13. Kane
KANE
I spend all day Wednesday replaying Lilah's question.
How did you sit across from me and make me feel like I mattered while knowing you were going to take the one thing I built without you?
The answer hasn't changed since last night. The bakery was the plan. She was the person I fell for despite the plan. Both things existed at the same time.
But saying it out loud made it sound worse than it felt in my head.
Because the truth is, I did make her matter. I wanted the building and I wanted her, and somewhere along the way I convinced myself I could have both. That taking the deed wouldn't mean losing her.
Stupid fucking logic.
I knew better. I've always known better. My father taught me early that people are resources or obstacles, and you don't get attached to either. But Lilah made me forget the rules. Made me think I could break them without consequences.
Now she's upstairs in my house, wanting me and hating herself for it, and I've given her another reason to regret it.
By noon I'm done pretending to work. I find her in the conference room with Skye, bent over a stack of legal filings. She's wearing jeans and one of those sweaters that slips off her shoulder, and her hair's pulled back in a ponytail.
She looks up when I enter. "Hey."
"Need you for something," I say. "Won't take long."
Skye glances between us. "I can finish up here."
Lilah hesitates, then nods. "Okay."
She follows me downstairs and out to where Stepan's waiting with the car. She doesn't ask where we're going, just gets into the back seat and buckles in.
Smart woman.
We drive in silence through the Upper West Side, then down the West Side Highway toward Brooklyn. Lilah watches the city glide past her window without comment. When we cross into Sunset Park, she finally speaks.
"Are we going to the bakery?"
"Close."
Stepan pulls over on Forty-Third Street, a block north of Fourth Avenue. I get out and Lilah follows, looking around at the row of buildings. Most of them are old walk-ups, a few converted storefronts, nothing special.
"Why are we here?" she asks.
I point to the building in the middle of the block. "Third floor. That was ours."
She goes still. "Your mother's place?"
"Yeah."
The windows are different now. New frames, probably replaced ten years ago. But the fire escape is the same. I spent half my childhood sitting on that rusted metal platform, watching the street.
"You want to go inside?" Lilah asks.
"No." I shove my hands in my pockets. "Just needed you to see it."
She waits.
I start talking before I can change my mind.
"My father was pakhan before me. You know that part.
What you don't know is that he kept my mother like a mistress instead of a wife.
Separate apartment, minimal money, no claim to anything he owned.
She cooked for him, cleaned for him, gave him two sons.
And in return, he gave her rent and grocery money and nothing else. "
Lilah's watching me now, not the building.
"When I was eleven, he brought another woman to Christmas dinner. Sat her at the head of the table where my mother usually sat and told us she'd be moving into his house. My mother served them both. Smiled the whole time. Then went home to this shithole apartment and pretended everything was fine."
"Kane—"
"She died six years later. Heart attack. Alone in that third-floor walk-up because she couldn't afford a hospital and was too proud to ask for help." My jaw tightens. "I found her three days after it happened. Still in her bathrobe. Mail piling up by the door."
Lilah's hand moves toward mine, then stops.
"At the funeral, my father didn't come. Sent flowers with a card that said Condolences.
Like she was a business associate instead of the mother of his children.
" I turn to face Lilah. "I stood at her grave and made a promise.
That I'd own every building on this corridor.
That I'd take everything he never gave her and make it mine.
That nobody would ever treat me or mine the way he treated her. "
"So the corridor wasn't about money," Lilah says.
"No."
"It was about your mother."
"Yes."
She glances up at those third-floor windows.
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because you asked how I could sit across from you and want you while planning to take your building." I shove my hands deeper into my pockets. "And I wanted you to understand why the building mattered. Why I couldn't just walk away from it even after I realized what you meant to me."
"You brought me here so I'd feel too sorry for you to stay angry."
It's not a question.
"Maybe." I force myself to meet her eyes. "I hoped you'd look at me differently if you knew."
"Differently how?"
"Like maybe what I did made sense. Even if it was still wrong."
She turns back to the building, arms crossed.
"Your father was cruel to your mother. He discarded her.
Treated her like she didn't matter." Her voice is even, controlled.
"And then you met me and decided to do the same thing.
Take what you wanted and plan to walk away with my building in your pocket. "
The words hit like a fist to the gut.
Because she's right.
"It's not—" I start, then stop.
"Not what?"
I could explain. Could tell her that I planned to compensate her fairly, that I never intended to leave her with nothing, that buying the building wasn't the same as discarding her.
But all of it sounds like excuses.
Like my father justifying why my mother didn't deserve better.
"I can't answer that," I say finally.
"Why not?"
"Because any answer I give sounds like I'm making excuses for what I did. And I'm done doing that."
She looks at me, surprised.
"You want the truth?" I ask. "Fine. I wanted you.
I wanted the building. And I convinced myself I could have both because I'd spent twenty years working toward that corridor and you showed up at the worst possible time.
" My hands curl into fists in my pockets.
"I knew taking the deed would hurt you. I knew it would feel like betrayal.
But I told myself it was just business. That you'd understand eventually.
That what we had was separate from the property deal. "
"That's the same logic Connor used," she says.
"I know."
"He told himself the affair was separate from our marriage.
That I'd never find out and it wouldn't matter because what we had was different.
" She turns to face me fully now. "But it did matter.
Because you can't compartmentalize people like that.
You can't love someone and plan to take everything they built at the same time. "
"I know that now."
"Do you? Because it sounds like you knew it then too. You just didn't care enough to stop."
She's not wrong.
I wanted her. I wanted the corridor. And when forced to choose, I chose the corridor and told myself I could fix the damage later.
Just like my father.
"I fucked up," I say. "I knew what mattered more and I picked wrong.
And if I could go back and redo the whole thing, I would.
But I can't. So all I can do is stand here and tell you that you're right.
I became the man I spent my whole life hating, and I didn't even realize it until you walked out. "
Lilah's eyes are bright. Not crying, but close.
"I don't want to feel sorry for you," she says.
"Then don't."
"I don't want your tragic backstory to make me forget what you did."
"It shouldn't."
"But it does." Her voice breaks. "Because now I understand why you couldn't let go of the corridor. And that makes it harder to stay angry."
"Lilah—"
"I wish you were easier to hate." She's looking at me like I'm a math problem she can't solve. "I wish knowing you better made wanting you feel less complicated. But it doesn't. It just makes me realize how much I want to forgive you even though I shouldn't."
"You don't have to forgive me."
"I know I don't have to. But I want to. And that's the fucking issue, isn't it?
" She wraps her arms tighter around herself.
"Because every time I think I've built enough distance between us, you say something or do something that reminds me why I fell for you in the first place.
And then I'm right back where I started, wanting someone I can't trust."
I take a step closer. "What do you need from me?"
"I don't know." She looks away. "Maybe I need you to stop trying so hard. Stop proving you've changed. Or making me remember how good it was before I found out the truth."
"You want me to give up?"
"No." She meets my eyes again. "I want you to let me figure this out without feeling like you're waiting for me to make the right choice."
Fair enough.
I take a step back, putting space between us again.
"Okay," I say.
"Okay?"
"I'll stop pushing. You take whatever time you need." I force myself to mean it. "But I'm not pretending I don't want you back. And I'm not apologizing for hoping you'll give me another chance."
For a moment, she doesn't speak.
"I should hate you," she says finally.
"But you don't."
"No. I don't." She shakes her head, frustrated. "I wish I did. It would make everything simpler."
"Nothing about us has ever been simple."
"True." A ghost of a smile crosses her face, then fades. "You know what the worst part is?"
"What?"
"Even knowing everything I know now—the corridor, the lies, the plan to take my building—if I could go back to February and choose whether to get involved with you at all, I think I'd still say yes.
" She looks up at me. "Because the months we had were the first time I felt like someone saw me.
Really saw me. Not the version of myself I performed for everyone else, but the actual person underneath. "
My throat tightens. "Lilah."
"And that's the bit I can't reconcile. How you could see me that clearly and still plan to take everything I built.
" She uncrosses her arms. "So yeah. I wish knowing you better made this easier.
But it doesn't. It just makes me realize how much I loved the person I thought you were. And how hard it is to let go of that."
I want to close the distance between us. Want to pull her against me and promise I'll never hurt her again. To kiss her until she stops thinking and just feels.
But she asked me to let her figure this out.
So I stay where I am.
"For what it's worth," I say, "the person you thought I was? That's who I wanted to be. When I was with you, I wasn't my father's son or the pakhan or the man with a twenty-year plan. I was myself. And you made me believe that was enough."
She's watching me with those eyes that see too much.
"Was it real?" she asks. "Any of it?"
"All of it."
"Even when you were lying?"
"Yes." I hold her gaze. "Especially then."
Because that was when it hurt worst of all.
She nods slowly. "Thank you for telling me."
"Does it help?"
"I don't know yet." She glances back at the building one more time. "Take me to dinner."
The request catches me off guard. "What?"
"Dinner. A nice restaurant. Just the two of us." She meets my eyes. "I'm tired of fighting what I want. And right now, I want to sit across from you and eat expensive food and pretend we're two people on a date instead of two people trying to figure out if they can trust each other again."
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to say yes. To put her in the car and take her to a restaurant with candlelight and wine and privacy. To give her what she's asking for and hope it leads to more.
But I know what happens when we're alone together. How fast professional distance evaporates when she's close enough to touch.
And she's asking for a dinner.
Dinner and nothing else.
Christ.
"Okay," I say.
"Okay?"
"Yeah." Every word kills me, but I say them anyway. "I'll take you to dinner."
Dinner and nothing else.