Chapter 2: Lily Films a Kiss That Changes Everything

The snow kept falling, silent and endless, like it meant to bury the whole world.

Inside the car, Mr. Reed laid out his advice. "Has Nathan controlled the family finances this entire marriage? I'd start by mapping out exactly what he owns."

Lily tilted her head, listening.

"There was that tech founder who famously paid himself a single dollar a year," Reed went on. "I doubt Nathan's done anything like that he wouldn't have started planning against you the moment you married him."

Lily nodded slowly. "I'll look into it. Can you drop me at the bank first?"

By the time Lily got home from the bank, the house was already full of noise.

Melissa was curled up on the sofa with a stray dog in her lap. Nathan crouched beside her, gently toweling the mutt's matted fur dry.

The dog was wrapped in a dark brown scarf the one Lily had spent an entire month knitting by hand as Nathan's New Year's gift, last winter.

They were laughing together like old friends.

The second Melissa spotted Lily in the doorway, she tugged at Nathan's sleeve and ducked halfway behind him. "It's my sister-in-law."

Nathan set the towel down. "You're back."

Lily walked in without a word. Her eyes dropped to the shivering dog in Melissa's arms, and her mouth curved into something cold. "Even the strays know where to go for sympathy."

Melissa flushed and threw Nathan a wounded look.

He rushed to explain, signing quickly. "[I found it on the side of the road. With this much snow it wouldn't have survived the week. You used to love animals, Lily.]"

Lily forced a smile. "People change. Come here I need to talk to you."

She walked straight into the living room without waiting for an answer.

Behind her, Melissa pouted at Nathan. "Your wife still hasn't forgiven me, has she? I could just take the dog and check into a hotel I don't want to be the reason you two fight, and I don't want to put you in a difficult spot."

Nathan ruffled the back of her head absently. "I'll handle it."

Then he followed Lily inside.

Lily lifted her eyes the moment he stepped in. "You know I can't stand Melissa. You know exactly why Owen is lying in a hospital bed right now."

A flicker of irritation crossed Nathan's face.

He rubbed his temples, then signed instead of speaking. "[The police already investigated. Owen's coma had nothing to do with Melissa directly. Even if she were nothing more than a friend of his, she still would've stood up for him against those thugs.]"

The story went that Owen had told Melissa to hide, and she'd ducked into an old warehouse. By the time Owen ran to reach her, the warehouse door warped and rusted from years of neglect had jammed shut. That was how he'd ended up beaten half to death and locked out in the cold. Melissa had been a victim too, in Nathan's telling.

"Didn't you used to treat her like a real sister?" he pressed. "You told me yourself to look after her. She'd been harassed by a neighbor, had nowhere to go, didn't know a soul in this city besides us. Don't let old grudges poison you, Lily."

Her fingertips had gone ice-cold.

She tried for a smile; it came out closer to a grimace. "Does it always have to be this way?"

Nathan crossed the room and crouched in front of her. "[She's already paid for it. She knelt in front of a shrine for three days and three nights praying for Owen, in the middle of a blizzard. Her legs nearly got frostbite.]"

Wonderful.

Just wonderful.

Her brother had lost half his life. Melissa had almost gotten cold feet literally.

All the fight drained out of Lily at once. "Fine. Whatever you want."

He'd already betrayed her six hundred and sixty-six times. What difference would one more month make?

And yet something in her chest still ached, stubborn and raw.

Maybe that was just what it cost, cutting out something rotten before it killed you.

Nathan lifted her hand and kissed it. "I knew our Lily had the biggest heart in the world."

She pulled her hand back and turned for the stairs.

Nathan watched her go noticed, for the first time, how thin her back looked under that knitted sweater.

His brow furrowed. When did she get so thin?

He caught her arm before she could climb out of reach.

Lily turned.

He held her gaze, smiling faintly. "Don't forget about tonight."

Melissa's voice rang out sweetly from the doorway. "What's tonight? Didn't you promise to take the dog to the vet with me?"

Lily didn't want to hear another word of it. She nodded once, shook Nathan's hand off her arm, and went upstairs without looking back.

Nathan frowned after her, then turned to Melissa. "There's an auction in the city tomorrow. My cousin Nadia's running it she's treating everyone tonight at the club. We should go show support."

"I want to come too," Melissa said.

Nathan's frown deepened. "That's not a good idea."

She stomped her foot with a little huff. "Fine, then I'll go to the club and drink by myself!"

She scooped up the dog and stormed out.

Nathan let her go, sinking back into the sofa to replay Lily's behavior in his head. Something about her had felt off all day.

Could she know? About Melissa?

No. Impossible. If she knew, she would have blown up already.

He decided it was probably just the missed cemetery visit weighing on her. He'd make it up to her tomorrow buy her something nice at the auction.

Lily came back downstairs that evening to find Nathan waiting alone in the living room.

Her eyes felt strangely clear. "Ready to go?"

He nodded eagerly, hurried up the stairs to help her down, then draped her white coat over her shoulders himself. "It's snowing hard out there. Bundle up so you don't catch cold."

She let him hold her hand and guide her into the car, all the way to the club.

After greeting Nadia, Lily took her usual seat in the corner, sipping juice quietly while the others sang and drank the night away.

A few rounds in, Nadia remembered her grandmother's instructions. She palmed a small pill from her pocket, dropped it into a glass of sparkling wine, and carried it over to Lily.

"Sister-in-law, wish me luck for tomorrow's auction?" Nadia signed clumsily, holding out the glass. "It's practically nonalcoholic, don't worry."

Lily smiled and accepted it.

Nadia was one of the only people in the Pierce family who'd ever shown her real warmth, and Lily valued that more than she let on.

She clinked glasses with Nadia and drank it down in one go.

Nadia watched from the corner of her eye, then exhaled in relief.

Grandmother will be so pleased with me. I might just be the one who finally gets her a great-grandchild.

Across the room, Marcus Quinn one of Nathan's closest friends slipped back in after stepping out for a few minutes and dropped into the seat beside him.

He lowered his voice. "Man, talk about bad timing. I just walked past the main hall someone's out there proposing to Melissa. Down on one knee, the whole thing."

He shot a glance toward Lily.

Nathan's face went carefully blank. He said nothing, but his knuckles whitened around his glass.

"Relax, your wife can't hear a thing," Marcus said. "Just make up some excuse, get her to step out, and go handle it."

Nathan set down his drink and turned to Lily. "I need to make a call. I'll be right back be good and wait for me."

She nodded.

He watched her for a second before hurrying off.

Marcus was pulled into a card game seconds later, and just like always, nobody paid Lily any attention.

So nobody noticed when she slipped out of the private room too.

The music in the main hall hit her like a wall, loud enough that she had to press her palms over her ears as she pushed through the crowd.

She stopped at the edge of the onlookers just in time to watch Nathan shove past them and kick the proposal setup to the ground.

The man on one knee shot to his feet, furious. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Nathan's eyes were dark, dangerous, fixed on Melissa. "Tell him who I am."

Melissa stubbornly stepped toward the stranger. "I don't even know this man"

Nathan grabbed her arm, yanked her against him, and cupped her face in both hands before kissing her hard, possessive, punishing right there in front of everyone. The crowd gasped. Someone screamed.

Lily pulled out her phone and recorded every second of it.

If Nathan hadn't betrayed her with Melissa in the first place, she might never have hated him enough for this.

But here they were.

Don't blame her for what came next for leaving him with absolutely nothing.

He was about to take his company public, about to multiply his fortune overnight, about to stand at the very top of his life.

She wondered what his face would look like when it all came crashing down.

Lily wiped a single tear from the corner of her eye.

For the first time in a long while, she found herself looking forward to something.