Chapter 76

Lila's POV

Drew stood in the doorway.

Tall, gallant and still in his suit from the day, the tie was already loose but his presence was no less severe. His eyes… God, his eyes weren’t just cold. They were lethal, like they actually carried fire. They looked dark and unblinking, piercing right through me and down to the marrow of my bones.

For a beat, I couldn’t speak. I just stood there, frozen, my hands gripping something I was never meant to see.

“I…I was just…” My voice faltered. I swallowed hard, trying again. “I was bored so I just started looking around. I swear I didn’t mean…”

“Put it down.”

The command snapped out of him like a whip as he cut me right in the middle of my statement.

I flinched, heat crawling up my neck. My hands moved before my brain did, lowering the frame back onto the bookshelf. But my fingers hesitated a second too long on the glass. I felt it, the reverence in the way I set it down, the curiosity still sparking through me like fire despite knowing better.

Drew’s eyes tracked every movement. When the frame was finally back in place, he crossed the room in three strides and stood inches from me. Too close. His hand reached out, not to me, but to the frame. He lifted it with a grip that was steady, but the whiteness of his knuckles gave him away.

He held it like it was both precious and dangerous, like letting go might tear something inside him apart.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just stared at it. Stared so hard it was like he was trying to burn a hole straight through the glass.

I could hear my own breathing, quick and shallow and also hear the faint tick of the clock on the desk. The silence stretched unbearable, until I whispered, “Is it… yours?”

His head snapped toward me.

The look in his eyes made me want to shrink into the wall. Fury and warning burned in his gaze, but underneath, for just a flicker, something else. Something rawer. Something that looked like grief, so sharp it could cut both of us open if I reached for it.

“You shouldn’t have been in here.” His voice was low, clipped.

I winced at the words. They didn't shout, but they landed heavier than if he had yelled. The rebuke stung worse than any shouting he could possibly give.

“I wasn’t” I stopped, my chest tightening. “I wasn’t trying to snoop. I was just… the door was open. I thought…”

“You thought wrong.”

He set the frame back down, slower this time, almost careful, like it was a wound he was terrified might reopen if touched too roughly.

The air between us felt jagged, sharp enough to bleed.

I wanted to apologize and to just walk away. But the question pressed against my ribs until I thought it would shatter me if I didn’t ask.

“Drew,” I said quietly, searching his face, “whose sonogram is that? Why do you have it?”

His jaw clenched. The muscle ticked hard enough I could see it jump.

“You don’t get to ask that,” he said finally. Each word was deliberate, controlled, but they trembled with something dangerous beneath.

I froze. The finality in his tone left no room for argument.

Something in me flared, shame, yes, but also anger. He had brought me here. He had locked me into his world, stripped away my choices, forced his protection on me whether I wanted it or not. And now he expected me to just swallow the pieces of him he left lying around, pretend like I hadn’t just seen proof of another life he kept buried?

“That’s not fair,” I whispered, my voice thin but steady. “You brought me here. You put me in your house, in your world, and you expect me not to see the cracks? And to just ignore what’s right in front of me?”

His head tilted slightly, his eyes narrowing. For a moment, he just looked at me, his stare so heavy I thought it might pin me in place forever.

Then, with a sharp breath, he turned his back on me.

“Some doors stay closed, Lila.” His tone was razor sharp. “And if you want to stay here, you’ll remember that.”

The dismissal stung worse than any insult.

I stood there, my chest rising and falling too fast, my throat aching with words I wasn’t brave enough to push past my lips. He was walking away, shutting me out again, retreating behind that wall I had glimpsed but wasn’t allowed to touch.

But even as I stood frozen in his office, my heart pounding, I knew something with terrifying clarity

Whatever that frame meant to him, it was more than just a memory. It was a wound.

He walked past me, his steps heavy, measured, like each one was an effort of control. He didn’t look back. Didn’t wait to see if I would follow.

The frame sat on the shelf, gleaming faintly in the light. Mocking me.

I hugged my arms to my chest, my body trembling even though the air wasn’t cold. My mind wouldn’t stop racing. Did he have a child? Did he lose one? Was that why he was the way he was, furious, controlled and so locked up in his world?

Every question pulled me deeper, tangled me further in the mystery of him.

And the terrifying part?

I knew that if I kept pushing, if I pressed my hand against the wrong wound, it wouldn’t just be him who broke.

It would be both of us.

I stood in the silence of his office, the echo of his words still sharp in the air.

"Some doors stay closed."

But I wasn’t sure I could live here, breathe here and walk his halls without trying to open them.