Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
LIVIANNA/LILY
Now
The List I Can’t Unwrite
Love isn’t a choice. But confronting it? That’s brave.
My body is wrapped in heavy sleep. The kind of deep, dreamless unconsciousness that feels like drowning in mud.
When my phone rings, it tears through the silence like a sledgehammer, dragging me violently back to consciousness.
I fumble for it on the nightstand, my eyes still sealed shut, mascara probably streaked across my pillowcase. The screen is illuminated, and I squint at the name.
Ella.
“Hello?” My voice comes out raw and wrecked.
“Livianna? Oh my God, are you okay? You sound terrible.”
I push myself up against the headboard, trying to orient myself. Sunlight streams through the sheer curtains, bright and unforgiving.
“What time is it, Ella?”
“It’s almost noon here in New York. I’ve been calling since nine. You’re never not working at this time, especially on a workday.”
Noon Eastern Time? That means it’s 9:00 AM here. I blink at my phone again, confirming the time. I never sleep past seven, not even on weekends. My insides feel like I’ve been filled with concrete.
“I’m fine. Just...working from home today.” I clear my throat, trying to sound more present. “You guys are in New York until tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, we don’t fly back until tomorrow night. But Livianna, you don’t sound fine. What’s going on?”
“Just tired. Long night.” The understatement of the century. “I’ll be working from here today, catching up on emails and design revisions.”
There’s a pause on the other end. Ella knows me too well. “This is something more, isn’t it? The thing with Cash…?”
I close my eyes, the exhaustion hitting me in waves. “I can’t talk about this right now, El.”
“Okay. But Livianna? Whatever you’re going through, you can talk to me about it.”
“I know. Thank you.”
We hang up after a brief business discussion and I drag myself out of bed. I immediately regret it.
My body is weighted, and it has nothing to do with last night’s tears. My head is foggy and my limbs are sluggish. I must be more emotionally spent than I realized.
I stumble downstairs with makeup smeared across my face like war paint from a battle I lost. Everything stabs at my senses.
I make coffee with shaking hands and carry it to the kitchen table, where sunlight filters through the windows and makes everything look deceptively peaceful. Like the world isn’t falling apart or like my heart isn’t splitting in two directions.
I can’t do this. There’s no way I can balance Callum and Jax and function the way I need to. But I’m torn and can’t find a way out of my confusion.
I find my journal, the leather-bound one I’ve been avoiding since Jax left, and open it to a blank page. Maybe if I can see it written down logic will save me. Maybe I can reason my way out of this impossible choice.
I write at the top of the page:
Callum
Pros:
· First love. Soul connection.
· Knows every version of me, even the broken ones.
· Loves me unconditionally.
· Fighting for us. Desperate to make it work.
· Those tattoos that define our history. The vow. The protection. The future he sees in his mind, etched into his skin for life.
· The boy who made me believe in forever.
· The boy who told me to do what I wanted and encouraged me from the start.
Cons:
· Violence. The rage that still lives in his heart.
· Can I trust the new him? Or will the old Callum come back?
· Zara. Sebastian. The chaos that follows Callum everywhere.
· The way he hurt me before. Can I survive him hurting me again?
· His secrets. What else is he hiding?
I stare at the list, and my chest tightens. Then I turn the page.
Jaxon
Pros:
· Makes me feel safe. Seen. Understood.
· Over two years of building something deep and passionate.
· The way he holds me like I’m precious.
· How I am his treasure.
· His control. His discipline. The calm in my panic.
· How he showed me a side of myself I didn’t know I needed.
· How well he holds me together when I fall apart.
· Mon trésor. The way he says my name like he worships me.
Cons:
· Won’t let me in. Keeps his walls up no matter what.
· Pushed me away when we were so close to having it all.
· His secrets. Are they darker? Dangerous? Sometimes he hints they are.
· That stupid special ringtone. The call he always takes in private.
· The letter I never got. What if he’s been lying this whole time?
· He gave me a house instead of his love.
· Was I ever someone he could see himself with?
· Why won’t he fight for me?
I set down the pen and stare at the two lists. They blur together, ink on paper that means nothing because this isn’t a problem I can solve with logic.
Love doesn’t work this way. Making this list is something an immature teenager would do.
Is this what I’ve reduced myself to?
My hands tremble as I reach for my coffee. It’s gone cold. Everything feels cold.
The truth is simpler and more brutal than any list can capture. I’m in love with two men.
One who taught me what love could be and one who showed me what it should be. One who’s fighting for me and one who’s pushing me away. One whose intensity scares me and one whose distance terrifies me.
And I can’t move forward with either of them until I know the truth. I need to face Jaxon.
Not the businessman who dismissed me in his office. Not the man who sent me a letter I never received.
The real Jaxon. The man who helped me find myself and made me believe in futures I was too frightened to name.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I grab my phone. I pull up his contact information and gaze at it.
My heart hammers so hard I can feel my pulse in my neck. I can’t walk away from him without giving our relationship one more try.
Me: I’m sure you got my message and I understand why you haven’t responded. Can we meet? I need to talk to you. Just us. I need to explain why I never told you about Callum. I just want you to understand how I feel about you.
I hit send before I can delete it. The message shows delivered. Then nothing.
Seconds stretch into eternities, and bile churns in my stomach. I get physically nauseous. This can’t be the way it ends. I stare at the screen as if it holds the answer to everything.
Then three dots appear.
My breath catches.
The dots vanish and so does my pulse. My hope drops.
They appear again.
I’m frozen, coffee forgotten, journal abandoned, and every nerve in my body focused on those three dancing dots that mean he’s typing. That means he’s there. That means maybe—
The message comes through.
My King: When?
One word. But it’s enough.
I exhale for what feels like the first time in hours and respond.
Me: What does your day look like? Can we meet sometime today?
This time, his response is immediate.
My King: I’ll be in touch. I’ve got a lot I need to take care of.
Okay, it’s a start. I set the phone down with shaky hands.
The lists sit open on the table, the pros and cons suddenly feeling meaningless. Because this isn’t about what looks good on paper. It never was.
This is about confronting the man I can’t forget, even when forgetting him would be so much easier. This is about finding out if what we had was real or if I’ve been making up a fairytale in my head.
I tear the pages out of my journal and find a lighter. I go to the sink and set them on fire. Like I’ve learned to do over the past few years, I’m going to follow my intuition, and it says to try.
Jax is the one I love without trauma and loss that tears me apart anytime I think about it. Callum is the man I love because of all we’ve been through and who he’s become, but it still feels wobbly and unsafe being in his world. Last night proved it.
The media won’t let me rest if I’m with him. And the past has already shown up in the form of Zara and Sebastian.
A life with Callum is sure to be more complicated than I’m willing to take on. It may seem cowardly, but I can’t go back to running from the press and facing the wounds of my past.
An hour later, my phone rings again. Quinn’s name flashes across the screen.
“Hey, Quinn.”
“Finally! I’ve gone to your office to talk three times today. Where have you been?”
“Just catching up on some stuff. I’m swamped and needed some time to get organized.” I lean back in my chair, grateful for the distraction. “What’s up?”
“I’m checking in to see if you want to go to Pilates after work today.”
“Maybe, but I’m working from home, so…”
She sighs like she knows I’m going to decline her offer. “Well, maybe that’s a good thing.”
“Why?”
“My period finally ended yesterday, and I was only inviting you out of guilt. It was brutal this month. I’m in no mood to work out. Seriously, it was the worst one I’ve had in ages. Heavy cramps, and oh my God, the acne. Like full-on teenage breakouts. I looked like I was sixteen again.”
I freeze. “Your period?”
“Yeah, it was awful. It lasted like seven days. Why do our bodies hate us?” She laughs, then her tone shifts. “Wait, didn’t yours just end, too? You’re usually only a few days before me.”
My heart hammers. “Um...yeah. It was rough.”
But even as I say it, something jagged slides down my spine.
When was my last period?
“Livianna? Are you still there?”
“Yeah, sorry. Just...distracted.” I’m already swiping over to a new screen on my phone, pulling up my ovulation tracker app while keeping Quinn on speaker.
“Are you okay? You sound weird.”
The app opens. The screen shows my cycle stuck on a week before I was supposed to ovulate. The date is frozen in time.
Noooo. No, no, no.
“Quinn, I’m fine. But can I call you back? I need to handle something.”
“Sure, but—”
I hang up before she can finish, my fingers fumbling as I force the app to close. I restart it, my hands trembling so badly that I nearly drop the phone.
The app loads. The little calendar populates.
And there it is. Clear as day.
I’m two weeks late.
“Fuck.” The word comes out in a whisper.