CHAPTER 2

LILLIAN

The cameras pop like gunfire.

I straightened my spine, rolled my shoulders back, chin up high. Flash. My fingers curled into the silk of my dress as Joe and I stepped forward, holding still as the lights popped again.

I pressed my freshly manicured nails into Joe’s arm and arched my lips into a perfect, luscious smile. He does the same, his hand resting casually at the small of my back as a way to send a message to the world and, most especially,.

“Over here! Mrs. Blackwell! Look this way! Give us a kiss!”

I immediately snapped my gaze toward the voice behind the camera, jaw tightening. My smile faltered for half a second—just enough to betray the flicker of rage behind my eyes.

I hate when they call me by that name. It always curled around my ribs like barbed wire. But I recover fast, plastering the grin back like it’s been stitched to my face.

I lean in. His lips brushed mine, staged and cold. We held it for the click and pulled away.

My father’s estate looms behind the gates like a mountain—cold stone, glass windows tall enough to swallow you whole. The house screams so much money, it smelled like arrogance.

“Smile bigger,” Joe mutters through his teeth.

I laugh—fake and bright. “If I smile any harder, my face would split.”

It’s been six months since I was last here, and the foyer hasn’t changed. Neither does the chill that creeps into my skin anytime I’m here. The same marble floors. The same grand chandelier that never swung. And the same ghost of the girl I used to be.

“Lillian, today is already bad as it is, let’s not make it harder than it has to be,” Joe whispers, his breath brushing my temple. “You know your dad’s no fool. He’ll sniff out tension faster than you can fake a smile. So whatever you're feeling, bury it. Play nice.”

I nod, wearing the smile I save for rooms like this back onto my face as a butler ushers us down the hall towards the dining room.

I hate this house.

It reminds me of everything.

It reminds me of the arguments and slammed doors. It reminds me of how my father became cold and distant. How he stopped looking at me like a human but rather as an object after he remarried his supposed first love. How my stepmother always wore an egoistic smile like she’d won a war. It reminds me of the number of times I cried into my pillow after I said yes to getting married.

Adrenaline surged, burning under my skin as the memories filled my mind. My hands wouldn’t stay still. Heat crawled up my neck, flooding my face.

“I need to freshen up,” I say once we’re inside the dining room, slipping my hand from Joe’s arm. “I’ll be right back.”

He nods once, distracted, already talking to someone I believe to be my father’s business partner. I didn't feel offended. That’s the thing about being married to someone who values work over you—he sees you as an accessory. A beautiful, expensive afterthought.

Too scared to go up to my old room, I find the guest bathroom just past the study, close the door, and lean against it for a little while before moving to the mirror.

I stare at myself in the mirror.

I look horrible. No amount of makeup can cover how pale I look.

I smoothed my damp palms over my red dress, the fabric hugging me nicely like a second skin—flawless on the outside, chaos underneath.

The door creaks open.

I whirl around.

Too late—I forgot the lock stick.

Sierra steps in, all heels, perfume and practiced disdain.

Her bleached blonde hair falls in glossy waves, her lips are red as blood, and her dress clings to her like it’s daring her chest to spill out. “You left the door unlocked. Or did you want an audience who would look at how miserable you look?”

“Get out.”

She tilts her head to the side. “Why? This is my house too, remember?”

I stare at her. Hard. “It’s been five years since you vanished, and you still haven’t changed.”

She smirks. “Please. If you think becoming daddy's precious little pet makes you matter more, then you’ve stupidly settled into your delusions, sis.”

Half sister, I wanted to say, she always has a knack for reminding me about it, but I’m already walking past her not wanting her to see how much her words stung me like a bee.

“Oh, by the way,” she adds, voice honey-slicked, “you might want to touch up. You’ve got that ‘cracked porcelain doll’ thing going on.”

I don’t look back.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The dining room is filled with people who barely tolerate each other.

My father is at the head of the table. My stepmother to his right, flashing that wide, camera-perfect smile she only wore when it came to important occasions. Sierra sat like a princess, sipping her wine with a smirk. Joe is beside me, phone out, glancing up only when he feels there’s a need to.

Everyone here is playing their role perfectly.

We’re all just pretending—pretending to be happy, to care. All for a stranger we barely know.

My father’s voice cut through the silence like a sharp knife through silk. “Still always late, aren’t you?” He says without looking up.

“Not late,” I reply evenly. “Just… on time.”

He finally looks up, his gaze locked on mine, cold and sharp, telling me how disappointed he is in me. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

I chewed the inside of my cheeks, my go-to method to keep me from rolling my eyes. He always does this—finds a petty way to throw jabs at me. But I’ve learned not to let him see how deep he gets under my skin.

Silence drapes over the table like a cold blanket. No one dares to speak. Only the clinking glass and the quiet movements of the butlers disturbed the tension hanging in the air.

I stare at the glass of red wine Joe just handed me—five years together, and he still doesn’t know I prefer white wine. I considered downing it all at once, if only to drown out the quiet crisis unraveling inside me.

I shouldn’t have come. I didn’t want to be here. But when my father calls says it’s an emergency… no excuse told you have to show up. Because no matter how many magazine covers I’ve graced or brands I’ve built, to him, I’m still just the daughter he can leverage.

“I have a big announcement tonight,” my father says as he pours himself an expensive glass of whiskey. “Very exciting. This is going to bring forth a great future for this family.”

The air thickens the type enough to leave you unconscious. Joe puts down his phone.

“Is it a family-related business?” My uncle Alex asked.

“No,” my father says, smiling widely now. “It’s a good personal business.”

My stomach turns.

He always does this. Playing games with us while dropping crumbs as he sits back and watches us squirm for more information.

I reach for my glass, about to down it all in one go.

And then he says it.

“Ahhh, there he is.”

All eyes shifted towards the doorway, so I turned slowly, uncertain, bracing myself for whatever came next.

And everything stops.

And for a second I forgot how to breathe.

My face instantly goes pale as panic fills my thoughts like dark clouds.

And standing in the doorway, looking taller, sharper, somehow even more devastating than the last time I saw him—

Ronan.

The last man I ever thought I’d see again.