Lily Thompson
I didn’t think. I couldn’t.
If I let myself hesitate, I’d picture his mouth on mine, his voice saying my name, his arms caging me against the wall like I belonged there. And if I pictured that, I wouldn’t leave.
So I packed.
Messy. Rushed. Shirts half-folded, pants jammed into a bag. Isabella’s dolls crammed between clothes, her pajamas wrinkled, her toothbrush tossed in without care. I didn’t look back at the closet. I didn’t care what I left behind.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I grabbed it, stared at the screen once, then set it back down. No more. No more Ryan in my ear, no more lies in that low, intoxicating voice.
He could keep the phone. He could keep everything.
I still had the advance he paid me. His money, yes — but right now, money meant escape. And I
