Chapter Three

Lily’s POV

The fourth evening I arrived with my resolve already fraying at the edges.

I had spent the entire day repeating the same hard truth to myself: these meetings were about my father’s job and nothing else. The careful clothes, the way my pulse jumped at the sound of Thomas’s voice, the low heat that followed every quiet command those were dangerous distractions I could no longer afford. I stepped out of the elevator with my shoulders set and my expression locked down, determined to force a clear answer before another night ended in ambiguity.

Thomas was behind the desk as usual, the lamp carving the same...