Chapter 50 - Lucy
It has been just over a week since I came back to Chicago. Just over a week since I stepped off the plane and came face to face with Julian. And a day since Julian told me he is having his lawyer dissolve our contract and asked me to choose him.
Our entire relationship has been playing on a loop in my mind. Some moments, so beautiful, a smile makes its way onto my face, and some so brutal I flinch.
It's late, and even though I am exhausted, I can't sleep. So I pour myself a glass of wine and sit in the formal living room staring out at the twinkling city below me, hoping to wind down enough that sleep will come easier.
I am enjoying my first sip when a sound I have never heard before comes from the kitchen. It takes me a moment to process what it is, and that's because the internal line almost never rings.
It’s designed that way.
So, when the phone on the kitchen wall rings at eight forty-three in the evening, something cold slides down my spine before I even look up.
Julian moves across the room and into the kitchen with intent and answers on the fifth ring.
The penthouse is quiet, so I hear his voice across the space.
“Yes.”
His voice is neutral. The voice he uses when he’s assessing risk.
There’s a pause.
Then the smallest shift in his tone. “I see,” he says.
I don’t ask who it is, I already know.
Security doesn’t call about deliveries.
Security calls when someone is pushing where they shouldn’t.
I can hear the tension in his voice when he says, “Send him up.”
My pulse spikes.
Him.
My hands are shaking, so I put the glass of wine down and sit up, rubbing my palms on the tops of my legs.
Julian appears, and for a second, I expect an excuse.
But there is a new kind of fear in his eyes when he says, “Go to the bedroom.”
I stare at him. Is he serious?
“No.”
His eyes flash, not anger at me. It looks more like frustration, a need to protect.
“This isn’t something you need to...”
“If he’s here because of me,” I say quietly, “I’m not hiding.”
There’s a beat, a calculation. Then he nods once.
“Stay behind me.”
I almost tell him I don’t need shielding.
But the truth is, I’m already bracing.
The elevator hums, and my body reacts like it’s about to be hit.
I close my eyes for a moment and think about my conversation with Julian last night. Think about his confession of not knowing love. Think about what that man... his father did to him... to me... to us. I let that fuel me instead of fear.
So I open my eyes, grab my wine glass and lean back into the couch facing the elevator, hoping my fear stays hidden and my fury shines through.
When the doors open, Richard North steps out as if the penthouse belongs to him.
Perfect suit. Perfect posture. Perfect disdain.
For half a second, I’m back in that office.
The folders, photos, and his smirk.
My heart rate spikes, so I sip my wine to cover my face and give my hands something to do.
He doesn’t look at me first.
He looks at Julian.
“You’ve made a spectacle of yourself,” Richard says smoothly. “Over a woman.”
The words slide through the room like oil.
Julian doesn’t move. He doesn’t greet him.
“You were instructed not to come here,” Julian replies.
The temperature in his voice is different than anything I have heard from him before.
Colder.
Richard smiles faintly. “I don’t take instructions from boys playing at being men.”
Boys?
I feel Julian shift in front of me. Not fully blocking me. Not hiding me.
Just… present.
And for a terrifying flicker of a second, my brain betrays me.
What if they’re the same?
What if this is just power fighting power?
What if I misunderstood everything?
Richard’s gaze flicks to me.
“Lucy,” he says, as if we’re acquaintances at a fundraiser. “You must be exhausted.”
My chest tightens.
Julian’s voice drops half an octave.
“You do not speak to her.”
Richard’s smile fades a fraction.
“You’ve tanked my board position,” he says to Julian. “You’ve undermined my partners. You’ve frozen accounts that took decades to build.”
Julian’s expression doesn’t change.
“I exposed fraud,” he says calmly. “If your reputation collapsed, it wasn’t my doing.”
Richard steps further into the room.
“You buried me,” he says.
Julian’s response is steady.
“I buried your business and revealed your fraud. Your social standing just so happened to follow.”
The words are precise.
Richard’s nostrils flare.
“And for what?” he snaps. “For her?”
He gestures toward me like I’m an inconvenience.
Like I’m temporary.
Like I’m the weak link.
Everything in me wants to lock up, make myself smaller. But I push it down.
I realize I need to see this. Because this is the moment.
This is where Julian chooses power or chooses me.
And the silence stretches long enough that fear crawls back in.
Julian turns slightly, not to face me, but enough that I see his profile.
“Yes,” he says.
Just that.
No hesitation.
No justification.
Richard laughs, sharp and disbelieving. “She’ll leave you. They always do.”
Julian doesn’t take the bait.
“If she leaves,” he says evenly, “it will be because I failed her. Not because you manipulated circumstances.”
My breath catches.
Richard steps closer.
“You think this is finished?”
Julian moves too, one step forward. Measured and controlled.
“This is finished for me.”
The difference matters.
He isn’t trying to win.
He’s walking away.
Richard’s voice lowers. “You can’t cut out blood.”
Julian’s answer is ice. “Watch me.”
Security, I hadn't noticed before, shifts near the elevator, waiting for instructions.
Richard’s eyes flick to me again.
There’s no smugness now.
Just fury.
“You don’t understand what he is,” he says to me. “Men like us don’t change.”
For a heartbeat, something in me flickers.
Because that’s the fear I’ve been holding.
Men like him.
Men who freeze when you love them.
Men who pull away.
Men who choose work over family.
Julian hears it too, and this time, he doesn’t ignore it.
He looks at me directly.
“I’m not him,” he says.
And the look on his face is so pure, so open.
Richard scoffs. “You don’t have the stomach to finish this.”
Julian steps fully between us now.
“You came into my home,” he says quietly. “You accessed my systems. You staged evidence. You tried to weaponize my marriage.”
His voice doesn’t rise.
“Come after her again,” he continues, “and I will bury what’s left.”
Richard’s lips curl. “You wouldn’t.”
Julian’s expression is terrifying in its calm.
“I already did.”
There’s no anger in it, just fact.
And for the first time, I see it all clearly.
Julian didn’t just react. He dismantled him in all the ways that matter to men like Richard, publicly and irrevocably.
Security steps forward.
Julian doesn’t break eye contact when he says, “Escort him out.”
Richard resists for half a second, more out of pride than power.
Then the elevator doors close.
And the penthouse goes silent.
The silence is different this time.
Julian stands there for a long moment.
Then his shoulders drop, and he turns to me slowly.
There’s no triumph on his face. Just something raw.
“I am so sorry, Lucy. I should have handled him years ago,” he says quietly.
I don’t answer immediately. Because something inside me is rearranging.
He didn’t defend his pride.
He didn’t negotiate power.
He didn’t protect his reputation.
He protected me.
Without hesitation.
I swallow.
“He won’t come back?” I ask.
Julian’s eyes soften.
“No.”
He watches me silently for a moment and then, in a way that makes me imagine a little Julian who never felt love, he asks if he can sit with me for a while.
I blink back the tears and nod.
Julian moves quickly, like he's afraid I may change my mind.
He sits close enough that I feel his presence, but not so close that he is touching me.
And for the first time since this started, my body stops bracing, something shifts.