Epilogue
Lily’s POV
It had been three days since my almost wedding.
Three days since my mother swept me out of Chicago and into her penthouse in New York City. The place was just as swanky as my father’s mansion. It felt lived in, and I felt free here.
Mom hovered with gentle hands and soft conversation, and I gave her silence, mood swings, and halfhearted attempts at charm.
I couldn’t believe it, but I actually missed working at Holloway’s.
My phone sat on the counter, dark and quiet. The urge to turn it on scratched at me. I knew my father was spiraling by now, pacing that mansion like some storm waiting to hit land. I was not ready for him. The King of Darkness could wait.
Sean had been stuck in my mind like a tune you can’t escape. Every time I started to breathe normally, he slipped back in.
Mom was leaning on the island, telling me about Paris again. Not the culture. The men. She always told these stories with a little smile, like she was proud of herself.
“Mom,” I interrupted, “did you ever think about going back to Dad. Or even coming home.”
She laughed softly. “No. Well, sometimes. But I ruined that opportunity years ago.”
The words snapped something awake in me. I turned toward her. “What do you mean?”
She studied me for a moment, then sat at the island like she was preparing to confess. “I am surprised your father never told you.”
“He didn’t,” I said. “Tell me.”
She rose and started pacing, her steps slow and heavy. “Lily, I messed up. I had an affair with one of your father’s colleagues. Jim Holloway.”
I choked so violently that she rushed around the island to steady me. I waved her off, coughing until my eyes watered.
“Lily, are you alright?”
“Mom,” I managed, “you slept with Jim Holloway.”
Her face drained of color. “Please don’t hate me. I did. Your father was always traveling. Always gone. Jim was there, and he made it very clear he wanted me.”
The room tilted.
No.
No. Absolutely not.
The same man. The exact same man.
My stomach twisted hard enough to make me grip the counter.
I stared at her, taking her in like she was a stranger. She was still beautiful. Chestnut hair, green eyes, a kind of elegance that never faded. But none of that softened the blow.
“Of all the men,” I whisper. “You picked him.”
Now I was pacing. The floor felt wrong under my feet.
Mom shook her head. “Lily, listen. I stepped out of the marriage. Yes. But not for the reasons you think. Your father did not flaunt those young women until years later. When I had the affair, he was faithful. Completely faithful. I broke something in him. I did try to fix it. I promised him I would never do anything like that again, and for a while, we were finding our footing. Then he grew colder. Distant. The women came after that.”
I stopped moving.
The realization hit clean and brutal.
All this time, I blamed him.
All this time, I built my identity around the belief that he was the one who shattered our family.
“My father never told me,” I say quietly. “He let me believe he ruined the marriage.”
Mom presses her palm on the island. “I made a mistake, a terrible one. But the strangest part is that he has never asked me for a divorce. Not once. I have even considered trying again, but too much happened between us.”
A long silence spread out between us.
I felt unmoored, as if someone pulled the floor out from under my childhood.
“My father carried that in silence,” I murmured. “All this time, I thought he ruined everything, but it was you. I’ve held so much anger toward him.”
Mom looked at me with soft regret. “You were a child trying to interpret an adult disaster. None of this is your fault.”
I laughed once, hollow. “I slept with Jim, too, Mom.”
Her eyes widened with horror. “I had no idea. Oh, Lily.”
“It’s disgusting,” I said. “But it happened, and now everything feels poisoned. We had a meeting every Tuesday where we…”
The truth sat heavily in my chest.
I turned away and stared out the window. The city moved below us, steady and bright. My reflection looked unfamiliar, like someone caught in the wrong life.
“I need air,” I said.
Mom nodded softly, but I saw the tears in her eyes.
I stepped onto the balcony and grabbed the railing.
The wind circled around me, cool and grounding.
That man has been circling my family for years, dipping his dick in the Thompson women like he owned us.
And my father’s reaction to me filing a restraining order against him.
Why would he be against that? What the fuck does Jim Holloway have on my family?
I sat on the edge of the balcony chair, my phone in my hand. I had stared at the power button long enough for the sun to shift across the buildings. Three days of silence. Three days of pretending the world was not hunting me.
I pressed the button.
The screen lit up.
The device vibrated once, then again, then again, as if waking from its own coma.
Notifications flooded the top of the screen in a starving rush. I braced myself as the messages populated, one after another, until the list stretched longer than I wanted to scroll through.
My father’s texts appeared first under the name King of Darkness.
King of Darkness: Lily, you cannot do this. Come home. We will talk.
King of Darkness: Your freedom depends on cooperation. Do not make this harder than it has to be.
King of Darkness: Tell me where you are. I will send a car.
King of Darkness: I am not asking again.
King of Darkness: Lily.
I scoffed.
Classic Dad. Threats disguised as fatherly concern. Promises that were really warnings. I imagined him pacing the mansion, barking orders, ready to blacklist half the country to find me.
Good luck, Dad. My location services had been off for forty-eight hours. Even his army of corporate soldiers needed breadcrumbs, and I had given them nothing.
Then the next string of messages loaded.
Sean.
His name looked wrong in a notification bubble. Too intimate. Too close.
Sean: Lily, where are you?
Sean: Where is my wife?
Sean: We should be tearing each other’s clothes off right now.
Sean: Tell me where you are. I will come get you.
Sean: Not Elliott. Just me.
Sean: If you want to disappear, I will take you somewhere he cannot reach you.
Sean: You do not have to see him again.
Sean: Lily, answer me.
My stomach tightened, his words slipped through me like liquor. I thought about answering him. Telling him where I was. Taking him up on his word to disappear.
Instead, I locked the phone and placed it face down in my lap.
My father wanted compliance.
Sean wanted possession.
And neither one of them understood what I wanted.
The balcony door opened behind me, soft enough that it barely disturbed the air. Mom stepped out, her expression cautious, as if she had been rehearsing her next words on the other side of the glass.
“Lily, listen,” she said quietly. “I do want to try again with your father. I have been ashamed for so long that staying away felt easier. But I am willing to try.”
I kept my gaze on the skyline. “That is on you, Mom. Truly. And for what it is worth, I would love to see you with him more than Sarah fucking Taylor.”
I heard the slight pause before she sat, the shift of fabric against the other balcony chair. “Tell me why you hate her.”
I turned to her slowly, my pulse steadier now than it had been minutes earlier when my phone filled with two worlds demanding me back.
“We are going to need a bottle of wine for that story, Mom.”
Book 3-Lilyth- begins with the truth Lily has never told.