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"You need to eat," Ethan insisted after the waiter filled their water glasses. "You look far too pale, Lily. I took the liberty of ordering ahead. They serve the best beef Wellington in the city. I know it has always been one of your favorites."

When the plates arrived, the rich aroma of roasted meat and flaky pastry merely turned her stomach. She picked up her silver fork, dragging a mushroom across the porcelain plate, unable to force a single bite down her throat.

Ethan filled the resulting void with casual conversation. He drank his wine, weaving stories about his recent travels, before shifting the topic closer to home.

"My parents ask about you constantly," Ethan murmured, his expression softening as he watched her push the food around her plate. "Julia and George, too. They miss you."

A brutal pang of guilt twisted Lily’s chest, stealing her breath. She had loved them. They had been the family she always wanted, and she had abandoned them without an explanation.

"How are they?" Lily asked, her voice a fragile whisper.

"They are doing well," Ethan replied gently. "Mum still sets out that ceramic serving bowl you bought her for Christmas every Sunday."

The memory stung, but Lily refused to let it break her. She set her fork down as the waiter returned, clearing their untouched main courses to present two delicate porcelain dessert plates.

Lily did not even glance at the pastry. She folded her linen napkin and placed it on the table, fixing her gaze directly on him.

"Why are you here, Ethan?" she asked, stripping away the small talk.

"I want you back, Lily," he answered without hesitation.

"Why now?" she challenged, her voice devoid of emotion. "It has been almost a year. You tore my entire universe apart, and I finally managed to rebuild it. Why couldn't you just leave me in peace?"

Ethan’s confident, aristocratic posture fractured. The predatory gleam in his blue eyes vanished. He looked down at the table, his fingers twisting the silver signet ring on his right hand.

"Because I was tired of being miserable without you," Ethan confessed, a strained, ragged edge bleeding into his tone. "And... because I needed to tell you the truth. All of it."

Lily frowned, her guard rising.

Ethan swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. He kept his eyes fixed on the white tablecloth. "I went to a specialist in London, months before you left. You had gone through all those exams a while back to make sure everything was fine on your end, and I wanted to be sure about myself, too. So, I had them run a full panel of medical tests."

He finally looked up, his eyes glassy, stripped of every ounce of his usual arrogance.

"I found out that the chances of me ever getting you pregnant were virtually nonexistent."

Lily stared at him across the candlelit table, the breath knocked entirely from her lungs. The memories of his parents’ dining room flashed through her mind—Ethan holding her hand, confidently promising his father an enormous house to fit all the children they were going to have.

She looked at the man she had once promised to marry. For the very first time since the day they met, Ethan lowered his gaze, consumed by a profound, crushing shame.

Chapter Fourteen

Lily

Lily sat paralyzed, the dancing candlelight casting elongated, distorted shadows across the pristine white tablecloth. Ethan’s confession remained suspended in the private dining suite, shifting the very foundation of their shared history.

"A severely compromised sperm count," Ethan elaborated, his voice lacking its characteristic polished cadence. He kept his gaze locked on the silver tines of his fork, unable to meet her eyes. "The specialist explained that the probability of us conceiving without aggressive medical intervention was virtually zero."

Lily searched his face, finding only profound devastation in the depths of his blue irises. The revelation knocked the breath from her lungs.

"Why didn't you tell me, Ethan?" she whispered, the heartbreak of a thousand wasted moments bleeding into her tone. "We were a team."

"It messed with my head," he admitted, dragging a trembling hand through his perfectly styled hair, ruining the immaculate facade. "We talked endlessly about filling that enormous house in the countryside with kids. I could not wait to start trying. Going into that clinic just to confirm everything was fine and getting that news... it was a devastating blow. It broke me."

The fragmented, confusing pieces of their final months in London began to align in her mind, forming a tragic picture.

"That is why you started pulling away," Lily breathed, the realization crashing over her in waves. "The late nights at the agency. The emotional distance. You were shutting me out."

"I did not feel like a man anymore," Ethan confessed, his aristocratic features twisting with a profound, ugly shame. "I felt inferior. Defective. I did not feel worthy of you. And that... that is how everything happened with Gemma."