Xander squats down beside them. “Of course we did. She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you, shorty.”
Lily looks between Xander and Zeke. “She’s from one of the puppy farms?”
Zeke nods.
“You … you saved her? You were the one who had those places shut down?”
“It was all of us,” Zeke replies, nodding in my direction.
She looks back at me, and her eyes swim with tears as she pushes herself to her feet. “You too?”
I swallow the ball of emotion lodged in my throat, but my voice is still little more than a croak. “Yeah.”
“Are you back, Lily? For good?” Leave it to Xander to ask the question I know we’re all waiting to have answered.
Clearing her throat, she gives a small shake of her head. My heart bottoms out. Is that a no? “I think we … we need to talk.”
Relief washes over me. It’s not an outright no. Talking is good. I’d much rather fuck her into submission, but beggars can’t be choosers. We’ll talk things through and then fuck her into submission.
“West made roast lamb,” Xander says.
Lily looks at me and licks her lips, and I push down all the memories of that tongue on my neck, my chest, my cock. “I thought I could smell your signature dish.”
“It’ll be ready in about twenty minutes.” I recognize the purple bag in Zeke’s hand. “You want to put your things away first?”
“Your room is still how you left it,” Xander adds hopefully.
“I, uh, I don’t know.”
“Lily,” Zeke says softly. “Please? Just give us one night?”
Looking pained, she finally nods, and I wonder what he did to get her here. Whatever it was, I owe him.
We eat an awkward dinner. Despite coming here to talk, Lily seems as reluctant as the rest of us to bring up any of the things we should be discussing right now, including her true identity. While I believe she never had any intention to hurt us, she still hid who she was. She still lied.
“Anyone else finding this super awkward?” Xander asks as he pushes his carrots around his plate. Lily bites her lip and glances at the three of us, her face flushing pink and obscuring the tiny smattering of freckles across her nose. He stares at her then, his bright blue eyes trained on her face. “What if we start with telling you how sorry we are?”
“You all already told me that,” she says quietly.
I let my fork clatter to my plate, and she looks over at me. “But you don’t believe us?”
Her eyes brim with tears, and the memory of how cruel we were to her that night causes a fresh wave of crippling guilt to wash over me. “I do believe you’re sorry …”
Xander props his elbows on the table and leans forward. “But?”
Her slender throat works as she swallows. She sets down her fork and takes a deep breath. “It doesn’t change what you did or how humiliated I was. It doesn’t change the fact that you refused to give me any opportunity to explain my side of the story.”
Xander reaches for her but then pulls his hand back. “But—”
“But nothing, Xander. You all turned your backs on me. I stood in the lobby of this building, the place you made me believe was my home, sobbing like my life was over, and you sent your goddamn doorman to bring me my things.” She doesn’t bother to wipe away the fat tear rolling down her cheek. “It wasn’t until you saw my article that you knew Bree lied about me. You believed her with no real evidence, while my word meant nothing to you. And that’s when I realized that I didn’t mean anything to you either.” Her voices cracks along with my heart. Surely she can’t actually believe that. She pushes back her stool.
“But you lied to us about who you really are,” I tell her. “We know that you’re Liliana Constantine.”
Her eyes go wide, and for a long moment, the kitchen is silent but for the sound of her harsh breaths. “No.” She shakes her head. “You don’t get to put this all on me. I know I kept my true identity a secret, and I know I should have told you about my past, but I lied to protect someone I love. To keep myself safe. But if you’d asked me, if you had come to me with what Bree told you—” She gasps, tears running freely down her face now. “If you’d come to me, I would have told you the truth.”
Shame gnaws a hole in my gut, and I respond before I can think about what I’m saying. “It’s easy to say that now, isn’t it? But the truth is we’ll never know.”