Chapter Six: The Mistake

Lily's Pov

The dinner with James Hunt left a bruise that didn't fade. Weeks passed, but I still heard his voice calling me plain and desperate every time I closed my eyes.

Alexander grew colder after that night. He came home later. He drank more. Some evenings I heard him pacing his office long after midnight, muttering into his phone about numbers that didn't add up.

I didn't ask questions. Questions weren't allowed.

One night, I heard the front door. Heavy footsteps. A glass breaking in the kitchen. I got up to check, worried he'd hurt himself.

"Alexander?"

He stood in the dark hallway, tie loose, jacket gone, a bottle of scotch hanging from his fingers. He didn't answer immediately . He just looked at me the way he never had before, like I was something he wanted instead of something he tolerated.

"You waited up," he said, voice sough.

"I heard the door."

He crossed the space between us faster than I expected. His hand found my face, gentle in a way that stole my breath.

"Cassandra," he murmured.

I froze. He thought I was her. The penthouse was dark, and he was drunk enough that shapes and voices blurred together.

I should have said something. I should have told him the truth right there, before it went any further.

But his hands were warm, and his mouth found mine, and for one selfish moment I let myself pretend I was the woman he wanted. I let myself be loved, even if the love wasn't mine to keep. I told myself I would stop him, that I would say something, but the words never came, and neither did the courage to send him away.

By the time I found my voice, it was too late to matter. Morning came, and with it, the truth neither of us could take back.

He woke first. I felt him go beside me, his whole body turning to stone.

"Lily." My name came out like an accusation.

"Alexander, I—"

"Get out." He was already reaching for his clothes, refusing to look at me. "Get out of this room."

"You called me by her name. You knew who I was—"

"I was drunk." His jaw worked. "This didn't happen. Do you understand me? This never happened."

The rejection cut deeper than anything James Hunt had said at that dinner table.

"I understand," I whispered, gathering the sheet around myself, shame burning through every inch of my skin.

He paused at the door, and for one second I thought he might say something different. Something kind. Instead his eyes went flat and cold again, the mask sliding back into place.

"This was a mistake. It changes nothing between us." He left without another word.

I sat alone in his mother's old room, in the bed that still smelled like him, and cried until there was nothing left inside of me.

Elena found me an hour later when I didn't come down for coffee. She took one look at my face and didn't ask a single question, just sat beside me and held my hand until I stopped shaking.

"Some things are easier not to speak of," she said quietly. "But that doesn't mean they didn't happen, dear."

My phone buzzed. Sophie, sending a photo of herself at physical therapy, grinning wide despite the braces on her legs.

I stared at her happy face and forced myself to smile back through a text, hiding an entire world of hurt behind three simple words. So proud of you.

**********

Alexander's Pov

I hadn't meant to touch her. I told myself that a hundred times over the following days.

Cassandra had cancelled on me that night, some excuse about a headache, and I'd gone to the penthouse angry and half-drunk after another screaming match with my father about the board's confidence in me. I don't remember walking to that room. I don't remember thinking about anything except needing someone, anyone, to make the noise in my head stop.

I told myself it was Cassandra in the dark. I told myself that until the sun came up and I saw Lily's face on the pillow beside me, and something in my chest cracked wide open.

I couldn't look at her after that. I couldn't stand what I'd felt in those few minutes before I knew who she was. Tenderness. Something dangerously close to want.

David found me in my office two days later, staring at a spreadsheet I hadn't read a single line of.

"You look like hell," he said, dropping a folder on my desk. "The Vale numbers are worse than I thought. She's been moving money through three shell accounts for over a year."

"Handle it quietly. I don't want a scandal before the shareholder meeting."

"Alexander, this isn't a rounding error anymore. We're talking millions." David studied me. "You're not even listening."

"I'm listening."

"Something happen with your wife?"

I stood and walked to the window so he couldn't read my face. "Nothing happened."

"You're a terrible liar for a man who negotiates for a living."

I didn't answer. My phone buzzed. Vincent Shaw's number, one I'd learned to recognize from tracking Lily's threats.

"Careful, Mr. Hunt. Money doesn't erase debts forever. -VS"

I deleted it and shoved the phone in my pocket, another problem for another day.

That night I came home to find Lily's door locked for the first time since she'd moved in. I stood outside it longer than I should have, hand raised to knock, before I let it fall back to my side and walked away.

Whatever had happened between us, I couldn't afford to feel anything about it.

Feelings were weakness. My father had taught me that. I intended to remember it, no matter how loudly some quiet part of me argued otherwise.