𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐑 || 𝐋.𝐌 ✓

➢Chapter 22- Perfect illusion

City lights moved outside the tinted windows on the quiet ride back from her parents' anniversary party. The air in the backseat of the town car was thick and restrictive. The interior as dark as a starless night sky.

Y/n was exhausted from an evening spent putting on a show for her parents' guests. Forced to look happy and in love—only one of which was true. Who knew she could be miserable and in love? That was a first.

Her parents danced, toasted, and regaled the crowd with a retelling of their engagement. State Street, the ice skating rink, her father on bended knee in freshly fallen snow. It was a story she'd heard a hundred times and one that always made her heart full. Tonight, it made her chest feel like it was filled with cement, the weight of it sagging her shoulders. Could have been Lucius's reaction. She'd watched him while her parents spoke. The way his lips were rigid when he forced a smile. The way he white-knuckled his scotch glass. How stiffly he'd held her when he danced with her out of obligation.

"All in all not a bad night," she lied, picking a speck of lint from her skirt. Someone had to break the suffocating silence.

Lucius emitted a noncommittal grunt.

This week had been chipping away at her soul. Not because she'd had to pretend to want to touch him, talk to him, and spend time with him for the press's sake. The hideous truth was that she wanted to touch him, talk to him, and spend time with him. Even after he'd made it clear that he didn't want her.

Resisting him had been harder than she'd imagined. That same ache of loneliness when she'd first moved in with him attacked again. Only now she was lonely for him.

Sleeping in separate bedrooms was one of the hardest adjustments of her life. She'd grown used to that closeness, his warmth and hardness at her back. She'd come to miss him teasing her about using his coffee mug in the morning. Now he was gone by the time she got up.

Lucius put his hand to his head and massaged his temple. It wasn't the first time he'd done it tonight.

"Still not feeling well?" she asked. The more she tried not to care, the more she was reminded she did.

"It's the same headache I've had for days." He adjusted his tie—purple and paired with a dark gray suit and pale gray shirt. His face was trimmed close, his hair in its usual state of perfection. He smelled good, looked great, and knowing she wasn't free to touch him in private made her heart squeeze painfully.

No doubt her parents' invitation at the end of the evening hadn't helped his aching head. Hell, Y/n felt a migraine of her own brewing the moment her father opened his mouth.

"Y/n is a very important part of our love story," David said. "And you, Lucius, are now an important part of hers."

Oh God. Oh no. Her father was a sap, and he was about to make a huge mistake.

"Dad."

But he kept talking. Kept digging.

"This year, we want to include you two in our tradition."

She didn't dare look up at Lucius, who stood stock-still and stone silent next to her.

Lena leaned over and kissed Y/n's cheek. "Wait until you've been together twenty-five years and have a daughter of your own to embarrass."

Yeah. Like that's ever happening.

They'd invited Lucius and Y/n to the ice rink on State Street in December. It was her parent's annual tradition, though now they sipped hot cocoa instead of lacing up their skates.

She and Lucius had endured the invitation as graciously as two people who knew they would be divorced by then could. Shortly after, they made their escape from the L/n ballroom where a town car, complete with driver, waited.