Chapter 119

Lila’s POV

The silence in the living room pressed down on me like a weight, heavy and suffocating. My parents’ footsteps had only just faded as they walked down the hallway, but the echo of their presence still clung to the air, leaving me stranded with the one person I had never expected or wanted to see here.

Drew Sinclair.

He stood a few feet away, too close and yet impossibly distant, his tall frame casting a shadow across the warm lamplight. His shoulders that usually squared with the arrogance of a man who always knew his place in the world, were slumped. His hands hung uselessly at his sides, opening and closing as if he did not know what to do with them.

For the first time since I met him, he did not look like Drew Sinclair, the powerful CEO who commanded rooms with his presence. He just looked like a man unraveling.

I held myself rigid, refusing to speak first. If he wanted something, he would have to say it.

And then his voice cracked through the silence, low and hoarse.

“I know this is going to sound absurd,” he began, his gaze locking onto mine with a desperation that made my pulse falter. “But I miss you, Lila. I have been so miserable without you.”

The words hit me like a blow to the chest. My breath hitched. For a second, I almost wondered if I wasn't hearing properly. How could he say that he missed me? He had the audacity to say that here, in my parents’ house, after all the ways he had torn me apart?

Anger licked up my spine, burning away the numbness. My voice came out sharper than I intended. “What do you actually want from me, Drew?”

His throat worked, his jaw clenching as though the words pained him. But then, slowly, he let them out. “I want you. As crazy as this whole situation looks, I need you. Ever since you left I have been going crazy thinking about you and I can not even concentrate at work or anything at all. The thought of you fills my head and I know that I will not be able to live properly if I don't tell you.”

I froze. Heat surged through me, not the kind I used to feel when he leaned too close or when his touch lingered a second too long. No, this was fire, blazing and dangerous, a fury that had been waiting for release.

“Why?” I snapped, stepping back as if the distance would keep me steady. “Why do you like to do this to me? Why do you like to disrupt my life every single time I find a way to piece myself together? Do you enjoy watching me shatter? Does it give you some sick satisfaction to wreck me whenever you feel like it?”

He flinched, like my words were blows, but I did not stop.

“I was finally getting behind everything that happened,” I went on, my voice rising with every syllable. “I was healing and trying to move on after you and Max made a mess out of my life. Do you even understand?”

“I was learning to breathe again without you choking me with your suspicion, your coldness and your silence. I was focusing on my child, the one piece of hope I still have. And then you show up here, in my home, like some storm sent to undo all of it. Again.”

Drew’s chest heaved, his lips parting like he wanted to defend himself. But nothing came. He stood there, silent, looking at me with eyes that seemed older, wearier, wounded.

And still, the fury in me refused to die.

“Please,” I whispered harshly, my throat thick with tears, “if you are not sure about what you want, if this is just guilt eating at you, or loneliness, or boredom then just leave me alone. Do not drag me into whatever confusion you are living with. I have had enough drama for a lifetime and I can’t do this with you anymore. I will not be dragged into another drama episode.”

My voice broke on the last word, my hands trembling at my sides. I dragged in a ragged breath and pressed on, even though my chest felt like it was caving in.

“See I am sorry I hurt you by keeping news of this child away from you, even if you don't believe it I did not do it to hurt you. And I am not Kimberley, I am not a fragment from your past coming back to hunt you so if this is some sort of revenge plan then your plan has failed.”

I needed to unload everything I felt at this point because I didn't know if I would have this opportunity again. I needed to let him understand that I wasn't some walk over that can be treated anyhow. I allowed it in the past but not anymore.

“If this is also about the child, then fine. But do not think for a second that I was planning to beg you to be present. I can raise this baby on my own and I am not afraid of that. But if you want to be a part of this child's life, if that is what’s tearing you apart, then you’re welcome to. That is your decision. Just don’t you dare stand here and pretend you want me when you don’t even know what that means.”

The words ripped out of me like glass, sharp and jagged. For a moment, the room swayed with the force of them, the weight of months of pain and betrayal and hope I had never wanted to admit.

Drew stood motionless, his jaw tight, his chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. His eyes, usually so sharp and so cold were wide and raw, the expression of a man stripped bare.

The silence stretched, thick and unbearable.

Then, in a voice that sounded like it had been dragged out of him, he whispered.

“I think I am in love with you, Lila.”

The world tilted.

My breath caught in my throat. The edges of my vision blurred. My knees wobbled, like the ground beneath me had shifted.

No. No, he could not have said that. There is no way he meant that. Not after everything I just said, Not after the suspicion, the rejection and the walls he built so carefully to keep me out.

But the look on his face, the terror, the pain and the raw truth etched in every line told me I had not misheard.

Love.

He said he loved me.

The word pulsed in the air between us, louder than the tick of the clock on the wall, louder than my pounding heartbeat, louder than the voice in my head screaming at me not to believe him.

My hand drifted unconsciously to my stomach, to the swell of life growing there, the only certainty I had left.

And still, his voice echoed inside me.

“I think I am in love with you.”