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"I just really needed this tonight," she whispered, her voice a little raspy.
Jason stopped moving. The playful amusement melted from his eyes, replaced by an unwavering sincerity. He reached up, his wet fingers tracing the line of her jaw.
"I always need you," he replied, his voice thick with emotion.
Lily’s breath hitched. A beautiful heat bloomed in the center of her chest, pushing back the dread she had been carrying all week. She looked at this incredible man—a man who built things to last, who offered her a foundation she could actually trust.
The words rose in her throat, thick and urgent. She wanted to say them. She had wanted to say them weeks ago, during a Sunday morning when he had done something so simple, yet so meaningful, just to make her smile.
I love you.
The three words hovered right on the tip of her tongue, begging to be released. But the suffocating secret she kept held them down. How could she offer him her heart when she was actively deceiving him?
Unable to meet his gaze any longer, Lily swallowed the words, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face against his wet chest, letting the hot water wash away her unspoken confession.
Chapter Six
Ethan
The glass doors of the conference room clicked shut, locking the two of them inside. The Vanguard executives had departed minutes ago, their footsteps fading down the corridor. Ethan remained seated at the head of the mahogany table. He watched her, his chest tightening. Every frantic movement she made—shoving papers into her bag, averting her gaze—screamed of a desperate need to flee. She was constructing a fortress to keep him out, but he had crossed an ocean to tear it down.
He unclasped his leather briefcase, reaching into the side pocket. His fingers brushed the cool, smooth metal he had carried all the way from England.
"You left in a rush that day," Ethan said. His voice carried across the polished wood, commanding her attention. "You didn't take everything."
Lily froze. She kept her eyes fixed on the folders in her hands, but her jaw clenched, forming a rigid line of defiance. "I took everything that mattered."
"Not everything," he corrected.
He pulled the object from his pocket and set it on the mahogany, sliding it across the table until it came to rest right in front of her.
It was a vintage brass compass. The glass face was scratched, the metal tarnished with age. They had found it in a dusty, cluttered antique shop in Notting Hill on the very day they met. They had ducked inside to escape a torrential downpour, bumping into each other between aisles of old books and discarded relics. He remembered how her eyes had lit up when she found the compass, and how he had bought it for her right then and there—a bold excuse to ask for her number so he could officially present her with it over coffee. She had kept it on her nightstand ever since, a testament to their beginning.
Lily stared down at the brass instrument. The atmosphere in the room shifted, turning brittle and fraught.
Ethan watched her meticulously crafted professional armor fracture. Her breath hitched, an involuntary sound that tore at his chest. As if pulled by an invisible string, she reached out. Her fingertips grazed the cold metal, tracing the scratched glass. For a fleeting, fragile moment, the fierce, independent co-director of Bennett & Mendoza disappeared. The woman he had fallen hopelessly in love with on a rainy afternoon in London took her place.
"I remember how much you laughed when we stepped back outside and I opened the umbrella inside out," Ethan said, a nostalgic ache coating his throat. He stood, stepping toward her, desperate to keep the fragile illusion intact. "I remember the coffee we shared. You told me this compass was going to point you toward the life you were meant to build. You looked at me like I was a part of it."
A sheen of tears glazed Lily’s eyes. Her thumb rubbed over the brass casing. She was feeling it—the undeniable, magnetic pull of their shared history. The memories were flooding back, beautiful and undeniable, bridging the bitter chasm separating them. Ethan felt a desperate surge of triumph. He was breaking through the ice. He took another step, close enough to notice the vanilla perfume clinging to her skin.
"We had something beautiful, Lily," he pleaded, his eyes searching hers. "We can have it again. That history doesn't just die."
Lily looked up at him. For a fraction of a second, he saw the vulnerable, heartbroken girl he had left behind.
Then, she blinked.
The vulnerability vanished, replaced by a devastating clarity. The nostalgic spell shattered, leaving a brutal, unforgiving reality. She pulled her hand back from the compass as if it had burned her.
"You're right. It was a beautiful memory," Lily said, her voice dropping to a frigid, trembling whisper. She looked him dead in the eye, her expression hardening into pure ice. "But none of it matters, Ethan."
"Lily—"
"No," she cut him off, her words precise and merciless. She grabbed her folders, clutching them to her chest like a shield. "You can bring me all the trinkets and memories you want, but it doesn't change the facts. Because at the end of the day, burying your dick in another woman was worth more to you than all of those memories combined."
The words struck him with blunt, agonizing force.
Ethan recoiled, the breath knocked from his lungs. The crude honesty of her statement gutted him. There was no defense, no clever manipulation that could counter the ugly truth of what he had done.
