #3
I saw you at the hotel with the lawyer. I know what you’re planning. Meet me at the Jade Garden tomorrow at noon, or I tell Edward everything.
-E
I stare at the message.
Elena.
Edward’s real wife. The mother of his children. The woman who has everything I thought I had - and now she’s threatening me?
“What is it?” Eleanor asks sharply. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I shove the phone back in my clutch, but my heart is racing. “Just... something I need to handle.”
“Tell me.”
“Not yet.” I meet her eyes steadily. “I need to figure out what I’m dealing with first.”
Eleanor studies me for a long moment. Then, slowly, she nods.
“You’re already learning,” she says approvingly. “Don’t show your hand until you know theirs. That’s the first rule of war.”
“Is that what this is? War?”
“That’s what it’s always been.” Her smile is fierce. “You just didn’t know you were fighting.”
Lucas is waiting in the hallway when I emerge.
He straightens when he sees me, his eyes scanning my face for clues about what happened inside. I must look different - I feel different - because something shifts in his expression.
“You okay?” he asks.
“No.” I shake my head slowly. “But I think I’m going to be.”
“What did she say?”
“A lot of things.” I hesitate, unsure how much to share. He’s still a Burton, after all. Still the brother of the man who destroyed my life. “She wants to help me fight back.”
“Good.”
“Is it?” I turn to face him fully, searching his face. “You keep saying you want to help me, Lucas. You keep acting like you’re on my side. But you’re a Burton. Your family is the enemy. Why would you help me destroy them?”
The question hangs between us.
Lucas is quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is rough.
“Because watching them destroy you has been the worst thing I’ve ever experienced.” His eyes meet mine, dark and intense. “Because I’ve spent three years hating myself for staying silent. Because I-”
He stops. Swallows hard.
“Because what?” I press.
“Because I care about you, Lily. More than I should. More than I have any right to.”
The words land like a physical blow.
I stare at him - really look at him, maybe for the first time. The sharp line of his jaw. The tension in his shoulders. The way his throat moves when he swallows.
He’s beautiful. I’ve always known that, in some distant, abstract way - the way you know a painting is beautiful, or a sunset, or anything that exists in a world you’re not allowed to touch.
But now I notice specifically. The way his shirt clings to his chest. The hint of collarbone visible at his open collar. The veins in his forearms, the breadth of his hands, the way he’s looking at me like I’m the most important thing he’s ever seen.
Heat floods through me - unexpected, unwanted, undeniable.
This is wrong, I tell myself. This is so wrong. His brother was my husband. His family destroyed me. I should not be standing here wondering what his hands would feel like on my skin.
I wonder anyway.
“Lucas,” I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I intend.
“I know.” He takes a step back, putting distance between us. “I know. The timing is terrible. Everything about this is terrible. I’m not asking for anything, Lily. I just... you asked why I’m helping you. That’s why.”
“Because you care about me.”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
He laughs - a short, pained sound. “Since the moment I saw you in that borrowed dress at Edward’s engagement party.
Since you smiled at me like I was a real person instead of just another Burton.
Since you laughed at my terrible joke about the champagne and I realized I would do anything to hear that sound again. ”
My heart is pounding so hard I’m sure he can hear it.
“That was three years ago,” I say faintly.
“I know.”
“You’ve... felt this way for three years?”
“I’ve been in love with you for three years.” The words come out raw, unvarnished. “While you were married to my brother. While I watched you disappear. While I did nothing to stop it. I’ve been in love with you the whole time, and I hated myself for it.”
The hallway suddenly feels too small. Too warm. Too close.
I should step away. I should put distance between us, find some equilibrium, remember that my entire life has imploded and this is not the time for... whatever this is.
Instead, I step closer.
“Lily.” His voice is strained. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know.” It’s honest, at least. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know who I am anymore. Everything I believed was a lie, and you’re the only thing that feels real right now.”
“That’s not a good reason to-”
“I know.” I’m close enough now to feel the heat radiating off his body. Close enough to see the rapid pulse in his throat. “I know it’s not a good reason. I know this is wrong. I know I should be thinking about a hundred other things right now.”
“But?”
“But I’m tired of doing what I should.” I reach up, touch his jaw. Feel the muscle clench under my fingertips. “I spent three years being good. Being quiet. Being invisible. And where did it get me? Alone in a fake marriage with a man who couldn’t stand to touch me.”
“Lily-”
“You said you care about me. You said you’ve been in love with me for three years.” My voice drops low. “Is that true?”
“Yes.” The word sounds like it’s torn from him. “God, yes, it’s true.”
“Then prove it.”
I don’t know who moves first.
One second we’re standing apart, tension crackling between us like electricity before a storm. The next, his mouth is on mine.
He kisses like a man who’s been holding back for years - desperate and reverent all at once, his hands cupping my face like I’m something precious, something he’s afraid will break. But underneath the gentleness, I can feel the hunger. The need. The three years of wanting that mirrors my own.
Because I have wanted this. I realize it now, with his lips on mine and his hands in my hair. I’ve wanted him for longer than I knew, in ways I wouldn’t let myself acknowledge.
Every stolen glance across a dinner table. Every moment of eye contact that lasted a beat too long. Every time I caught him watching me and felt something flutter in my chest that I immediately suppressed.
I wanted him. I just didn’t know it was allowed.
“We should stop,” he breathes against my mouth.
“Probably.”
“You’ve been through hell tonight. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“Maybe not.” I pull him closer, fist my hands in his shirt. “Stop anyway?”
“No.” He kisses me again, deeper this time. “God help me, no.”
His back hits the wall. Or maybe mine does - I’m not sure anymore, can’t tell where he ends and I begin. His hands slide down my back, pulling me against him, and I feel exactly how much he wants this.
How much he wants me.
The thought is dizzying. Edward never wanted me - not really, not like this. Three years of marriage and I never once felt desired, never once felt like my body was something worth wanting.
Lucas makes me feel like I’m the only woman in the world.
“Not here,” I gasp, pulling back far enough to think. “Not in a hospital hallway.”
“No.” His breathing is ragged. “Definitely not here.”
“Then where?”
“My apartment isn’t far. Ten minutes.” He presses his forehead to mine. “But Lily - if you want to stop, if you want to slow down-”
“I want to feel something good.” I cut him off, my voice fierce. “Just once, I want something that doesn’t hurt. Is that wrong?”
“No.” His hands tighten on my waist. “That’s not wrong at all.”
“Then take me somewhere else.”
He doesn’t argue.
We make it to his car in record time, and I spend the entire drive vibrating with anticipation. His hand rests on my thigh - high enough to make my breath catch, not high enough to satisfy the ache building between my legs.
Every traffic light feels like torture.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” I accuse.
“Doing what?”
“Your hand. You know exactly what you’re doing.”
He glances at me, and the heat in his eyes makes my stomach flip. “Maybe I do.”
“Tease.”
“Patience.” His hand slides an inch higher, and I bite back a whimper. “We have all night.”
By the time we reach his apartment, I’m wound so tight I might shatter.
His building is sleek and modern, nothing like the oppressive grandeur of the Burton penthouse. The elevator ride is torture, his body pressed against mine, his mouth tracing a path down my neck that makes me forget my own name.
“Lucas,” I gasp, my voice trembling.
“Mm?”
“The elevator has cameras.”
“I don’t care.” He bites gently at my pulse point, his teeth grazing the skin, and my knees nearly buckle. “Let them watch.”
The doors slide open. We stumble down the hallway, keys fumbling, mouths hungry and desperate. He pushes me through the door and kicks it shut behind us, the heavy thud echoing through the quiet apartment.
Suddenly, there is nothing between us but heat, raw want, and three years of denied longing.
“Bedroom?” I manage to whisper.
“Too far.” He lifts me effortlessly, my legs wrapping around his waist as he hoists me onto the cold granite of the kitchen counter. He steps firmly between my thighs, his chest heaving against mine. “I’ve waited three years for this. I’m not waiting another second.”
His mouth claims mine again, a bruising, starving kiss that tastes of desperation. My fingers tear at his shirt, buttons popping and flying across the floor, desperate to feel the heat of his bare skin.
“This is insane,” I breathe, my fingers fisting in his hair. “You’re his brother. I should-”
“Tell me to stop.” His mouth hovers at the corner of mine, his breath hot enough to make me shake. “One word, Lily, and I stop.”
I don’t say it. I can’t.
He groans into my mouth, his hands sliding up my thighs to push my ruined dress up around my hips, bunching the fabric at my waist.