Chapter 26 26

Chapter 26 26


Lily’s smile faded. “What?”
He nodded toward a rocky area near the riverbank. “Over there. I
was about fifteen. I came here alone; or at least I thought I was alone. I had this ridiculous idea that I needed to sit close to the edge so I could hear the water properly while writing.”
“That already sounds dangerous.”
“It was. But I was fifteen, dramatic, and convinced every great writer needed a tragic setting.”
“What happened?”
“My pen fell between the stones. I reached for it, slipped, and fell into the river.”
Lily straightened. “You couldn’t swim?”
“Not well enough.”
Her face tightened. “Were you scared?”
He was quiet for a moment. “Terrified. That’s the word. I thought I was going to die.”

The word came out simply with no performance or attempt to make the story funny.
“How did you survive?” she asked.
“My father had men following me.”
Lily frowned. “Following you?”
“My father was wealthy. Very wealthy. He believed danger followed money, so I was rarely as alone as I thought I was.” His mouth curved faintly, but there was no real humor in it. “One of the guards jumped in and pulled me out.”
“That must have been awful.”
“It was. But not for the reason people think.”
Lily waited.
He picked up a small stone from the ground and rolled it between
his fingers. “When my father arrived, I thought he would be relieved. Maybe hug me. Maybe tell me he was glad I was alive.” 

His voice remained calm, but his eyes stayed on the river. “Instead, he scolded me for embarrassing him.”
Lily’s chest tightened.
“He said careless boys did not inherit serious things,” he continued. “Then he made sure I never came back here for years.”
“How?”
“He bought the land around this area for a while and had people keep me away.”
She studied him.
“You sound very calm about almost dying.”
He gave a faint shrug. “It didn’t happen.”
“That doesn’t make it less serious.”
He didn’t respond. Lily looked away.
For a strange moment, she tried to imagine him as a child. Reckless enough to fall into a river. Vulnerable enough to need saving. It didn’t fit the composed man sitting beside her.
“You still come to places like this?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” he said. “It helps me think.”
Lily nodded.
“I get that.”
They went back to work. Time passed without either of them noticing. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
From a distance, Claire returned with two drinks in her hands and a small paper bag tucked beneath her arm. She slowed when she saw Lily. Her friend was smiling.
It was neither the forced smile she had worn that morning, nor the fragile one that looked ready to break. A real one. Small, but real.
Claire’s eyes shifted to the young man sitting beside her. He was leaning over the documents, explaining something while Lily listened, her pen moving quickly across the page. Their shoulders were angled toward each other, not too close, but comfortable enough to make Claire pause.
For the first time in days, Lily did not look like she was carrying the entire weight of her broken marriage on her back.
Claire stood still for a few seconds, watching. Her gaze lingered on the man beside Lily, and this time she really looked at him, assessing him properly and carefully. 
And… wow. 
The man was handsome in a way that felt almost unfair. A man wasn’t allowed to possess such beauty, right? 
Sharp jawline, clean and well-defined like it had been carved with intention. Broad shoulders that sat effortlessly beneath his shirt, hinting at a build that didn’t need to be shown off to be noticed. Even the way he leaned slightly toward Lily as he spoke, calm, composed, completely at ease, felt deliberate without trying to be. 
Claire’s writer brain sparked instantly. This is it. This was the kind of man she struggled to describe in her stories. The kind readers accused her of exaggerating. And yet here he was, sitting casually by the water like he didn’t know he looked like he belonged on the cover of a bestselling romance novel. 
She briefly—very briefly—wondered what he’d look like without the shirt, then immediately decided yes, he would absolutely be her new reference point. Her muse. She could already see him as the male lead she had been stuck on for days. 
Then her gaze shifted back to Lily, to the way her friend was actually smiling and Claire’s expression softened. Whoever he was, stranger or not, complicated or simple… he was a better presence than the one Lily had walked away from. Even if it was just this moment, even if it was nothing serious, this was good. This was exactly the kind of person Lily needed around. 
Then she slowly stepped backward.
“No,” she murmured to herself. “I am not ruining this.”
She moved toward a nearby bench beneath another tree and sat down quietly, keeping the drinks beside her. If this stranger could make Lily forget Kyrian for even a little while, Claire was willing to wait. Maybe this was what Lily needed. Not necessarily love. Not another complicated man. Just proof that the world had not ended with Kyrian.
Back on the mat, Lily had no idea Claire had returned. She was too focused on the work, and strangely, on the ease of the conversation. 
They moved from calculations to proposal structure, then from proposal structure to the river again. He told her about how he once tried to write a novel about a boy who lived underwater, only to abandon it after three pages because he realized he knew nothing about fish.
Lily laughed so hard she had to cover her mouth.
“That sounds terrible.”
“It was terrible.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“You destroyed it?”
“I buried it emotionally.”
She shook her head, still smiling. “Coward.”
“Wise man,” he corrected.
The breeze lifted a few of her papers, and he quickly helped her hold them down. Their hands nearly touched. Lily noticed. So did he. Neither of them said anything. Lily pulled her hand back first and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He looked away toward the water, giving her space without making it awkward.
After another hour, the pile had reduced noticeably. Lily stared at the completed notes, the corrected calculations, and the revised outline on her laptop screen. A quiet sense of accomplishment spread through her.
“I hate to say this,” she said, “but you helped.”
He looked offended. “You hate to say it?”
“Yes.”
“After all my unpaid labor?”
“Especially after your unpaid labor.”
He leaned back, smiling. “You’re welcome.”
Lily opened her mouth to respond, but before she could form the words, a shadow fell across the table.
Lily frowned slightly and looked up. Her expression changed instantly.
Because standing there and watching them, was someone she did not expect to see.
Kyrian, her ex husband.