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Lili must have sensed it too, because her smile faded, replaced by a look of concern.“Edward?”
I shook my head, trying to clear the thoughts from my mind.“It’s nothing,”I lied, though we both knew it was anything.
She studied me for a moment, her eyes piercing, as if she could see through the mask I wore, through the walls I’d built around myself.“We’ll figure it out,”she said finally, her voice soft but steady.
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe that we could navigate this, that we could find a way to be together without everything falling apart.
And as we lay there—entwined in each other’s arms—the world outside felt both closer and farther away than ever. The questions remained, the uncertainties lingered, but for now, in this moment, with her in my arms, I didn’t have to face them.
Not yet.
"No one can know, especially Daphne." The words tasted like betrayal on my tongue, even though I knew they were necessary. Here I was, asking the woman I loved to become complicit in her own erasure from my public life.
The words hung between us in the pre-dawn darkness of the estate's rose garden, where I'd asked Lili to meet me. She stood beneath the arbor entrance, wrapped in her dressing gown with her hair falling loose around her shoulders, looking ethereal in the pale morning light.
The scent of damask roses mixed with her familiar perfume, creating an intoxicating combination that made it hard to focus on the gravity of our situation.
Three days had passed since our night together, and the weight of secrecy had already begun to press against my chest like a physical thing.
"Sugar, I know exactly what it is," she interrupted, her Texas drawl more pronounced in the early morning quiet. "I'm not some naive little thing who doesn't understand the score."
The pain in her voice cut deeper than I'd expected.
This wasn't how I'd imagined beginning a relationship—skulking in shadows, measuring every glance, treating what felt revolutionary as something shameful. But with the acquisition looming and Mother's watchful eyes tracking every interaction, we had no choice.
"It's not that I'm ashamed—"
"I know what it is," she said softly. "Trust me, Edward, I understand exactly how much trouble this could cause. For both of us."
Her understanding somehow made it worse. I crossed the space between us, my shoes leaving dark prints in the dew-soaked grass, unable to resist touching her face, memorizing the way the dawn light caught in her eyes.
"Until this acquisition is finalized and I can figure out how to protect your position, we have to be careful," I said. "I won't let you become collateral damage in my family's schemes."
She leaned into my touch, and I felt some of the tension ease from my shoulders. "So what do we do?"
"We meet here, at dawn. The conservatory after midnight when the house is asleep. The old folly by the lake when the weather permits." I'd spent hours mapping the estate's blind spots, calculating sight lines and staff schedules like I was planning a military operation.
I'd memorized the staff schedules, knew that Mrs. Worthington didn't begin her morning rounds until seven, that the groundskeepers avoided the folly on Wednesdays. Every meeting was choreographed with the precision of a legal brief, because discovery would mean losing everything we'd fought to protect. "And we wait."
"Wait for what?"
"For me to find a way to make this work."
I'd already begun the delicate process of negotiating Lili's future, though she didn't know it yet.
The morning after our confrontation, I'd cornered Malcolm in his office with a proposal that had taken me hours to craft.
I'd approached protecting Lili like the most complex case of my career, building arguments layer by layer, creating paper trails that would justify her retention without revealing personal interest.
Every document was crafted to withstand scrutiny from Malcolm, from Mother, from anyone who might question my motivations.
"I want to add a retention clause to the Gardens & Home acquisition," I'd said, spreading modified documents across his mahogany desk.
Malcolm had looked up from his Financial Times with the expression of a man accustomed to unusual requests from his most valuable associate. "What sort of retention clause?"
"Key personnel protection. Specifically, we identify critical talent within the organization and ensure their transition to new roles within our media holdings." The words came out steady and professional, though every syllable felt like a lie. I was advocating for the woman I loved while pretending she meant nothing more than efficient resource allocation.
"We don't have media holdings, Edward."