Chapter 180

Chapter 180
Lily's POV

We moved through the evening like ghosts. I checked on William one last time—still sleeping peacefully, unaware that his parents were saying goodbye in the next room. Ryan stood in the doorway of the nursery, watching, and when I turned back he was crying silently.

In the bedroom, we undressed without speaking. Not with urgency or passion, but with a strange, gentle formality. Like we were preparing for something sacred.

I was still wearing the soft nursing tank I'd changed into after William's last feeding, my body still strange to me even ten weeks postpartum—softer in some places, marked in others, no longer entirely my own.

When we lay down together, Ryan pulled me against him, my back to his chest, his hand resting carefully on my hip, avoiding the stomach that still carried the memory of pregnancy. For a long time we just lay there, breathing together, his face buried in my hair.

"I'm sorry," he murmured against my neck. "For all of it. For every time I chose wrong."

"I know." I turned in his arms, needing to see his face. "I know you are."

He looked at me with such naked longing it hurt to breathe, and I saw everything there—love and grief and the same exhaustion I felt. I kissed him first, slow and deep, tasting salt from tears I wasn't sure were his or mine. His hand came up to cup my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone, and the tenderness of it nearly broke me.

We kissed like that for a long time, unhurried, relearning the shape of each other's mouths. His lips moved to my jaw, my throat, the hollow behind my ear that always made me shiver. I ran my fingers through his hair, down his neck, feeling the tension in his shoulders.

It had been so long. Ten months of pregnancy when he'd refused to touch me beyond gentle caresses, too terrified of hurting me or the baby. And then William's birth, and the healing, and the careful distance we'd maintained. My body remembered his, wanted his, even as my mind knew this was goodbye.

"Ryan," I whispered, my hand sliding down his chest. "Do you want to—"

He went very still. Then he caught my wrist, gently but firmly, and brought my hand back up to rest over his heart. I could feel it racing.

"I can't." His voice was rough, pained. "Lily, I can't."

"William's fine. I'm healed. The doctor cleared me weeks ago—"

"I know." He closed his eyes, jaw tight. "I know all that. But I can't. Because—" He opened his eyes again, and I saw fear there, raw and honest. "Because if I do this, if I let myself have you one more time, I won't be able to let you go tomorrow. I'll take it all back. The promise, the papers, everything. I'll beg you to stay and I'll mean it and it won't be fair to you."

I understood then. This wasn't about fear of hurting me physically. It was about the last thread of control he had left, the final way he could prove he loved me enough to let me leave.

"You won't take it back," I said softly, cupping his face. "You're stronger than you think."

"I'm not." His voice broke. "God, Lily, I'm not. I've been holding on by my fingernails for months. Not touching you, not—" He stopped, breathing hard.

"Do you know how many nights I wanted to? How many times I lay next to you and had to leave the room because I couldn't trust myself?" He pressed his forehead to mine. "The only way I got through it was telling myself it was temporary. That after William was born, after you healed, we'd have each other again. That this sacrifice meant something."

Tears spilled down my cheeks. "It did mean something. It means you love us. It means you put us first."

"Then let me keep doing that." His thumb wiped at my tears. "Let me put you first by not taking what I want. Because if I do—if I let myself feel how good we are together one more time—I'll forget why you need to leave. I'll convince myself we can fix this. And you'll end up staying out of guilt or pity or because the sex is good, and in a year we'll be right back here, only more broken."

"Ryan—"

"Please." He kissed my forehead, my cheeks, the corner of my mouth. "Let me do this one thing right. Let me love you enough to not love you tonight."

I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him he was wrong, that one night wouldn't change anything, that we both deserved this goodbye. But looking at him—at the way his hands shook where they held my face, at the tears tracking down his cheeks—I knew he was right. He was barely holding himself together. This would break him.

And maybe it would break me too. Maybe I'd wake up tomorrow in his arms and forget all the reasons I needed to leave. Forget that love wasn't enough when the life you were living was slowly erasing you.

"Okay," I whispered. "Okay. Just hold me then."

He pulled me close, tucking my head under his chin, one arm around my waist and the other cradling the back of my head. I pressed my face into his chest and let myself cry—for us, for William, for the family we'd tried so hard to be.

"I love you," he said into my hair. "I need you to know that. This isn't about not loving you enough. It's about loving you too much to keep you in a cage."

"I know." My voice was muffled against him. "I love you too. That's why this hurts so much."

We lay like that for hours, neither of us sleeping, just holding each other as the night deepened. At some point I heard William stir in the next room, and I started to get up, but Ryan stopped me.

"I'll get him," he said quietly. "Let me."

I watched from the bed as he went to the nursery, heard his soft voice soothing our son, the creak of the rocking chair as he settled in to feed William the bottle I'd pumped earlier. When he came back, William was asleep again, and Ryan's face was wet with fresh tears.

"He looks like you," Ryan said, climbing back into bed. "Did you know that? Everyone says he has my eyes, but his smile—that's all you."

"Ryan—"

"I'm going to miss so much." His voice was barely a whisper. "His first laugh. His first steps. The first time he says mama. I'm going to miss watching you be his mother every day, and that—" He stopped, struggling for breath. "That's going to kill me. But I'd rather die missing you than live watching you disappear."

I didn't have words for that. So I just held him tighter, and we lay there in the dark, and I tried to memorize the weight of him, the sound of his breathing, the way his heart beat against my cheek.

Tomorrow I'd go back to NexGen Tech, back to the apartment with the subsidized rent that Ethan had held for me all these months. Tomorrow I'd start building the life I needed—one where I was Lily Parker again, not just Ryan Carter's wife or William's mother, but myself.

But tonight, in this room, with our son sleeping in the next room and divorce papers waiting to be signed, I let myself be his one last time.

Because in the morning, everything would change.

And tonight was all we had left.