by Maisey Yates
It was 4:00 a.m. when Gage woke up and found Lily’s side of the bed cold and empty.
Lily’s side of the bed.
Any other time, it would have bothered him to think of anything in his home as belonging to someone else, especially a woman he was seeing. But with Lily, it seemed natural.
He didn’t feel claustrophobic when he thought of spending an indefinite amount of time with her. He wanted her, and for now that was fine. He could continue to enjoy her until the arrangement no longer benefited either of them.
He pulled on a pair of dark boxer briefs and went out into the living room. Lily was sitting there on the couch, a cup of coffee in her hand, a blank expression on her face. Her hair was pulled back into a bun and she was dressed in a fitted skirt and jacket, her work uniform.
“Did something happen with Maddy?” he asked, thoughts of the media hounding his sister his first thought.
She shook her head, her lips pursed. “No. Maddy’s fine. At least, I haven’t seen anything about her in the news.”
She lowered her eyes and gripped her coffee tighter. He’d spent a lot of time with Lily over the months she’d worked with him, more since they’d started sleeping together, and he knew her moods. She was upset and she was trying desperately not to show it.
His first crazy thought was that she might be pregnant, though he had been vigilant about protection. Still, a thousand images rushed through his head. Lily, her belly rounded by pregnancy. Lily, holding their baby.
The very idea should have terrified him. He’d never wanted to be a father. Not because he didn’t want children, but because he didn’t want to become his parents. He had the same kind of ambition both of his parents had shared, and so did Lily. They’d discussed as much only that evening. So when would they see their baby? Between work and work-related events?
But if it had already happened, there was nothing that could be done. If she was pregnant, he would face it, and he knew that she would, too. Neither of them ran from things. They faced things head-on, which was why they had more than they occasional clash.
A baby. A small surge of exhilaration rushed through him. Maybe this would be his chance. His chance to have everything he didn’t believe he could ever possibly earn.
“Lily, whatever it is, you can tell me,” he said, his voice tight.
“I can’t do this anymore, Gage.”
Her words hit him with the impact of a brick. His stomach contracted and his chest squeezed tight. Pain ripped through him before it was washed away by a tide of anger that washed it away.
“You can’t do what?” he asked, his voice soft, because he knew he was on the edge, and unless he kept himself under careful control, he might lose it completely.
“This. This relationship. Whatever it is we have. We agreed to a fling, and this—” she gestured around his home “—staying at each other’s houses and going on dates and you buying my clothes, that’s not a fling.”
“Yes, Lily, this is a fling. It certainly isn’t anything more.” The pain in his chest compelled him to lash out, made him want to shatter that composed look on his face, find a break in the calm, smooth voice.
It was an incredible crash, thinking that he’d found a way to hold on to her forever, and finding out she was slipping away from him. He had nothing to hold her to him, nothing to make her want to stay.
He swallowed hard, trying to block out the incredible pain that was lashing at his heart, making him feel raw, wounded. This was why he didn’t simply give emotion, didn’t do caring. He had loved his parents, and it had meant nothing to them. And then, even with all of his achievements, he hadn’t been enough.
He wasn’t enough for Lily, either.
She looked up at him and for a moment, he was certain he saw pain in her eyes, until she masked it again with the blank expression she’d been wearing when he walked into the room.
“Then why prolong it?” she asked, standing. “I’ll get a cab.”
“Why? You have to be at work soon. I can drive you,” he ground out.
She looked away from him. “I don’t know …”
“It’s just a fling, Lily,” he bit out. “And we always knew that it would end. And we agreed you would continue to work for me.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Of course. My job is important to me. Another reason why I don’t think it’s smart to prolong this. I don’t want it affecting our work.”
Something about the way she said that made his stomach burn. Her job was important. What had passed between them wasn’t.
He couldn’t even believe that only moments before he’d been imagining having a baby with her. Had even thought they could make it work. But she was no different than his parents, and when it came right down to it, neither was he. He might have thought, for a brief moment, that he could be someone else, that he could have another life than the one he was meant to have. But it was not possible.
“I’ll get ready,” he said and turned away, headed back into the bedroom and shut the door behind him. He pounded his fist hard against the wall, hoping that it might loosen some of the pain that had settled in his chest.
He shook the lingering sting from his hand and went to his closet. His chest still hurt. He wanted to back out and take her in his arms and tell her they weren’t finished. He wanted to take her back to bed and pleasure her until neither of them could think. Until she didn’t want to leave him.
But there was no point. This was always the way it was going to end. It was what he wanted. What he had to want. He didn’t do permanent. He didn’t want to be tied down for the rest of his life, to have to put himself, his job, second. He’d been there, he’d done that.
But he didn’t feel a sense of freedom at the thought of ending his affair with Lily. He only felt like there was a hole inside of him. And he had no idea how he would fill it without her.
Lily sat in the chair across from Gage’s desk, pen in hand, taking notes. She was gripping the pen too tightly and her hand hurt. But everything in her body hurt. To be with Gage—without being with him—was almost pure torture.
But she had agreed to it. She had agreed to the fling in the first place, and then she had instigated its demise.
But she had done it for all the right reasons. Gage had said, unequivocally, that their relationship was nothing more than a casual affair. And she had fallen in love with him.
She just needed some time away from him. Not that she was going to get any real time away from him. Not when she had to see him every day. But she wasn’t about to self-destruct her career just because she’d made the stupid mistake of sleeping with her boss. And falling in love with him.
She didn’t even want to be in love, so the fact that she was absolutely heartbroken over him was even worse. But what would they do in a relationship? Get married? Have a family?
It was laughable. They weren’t suited to it. Neither of them wanted it.
Her heart burned in her chest. If she didn’t want love, then why did the thought of having it with Gage make her ache like it did? Why did her heart feel like it was going to shatter? Why did her life, her perfect life that she had worked so hard for, suddenly feel empty?
Lily’s bed felt empty. She only wished her heart could feel as empty. But it was full. Full of pain, love, need.
She rolled out of her bed and walked out onto her balcony. She could hear the waves crashing on the shore, smell the sea as the crisp wind blew over the surface of the water and carried it to her.
This was what she had worked so hard for. This view. Her home. A home that was hers alone, a life that was hers alone. One that wasn’t controlled by her mother.
A tear slid down her cheek. She didn’t feel free anymore. She’d imagined, for so long, that she was. Had believed that because she’d left, because she’d quit caring whether or not she was enough for her mother, that she had left it behind her.
But she hadn’t. She had carried it with her. It had motivated her, made her successful in her
professional life as she’d moved further and further away from her painful childhood, and made more of herself than her mother would have thought her capable of.
It had made her successful in some ways, but she had allowed it to stunt her in so many other ways. She was still letting it stop her.
She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She wanted Gage. She didn’t know if he wanted her, not in the same way she wanted him. She didn’t know if he could ever love her.
Her own mother hadn’t loved her half as much as she’d loved the various men that had paraded through her life.
It galled her to find out that the thing that had kept her from a relationship, from love, was the fear that she wasn’t good enough. She hid it by focusing on things she excelled at, and she simply ignored everything else, so that she didn’t have to face it.
She wasn’t going to do it anymore. She felt as if she was back on the edge of the cliff again, the ocean at the bottom, a swirling sea of uncertainty beneath her. She could turn and run, as she had done before, or she could face it head-on. She’d managed to do that with business, to face down opponents in the media, without breaking a sweat.
It was her personal life, her feelings, that she’d been afraid to face.
She took a deep breath, trying to lighten some of the weight that had settled in her chest. She didn’t know what Gage would say if she told him she loved him. He would probably turn and run the other way. But she knew that she had to tell him. She wasn’t going to live in fear anymore, not with the fear that she was unlovable, not with the fear of what might happen if she gave herself over to a relationship.
Gage had asked her once if she trusted him, and she’d said yes. But she’d lied. She hadn’t trusted him. If she had, she would never have felt the need to run before he had the chance to end the relationship.
Because that was what it came down to. She was running. She’d been running since she was seventeen.
She wasn’t running anymore.
Gage was at his desk at five that morning. He couldn’t sleep. Not without Lily in his bed. Without her in his arms.
And she had left him. Women never left him. He was always the one to end a relationship. But not this one. Lily had left him.
He wanted her back, but if he had her, he had no idea what he would do. What he could do. Frustration roared through him. He wanted something he could never have, wanted to give Lily things he wasn’t certain he knew how to give. Wanted her to feel those things in return when he knew she simply didn’t.
It was not the first time it had happened to him. His parents had not wanted him, they hadn’t wanted him even with all of his achievements. Why should Lily want him? He’d let her walk away because he’d always believed, deep inside of himself, that he was not a man who someone could love. And so he had set out to become a man who didn’t need love. And when Lily had left, he’d told himself it was for the best.
But there was a war being waged inside of him. A war that pitted what he’d always believed about himself against his heart’s newfound desire. No matter the outcome, it made him want to take a risk, to dive headlong into all of the things that Lily made him feel. Things he hadn’t imagined were possible for him to feel.
He had always been the man who took care of things. When Maddy had needed him, he was there. Always. There had never been a situation in his life that he hadn’t believed he could find the solution to. But there was nothing he could do now.
He wasn’t the kind of man who admitted to needing. To needing help. To needing someone else. But he needed her, and there was nothing in his own power that could bring her to him, that could make her want him the way he wanted her.
He looked around his office. He had always considered this his biggest achievement, yet now, it felt like nothing. He would gladly give it up in that moment, for Lily.
He thought back on the years he’d spent raising Maddy. They had been stressful, and trying, and sometimes too much for a twenty-five-year-old man to deal with. But they had been fulfilling in a way his life hadn’t been since.
There was something he could do. Something he had always vowed never to do. Not since he had told his mother he loved her when he was five and she had simply stared at him in stony silence. He could tell Lily. He could put himself on the line, his heart, his pride. What did it mean if he didn’t have her?
He blew out a harsh breath and stood from his desk just as the door to his office opened. Lily stepped in, hair in a knot, prim and proper outfit skimming her curves like always. Making him want to see the beauty that lay beneath.
She turned on shut the door, the lock clicking softly.
“Gage,” she said softly, her voice shaking.
He thought of the first time she’d walked into his office for a job interview. Her manner had been confident, her voice steady. She looked far removed from that woman now. There was vulnerability, real emotion.
“I didn’t expect you this early,” he said.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“I couldn’t sleep, either.” Their eyes caught and held, and he knew they had both been sleepless for the same reason.
“I thought … Gage, I have to tell you,” she said. “I thought that not needing anyone made me strong. I didn’t want to be like my mother and need things from other people all the time. So I avoided relationships. And then I met you, and I wanted you, I wanted you enough that I thought I could take the chance and have you, and because you were only interested in temporary, you wouldn’t ask anything of me.”
She took a shuddering breath and continued. “But you did, Gage. You asked everything of me. You challenged me, and you asked me to do things that were hard. You wouldn’t let me hide.”
She reached back and pulled on the tie that was holding her hair in place and let it fall loose around her shoulders.
“I still tried to hide,” she said. “I didn’t want to expose myself to you. To anyone.”
She unbuttoned the first button on her top, then quickly undid the rest, letting her blouse fall to the floor. Her hands shook as she undid the catch on her bra and let it fall down to the floor, too. Then she pushed her skirt down her rounded hips, leaving her standing before him in nothing more than a pair of tiny panties and some bright blue shoes.
“Image is important,” she said, dragging her panties down her legs and kicking her shoes to the side. “I’ve always said that it was because image is a part of my job. But I was using it to hide. As long as I had all of this—” she gestured to the clothes around her feet “—I could play the part. I could pretend I was confident. Like I had everything together. But I don’t. I was just afraid.” She laughed. “I am afraid. But I’m not going to give you the image anymore. I’m just Lily Ford. I wasn’t born with money. I worked for everything I have. And I’m afraid of being in love. Of being in love with you. Because I’m afraid that I’m not enough.”
He looked at Lily, his heart hammering in his chest. Then he crossed the room and took her in his arms, her body warm and soft against him. “You’re everything, Lily. Don’t ever doubt it.” He smoothed her silky hair, sifted his fingers through it. “I love you. When you’re in your business suits ready to take on the world, and when you’re crying after we’ve made love. I love everything about you. Every part of you. It’s all you.”
He felt her shoulders shake. “You love me?”
“Yes, Lily. I love you. I was as scared as you are, because I think I’ve loved you for a very long time, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be enough for you. That I wouldn’t be able to give you what you deserved. That I wouldn’t be able to give our children what they deserved. I was afraid that I was like my parents, that things would always come before people. But I would give it all up today if it meant I could have you.”
“I would, too,” she said, her voice muffled by tears. “None of it matters if I can’t share it with you.”
“You don’t have to give anything up for me, Lily. I lo
ve how ambitious you are. I love your wit, your humor, your drive. I would never ask you to be someone else. I want the woman you are.”
“I would never ask you to change, either.”
“Work isn’t my life anymore,” Gage said, looking at her beautiful, tearstained face. “You are. Our children will be. When you told me you were done … right before, you looked so serious, I was certain you were going to tell me you were pregnant. And I was scared, because I didn’t know if I could be a good father. I didn’t know if I could love a child properly, not after how I was raised. I didn’t know if that child could love me. But I knew if I was going to have a child, I wanted it to be with you.”
“Gage …” She put her hand on his cheek. “Our children will love you. And I love you. I can’t help myself. Our parents were screwed up, but we don’t have to be.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Of course, you know that if we get married, I’ll have access to all of your dirty laundry, and my job will only be more difficult, since I’m going to have to hide all of your flaws from the public, when I’m aware of every single one of them.”
He laughed and smoothed his hands down her back, over her bare curves. “You love my flaws.”
She whimpered. “I do. And you love mine.”
“More than I love my own.”
“We can do this, Gage,” she said, her voice trembling. “We can have this.”
“Of course we can, Lily. Love isn’t what your mother had, love isn’t what my parents gave to my sister and me. This is love. What I feel for you. All of the things I’d worked for suddenly meant nothing without you to share them with.”
“That’s exactly how I felt. Everything that I was happy with before was empty if you weren’t there. I always liked empty before I met you, Gage, but now it just feels hollow.”
“Lily, I think we need to sign another contract.”
“Really?”
“I do. One that says we’re going to stay together, for better or for worse, for all of our lives.”