Chapter 24 - The Car Ride
Sean's POV
She came out of Dr. Colleen’s office with her sunglasses back on and her mouth set like a closed fist. I opened the passenger door. She slid in, crossed her legs, and stared out the window as if the parking lot had wronged her personally.
We pulled out of the parking lot. The city looked clean at ten in the morning. It always lies best in daylight.
“Do you want to talk about the session?” I asked.
“No.”
“Anything you want to say at all?”
“Yes. Take me to my apartment. I need to see if my mail is being forwarded to my father’s house.”
I had a bad feeling about this, but indulged her anyway. “Address?”
She rattled Matt Taylor’s apartment address off like she had lived there for years. I had spent enough nights watching that door to know it by heart.
“That’s not your address,” I said.
“Of course it is.” She was trying her best to be convincing.”
“Lily, I know that it's Matt Taylor’s old apartment.”
Her head turned an inch.
“Old apartment? Don’t tell me he moved back in with that bitch.”
It was a question more than it was a statement. I’m not sure why it bothered me, but it did.
“You need to stay away from the Taylors and stay out of trouble," I bit out, a little more harshly than I meant.
My irritation was getting the best of me.
I needed to get this shit under control.
I already knew that if you show Lily even the least bit of weakness, she would capture it like a butterfly and pin it to a board like a hobby.
“The first chance I get, I am going to visit Matt. You can't stop me.”
“For the next thirty days, you're staying in the house and out of sight.”
She laughed once, a small cut of sound. “You going to lock me in the basement, warden?”
“If that is what it takes.”
Silence rolled between us. I let it. When a person like Lily is quiet, you learn to let it stretch out for as long as possible.
I took her to the address anyway and idled at the curb. She looked up at the third-floor window like it could hand her an answer through the glass. I’m not sure what I wanted her to see, but knowing he wasn’t there gave me a sense of victory.
“He isn't there,” I said.
“You don't know that.”
“I do.” I didn’t mention Charleston. Hearing it from me would only make her resent me, like I packed him up and shipped him off.
She kept looking until the window stopped being a window and turned into memories of something she could no longer have. Then she faced forward again.
I pulled away and cut over toward Lincoln Park.
“You asked to go to the library when you were in holding,” I said. “I know this little bookstore on the way to your father's.”
“You remember that,” she asked.
“I remember everything,” I said. “Pick a book instead of a fight.”
She stopped arguing, which only made me more alert.
I parked on a side street and walked her into a small shop with mismatched chairs and hand-lettered shelf tags.
The bell over the door announced us. The air in the bookstore was welcoming with the smell of paper and the various candles scattered around the store.
A clerk behind the counter greeted us and went back to a stack of books.
I stayed near the entrance and pretended to read a crime novel.
I watched Lily’s reflection in the glass of the front window and in the dull shine of the café case.
She moved like a cat burglar who knew every exit. She meandered through the travel section then moved to the memoirs.
She drifted down the side aisle, where the last shelf hid a service door with a bar you push in case of fire. I let her keep moving. I wanted to see how she would play it. Her shoulder brushed a display of fantasy books. She didn’t break stride.
Her hand reached the bar. I smiled before I spoke. “Don't.”
Surprisingly, she stopped. Obedience wasn’t Lily’s first instinct; rebellion was.
I was already behind her. I could see the pulse awake in her throat.
“Are you going to arrest me for trying to buy a book?” she asked.
“No, I am going to walk you back to the front. You are going to pick three things, then you are going to get in the car.”
“And if I don't.”
I pressed my mouth to her ear, “If you ever manage to slip me, I will find you and you will go back to jail.” My voice was a whisper, but I could feel my anger just underneath. I wondered if she sensed it.
She held the bar for one more second, then let it go. When she faced me, the smile she gave me was honed enough to be a weapon.
“You don't scare me, Sean,” she said. “No matter how many uniforms you put on or how many badges you wear, you will never be enough to make me fear you. I’m not my father. You lick my boot, and I just tell you how many spots you missed.”
I slipped my arm around her waist and pulled her flush against me. “Mmmm, Lily. Feel free to project all of your meaningless bullshit on me. Fear would just make you predictable.”
She jerked away and brushed past me on her way back up the aisle.
She selected a poetry collection, a blue candle, and a book about sleep.
She placed them on the counter and paid with cash I didn't realize she had. She left the store like she was on a mission. I couldn’t help but smile as I caught the door and walked out behind her.
Outside, the sky had shifted from pale to honest blue. I opened the car door for her. She held my eyes before she got in.
I closed her door and walked around the car, a satisfied smile on my face. I opened my door and eased into the driver’s seat. She didn’t speak or even look in my direction. “You still think that giving me the silent treatment is going to break me,” I said.
She shifted in her seat, not looking my direction. “You still think controlling me is the same thing as protecting me.”
I turned the key and started the car, letting the engine tick to a calm. We pulled into traffic without speaking.
Halfway home, she finally spoke, “Matt still thinks about me.”
“That is your problem,” I said. “Thinking about you is not the same as choosing you.”
She stared straight ahead. “Do you ever wish you were the kind of man who did not say things like that?”
“No.”
“I do.”
We took the turn for the long drive that led to her father’s gates. The guards waved us through. The house looked like it always looks, expensive and boring.
I parked by the side entrance. She gathered the bag, stepped out, then leaned down into the open space before I could pull the door closed. The sunglasses were back on. The grin was not.
“Sean,” she said, voice almost gentle. “You are not going to win.”
She straightened and shut the door. I watched her walk to the steps, the bag hanging against her leg, the tilt of her head saying she was already thinking three moves ahead. I waited until she was inside before I put the car in gear.
Once she was inside, I stepped away from the car and called Elliott.
“She’s finished with the session,” I said. “It went longer than expected. She’s still talking about him.”
Elliott didn’t need clarification. He never did. “Matt Taylor,” he said flatly. “Of course she is.”
“She’s obsessed,” I said. “Still trying to rewrite the ending.”
A faint click sounded over the line, maybe a lighter, maybe just his teeth. “From what I understand, Taylor is doing quite well in Charleston. Promotions, new clients, new life.”
“Good for him,” I said, though I didn’t mean it.
“You don’t have to worry,” Elliott continued. “I’ve hired someone to make sure he stays occupied. A woman who knows how to… redirect a man’s intentions.”
That got my attention. “You’re serious?”
“Always,” he said. “Lily’s fixation on Taylor is a liability. If he’s kept busy, the thread between them breaks faster. You know as well as I do that distance isn’t enough. Distraction is stronger.”
I let the words settle. It wasn’t morality that made me uneasy; it was efficiency. Elliott Thompson never played games he couldn’t win.
“Then I assume this woman understands the assignment?” I asked.
“She does,” he said. “She’s already en route.”
A small, dark satisfaction curled in my chest. Lily needed Matt gone. And if this woman could keep him occupied long enough for Lily to forget the fantasy, all the better.
“Good,” I said. “Because if he ever came back into her orbit, she’d burn the entire world to touch him again.”
Elliott’s voice was low, measured. “Then make sure she never gets the chance.”
“I intend to,” I said.
“Keep her busy, Macon,” he replied. “Idle minds make headlines.”
The line went dead.
I slipped the phone into my pocket and glanced up at the house. Through the second-floor window, Lily’s light was on. She was pacing. Talking to herself. Maybe talking to ghosts.
I should have left it alone, but I didn’t.
I watched her silhouette until the light went out.
Lily didn’t sleep easily. She fought rest the way she fought everything else, half out of habit, half out of fear that peace meant surrender.
I pushed out of the car, shut the door softly, and made my way up the drive. The night air was sharp, the kind that woke the body but dulled the mind. Inside, the house smelled faintly of cedar polish. I took the back stairs, less creak in the wood, fewer chances for her to hear me.
Her door was cracked. Typical. She never closed herself off entirely, not even when she wanted to.
I leaned into the frame, quiet, and watched her.
She was asleep, or close to it. The lamp was still on, throwing an amber glow across her face. Her hair was a mess across the pillow, her arm flung out like she’d fallen mid-fight.
Even in sleep, she didn’t look peaceful. Her brows were pinched, her lips parted slightly, her breathing uneven. Like her dreams were arguments she refused to lose.
Watching her, I could see the part of her no one else seemed to believe existed, the fragile, almost human piece buried under all that drama.
Elliott thought she needed control. I knew better.
She needed understanding. Someone who could see the storm and not run.
She shifted, murmuring something that sounded like my name.
For a second, she looked younger. Not the Lily who broke men for sport, but the one still trying to understand why breaking them didn’t fix her.
I slipped into the room and turned off the lamp, left her in the dim quiet, and stepped back into the hallway.
Control wasn’t about chains or commands.
It was about knowing when to leave the room.