Episode 7 - Her Return, His Regret

The morning light crept weakly through the clouds, spilling a dull gray across the quiet streets.

Lilian’s footsteps echoed faintly, each one slower than the last. Her body ached — not just from exhaustion, but from the kind of pain that burrows deep, beneath skin and bone.

She clutched her coat tighter around her trembling frame. The chill in the air bit through her clothes, but it wasn’t the cold that made her shiver — it was the emptiness that followed her home like a shadow.

When the tall gates of the Brook mansion finally came into view, her knees almost gave out. That place — once her safe haven — now felt like a battlefield she was too tired to fight on.

Her fingers shook as she reached for the front door.

The moment it opened, a scent of fresh coffee and polished wood filled her senses. And then she saw him.

Ethan.

Standing at the entrance, his tie perfectly knotted, his expression unreadable, the weight of his presence still commanding. He looked every bit the powerful man she had fallen in love with — confident, composed, cruel.

Their eyes met for a brief second — one heartbeat, no more.

Her lips parted. The words “I’m pregnant” sat right there, heavy on her tongue. She wanted to tell him. To let him know there was still something pure left between them. Something that could have changed everything.

But the words never came.

Ethan brushed past her without even a pause, the scent of his cologne lingering like a cold ghost. The slam of the front door echoed down the hallway, final and sharp.

Lilian stood frozen, her heart twisting painfully.

Her hand instinctively moved to her stomach.

“I’ll tell him tonight,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “He still has feelings for me… he has to.”

It was a fragile lie — one she had to believe to keep breathing.

---

Night fell with quiet cruelty.

The mansion glowed under dim lights, the air heavy with unspoken tension.

Lilian waited in the living room, her fingers tracing the edge of a family portrait that now felt like fiction. Her eyes burned from holding back tears, her chest tight with the need to be seen.

When the sound of the front door opening reached her ears, her heart leapt. She stood quickly, brushing her hair back, forcing a faint smile.

But before she could move, she heard it — a low chuckle from the hallway.

Ethan’s voice.

She paused, her feet rooted in place. The tone wasn’t one she recognized — calm, calculating, empty.

Then came the words that shattered her world.

“Once she gives birth,” Ethan said, his voice smooth, detached, “I’ll take full control of the company. After that, she’s out of this house. For good.”

The phone crackled softly with his mother’s distant reply, but Lilian couldn’t hear a thing beyond that sentence.

Her world stopped.

The walls seemed to close in, the ground beneath her feet turning to glass.

She pressed herself against the wall, her pulse racing in her ears, her breaths coming in short, sharp gasps.

Her lips trembled as she mouthed the words she wished were lies.

“After… she gives birth… she’s gone.”

Her vision blurred. The portrait she’d just held slipped from her hand and crashed to the floor, the glass splintering like her heart.

She sank to her knees, clutching her chest, tears spilling freely.

“Ethan…” her voice cracked, barely a whisper. “After everything I’ve done for you… after everything I’ve lost…”

Her trembling hands moved to her stomach, as if to protect the tiny life growing inside her from the cruelty outside it.

“So this means… you could never love me?”

Her voice faded into the silence. Only the faint ticking of the wall clock answered — slow, cruel, merciless.

The tears kept falling — not just from heartbreak, but from the realization that love could never fix what was already broken.

For a long moment, she stayed there, her sobs soft and uneven.

Then slowly, something changed in her eyes — the tears still glistening, but the pain giving way to something fiercer.

Resolve.

Still hidden in the shadows, she whispered a promise — not to Ethan, but to herself.

“If your love can’t save me, Ethan Brook… then your cruelty will make me stronger.”

Her tears stopped. Her heartbeat steadied.

Because for the first time, Lilian wasn’t crying for what she had lost —

She was crying for the woman she was about to become.

And that woman…

was no longer his to break.