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He was right. Sarah was right.
Lily wiped her face, a new, hardening resolve taking root in her chest. She had spent the last two years running from the ghost of her past, allowing Ethan’s betrayal to dictate her fears and control her future. Her cowardice had cost her the man she truly loved. She could not let it dictate another single day of her life.
It was time to stop running.
It was time to face the monster she had left behind in London. She needed to look Ethan in the eye, confront the trauma he inflicted, and cut the cord holding her back once and for all.
Chapter Twelve
Ethan
Lily’s mouth moved in a furious, unrelenting barrage of accusations, her voice filling the glass-walled office, yet Ethan couldn't decipher a single syllable. The blood rushed through his ears, drowning out her words. He was too consumed by the sheer, devastating sight of her. The flushed hue painting her cheeks, the fiery spark igniting her hazel eyes, the elegant, tense curve of her throat—she was a vision. A maddening surge of passion seized him, stripping away the sterile reality of the corporate room.
He stepped forward, closing the distance. The delicate trace of vanilla clinging to her skin drifted over his senses, eradicating his final threads of restraint. He reached out, gripping her waist and hauling her to his chest.
Her tirade faltered. Her hands pushed at his lapels. "What are you doing? Stop. I have a boyfriend."
Ethan smirked, cupping her face, tilting her chin up. "Not anymore."
He captured her lips, kissing her with a starved, punishing desperation. The agonizing months of missing her culminated in that one violent collision. Lily gasped into his mouth, her resistance shattering as her fingers tangled into his hair.
They tore at each other's clothes, discarding blazers and buttons onto the hardwood floor. Ethan lifted her by the thighs, sweeping a stack of folders aside as he dropped her onto the polished desk. The glittering Chicago skyline sprawled behind her through the floor-to-ceiling glass, framing her perfectly against the night. He drove into her, earning a beautiful, ragged scream that tore from her throat. He captured the sound with his mouth, kissing her endlessly as they moved together in a frantic, unhinged rhythm. The exquisite tension coiled in his spine, rushing forward, pushing him right to the precipice—
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
Ethan groaned, his eyes snapping open to the dark ceiling of his penthouse bedroom. The digital alarm clock flashed aggressively on the nightstand. He slammed his hand over the button, killing the noise, and fell back against the pillows with a vicious string of curses.
His heart hammered against his ribs. He dragged a hand down his face, gritting his teeth as the aching, rigid frustration beneath his boxers reminded him exactly how far away he was from the ending of that dream.
Throwing the duvet aside, Ethan stalked into the attached bathroom. He turned the shower dial to cold, stepping under the freezing spray, and dealt with the agonizing tension his subconscious had left behind.
Ten minutes later, he stepped out, wrapping a towel around his hips. He swiped a hand across the fogged mirror, staring at his own exhausted reflection. This was getting ridiculous. The dreams were invading his sleep with alarming frequency, bleeding reality into fantasy until he couldn't tell the difference.
Today’s hallucination was a perfect example. She was furious, cursing him out for destroying her relationship, and they ended up tangled together on her office desk in Chicago. But the core of the memory belonged to London. It was a phantom replay of their first year together, back when he had accepted an impossible turnaround time for a branding pitch. Lily had stormed into his office, shouting about the deadline, her eyes ablaze with that same intoxicating fury, and the argument had dissolved into the most mind-altering sex they had ever shared on his mahogany desk.
Ethan gripped the edges of the marble sink, bowing his head. He missed her fire. He missed the brilliant, challenging spark she brought into his world. He had been an arrogant, monumental idiot to throw it all away for a meaningless mistake.
He looked back up at his reflection, a ruthless determination hardening his features. He had found her again. He had placed himself directly in the center of her new life. She could fight him, she could yell at him, she could try to push him away. But he was never going to let her escape him again.
***
Ethan strode onto the executive floor, the ambient noise of the agency fading into white static around him. His piercing blue eyes locked onto Lily’s glass-walled office.
She was sitting at her desk, staring blankly at a dark monitor. She wore the exact same hollow, devastated expression that had clouded her beautiful features for the past eight days. She looked fragile, her shoulders slumped under the burden of an invisible, crushing grief, her skin pale beneath the harsh fluorescent lights.
A sharp, uncomfortable thought pierced Ethan's polished armor. Did she look like this when she fled London? Was she this shattered when she left me?
He crushed the thought, his jaw tightening as he smoothed the lapels of his suit. Obviously not.
What they had shared in England was a profound, world-altering connection built over years of devotion. What she had experienced with that blue-collar fool in Chicago was nothing but a temporary distraction—a fleeting, mundane rebound playing dress-up in a flannel shirt. It didn't even begin to compare. What he and Lily shared—what they still had beneath all this misplaced anger—was true love. It was the kind of fierce, undeniable gravity that would ultimately conquer every single barrier life tried to throw in their path.
Every instinct in his body screamed to walk through her door, to pull her into his arms, and promise her that he would fix everything. He wanted to erase the memory of the carpenter from her mind. But Ethan forced his feet to keep moving down the corridor. He needed to be strategic. He would give her space. He wouldn't pressure her into a corner before she was ready to yield.
Ethan walked right past her office, ignoring the burning need in his chest, and headed into the main boardroom to meet with the rest of the transition team, playing the role of the consummate professional.
***
The agency emptied out as evening draped the Chicago skyline in deep shades of indigo and gold. Ethan was standing by his desk, sliding a stack of contracts into his leather briefcase, when a soft tap on the doorframe made him hesitate.
