Chapter Eight: The Funeral

Lily's Pov

Margaret's funeral was beautiful and cold, exactly like every other event in the Hunt family calendar.

Hundreds of mourners filled the church, business partners and society friends who'd probably never sat with her the way I had. I stood beside Alexander in black, playing the grieving widow's daughter-in-law, while my own grief for her felt like the only honest thing in the room.

Cassandra arrived in a black dress that looked more like a red carpet gown than mourning wear. She went straight to Alexander's side, resting a hand on his arm, whispering something that made his shoulders loosen slightly.

I stood two feet away and might as well have been invisible.

"You must be devastated," Cassandra said to him, loud enough for the surrounding guests to hear. "I'm here. Whatever you need."

Alexander let her hand stay on his arm through the entire service. Not once did he reach for mine.

James Hunt approached me briefly near the flowers, his voice a low, cruel murmur only I could hear. "My mother's death changes nothing for you, girl. Don't get comfortable."

I didn't answer him. I had learned that silence was safer than words in that family.

After the burial, guests gathered at the mansion. I slipped away from the noise, needing air, needing space from the performance of a marriage that had never been real.

I passed Alexander's study and heard his voice, low and familiar, along with Cassandra's laugh.

I should have kept walking. Instead I stopped outside the half-open door.

"With Grandmother gone, there's no reason to keep pretending," Cassandra was saying. "We can finally plan our real wedding. Something grand. Something that actually means something."

"Soon," Alexander said. "Once the contract officially ends, Lily disappears and we announce our engagement."

"God, I thought this would never end. Two years of pretending some pathetic little nobody actually mattered to you."

Alexander laughed. Actually laughed. "She was convenient. Grandmother adored her, and that's all that mattered. Lily served her purpose."

Every word landed like a blow. Convenient. Pathetic. Nobody.

I backed away before they could see me, my hand pressed hard against my mouth to keep from making a sound, my other hand pressed against my stomach where his child grew, unknown and unwanted.

I called Rachel from the guest bathroom, my voice shaking so badly I could barely form words.

"Rachel, I need to leave. Tonight. Can you help me?"

"Lily, what happened? You're scaring me."

"Everything. I'll explain when I see you. Please, Rachel."

"I'm already grabbing my keys. Meet me two blocks from the penthouse in an hour."

That night, after everyone left, I found the divorce papers Alexander's lawyer had prepared months ago, sitting untouched in his office drawer. My signature was the only one missing.

My hand shook as I picked up the pen, but I made myself steady it. I signed my name for the second time in that penthouse, the first time selling myself into this marriage, the second time buying myself out of it.

I packed one suitcase, the same one I'd arrived with, and left the designer clothes and the diamond ring hanging in the closet. I kept only Margaret's wedding band, the one piece of that family that had ever been given to me with real love.

Rachel was waiting two blocks away in her car when I walked out of that glass tower for the last time, my heart pounding with equal parts terror and relief.

"Where to?" she asked as I climbed in.

"Anywhere he isn't." I looked back once at the building that had held two years of my life. "Somewhere he'll never find me."

I didn't tell her about the baby yet. I didn't tell anyone.

Some secrets you carry alone, at least for a little while, until you're strong enough to say them out loud.

As Rachel pulled away from the curb, my phone buzzed one last time. Alexander.

"Where are you? Dinner with the lawyers starts soon."

I turned my phone off without answering, and somewhere behind us, a life I never wanted grew smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.

We drove through the night, mostly in silence, the highway lights blurring past like the pieces of a life I was leaving behind for good.

"You know he'll come looking, once he realizes what's missing," Rachel said somewhere around three in the morning, her eyes on the road.

"He won't look for me. He never has before."

"That was before he had a reason to." She glanced at me briefly. "A baby changes things, Lily, even for men like Alexander Hunt."

"He'll never know about the baby. That's the whole point of leaving now, before I start showing, before there's any way for him to guess."

Rachel didn't argue, though her silence told me she wasn't entirely convinced I'd be able to keep that secret forever.

By the time the sun rose over unfamiliar hills, I had already started rehearsing the story I would tell everyone from now on. A quiet widow, recently divorced, starting fresh somewhere no one asked too many questions.

I touched Margaret's ring, now hanging from a chain around my neck, hidden beneath my shirt where no one could see it and demand I explain its meaning.

"Thank you for this," I told Rachel as the first road sign for the coastal town appeared. "For everything."

"That's what best friends are for." She reached over and squeezed my hand. "New chapter, Lily. A real one this time. One you get to write yourself."

I wanted so badly to believe her.