Chapter 11
1523 Words
Lyra’s POV
Lisa said the word restaurant the way other people said therapy.
She had dragged me here with minimal explanation, waving off my weak protests with a breezy, “You need to relieve stress,” as though stress were something that could be sweated out or starved into submission over cocktails and grilled seafood.
The place she chose was warm and softly lit, tucked away on a quiet street just far enough from the city’s pulse to feel like a pause rather than an escape. Low music hummed beneath the murmur of conversations, glasses clinked, and somewhere behind the bar someone laughed too loudly, too freely.
I sat across from her in the booth, my fingers curled loosely around a tall glass beaded with condensation. I’d been nursing the same drink for ten minutes now, drawing absentmindedly on the straw as though it might anchor me to the present.
Lisa hadn’t touched hers.
She sat back against the leather seat, one arm draped over the backrest, eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my shoulders tense.
I looked up mid-sip—and immediately wished I hadn’t.
Her expression was unreadable. Not amused. Not annoyed. Just… watchful.
I glanced away too quickly, suddenly fascinated by the lemon wedge perched on the rim of my glass. My reflection stared back at me in the polished surface of the table, pale and faintly distorted, like someone I didn’t quite recognize.
Then Lisa finally broke the silence.
“Are you going to tell me what you were doing at the registry?”
The words cut through the ambient noise like a blade.
I closed my eyes for half a second and mentally smacked myself on the forehead.
Of course she’d circle back to it. Lisa never forgot loose threads. She collected them, tugged on them, unravelled them with frightening precision.
I exhaled slowly and lifted my gaze again.
She was still watching me, unwavering now, her patience clearly thinning.
Sooner or later, I’d known this moment would come. There was no version of today where I walked away without explaining myself, no matter how carefully I’d tried to dodge it earlier.
I sighed, shoulders slumping.
“I got married.”
The words fell into the space between us, quiet and absurdly calm, like they didn’t belong to me at all.
Lisa blinked, twice.
Then she leaned forward so fast her glass rattled. “Wait a minute,” she said, voice rising. “You did what?”
I winced. “Please don’t yell.”
“Lyra,” she hissed, dropping her voice only slightly, eyes wild. “You disappeared from the registry, showed up crying like the world was ending, and now you’re telling me you casually got married like you picked up groceries?”
“It wasn’t casual,” I protested weakly.
Her stare sharpened. “Then start talking.”
So I did.
I told her everything.
About the bridge, the way the city lights had shimmered below us like something unreal. About how the words had spilled out of me raw and desperate and terrifyingly honest. About Max—how calm he’d been, how unreadable, how he’d listened instead of laughing me off the edge.
I told her how we’d gone to the registry afterward, how fast it had all moved, how unreal it had felt to stand there signing my name beside his.
And finally, I told her that we were married.
Legally. No asterisks.
Lisa didn’t interrupt once.
By the time I finished, she’d leaned back again, one hand pressed to her mouth, eyes unfocused as though she were replaying the entire story in her head and still failing to make sense of it.
After a long moment, she dropped her hand and let out a breath.
“Well,” she said faintly, “it’s a good thing the fossil is out of the way.”
I blinked. “The… fossil?”
“Maverick Cole,” she clarified with a dismissive wave. “The walking midlife crisis your father was trying to hand you off to. At least you dodged that.”
I smiled weakly. “Yeah. Small mercies.”
Her gaze flicked back to me, suddenly sharp again. “So,” she said slowly, “who did you say it was again?”
My fingers tightened around my glass.
“Maximilian St. Clair.”
Lisa froze.
Her eyes widened, the color draining from her face as shock gave way to something darker—terror, disbelief, and a flicker of something that looked suspiciously like fear.
She stared at me as though I’d just confessed to marrying a myth.
“Lyra,” she whispered, leaning forward again, voice urgent now, “please tell me this is one of those elaborate stress-induced jokes where you wait thirty seconds and then laugh.”
“I wish it were.”
Her chair scraped back as she shot to her feet, then sat down again just as abruptly, hands fisting in her hair.
“Girl,” she breathed, staring at me like I’d lost my mind, “you’re insane.”
“That’s comforting.”
She let out a shaky laugh that held no humor. “You don’t even propose to men at bars, Lyra. You once panicked because a waiter winked at you.”
“That was a weird wink.”
“You proposed,” she continued, ignoring me, “to the CEO of the St. Clair Group?”
I frowned. “He said he worked in corporate. I didn’t ask for a résumé.”
Lisa stared at me like I’d just admitted to marrying a stranger on a dare. “Lyra. Maximilian St. Clair isn’t just ‘corporate.’”
She leaned closer, lowering her voice as if his name alone might summon him.
“The St. Clair Group,” she said slowly, deliberately. “As in the conglomerate.”
My stomach dipped. “What conglomerate?”
Her mouth fell open.
“No,” she breathed. “You really didn’t know.”
I shook my head, suddenly very aware of the way my pulse had picked up. “Lisa, you’re scaring me.”
“The multinational one,” she said. “The one that eats competitors for breakfast and leaves nothing but press releases behind.”
I laughed weakly. “That’s… dramatic.”
“Lyra,” she snapped gently, gripping my wrist, “his family has been quietly running half this city since before we were born.”
The restaurant noise faded around us, replaced by the dull roar of blood in my ears.
She rattled it off then—his reputation, his family, the whispers that followed his name in boardrooms and tabloids alike. A man who didn’t lose, who didn’t bend, who didn’t… marry.
“You married that St. Clair,” she finished.
Silence settled between us, heavy and irreversible.
I didn’t say anything at first.
My fingers tightened around the glass, the condensation slick beneath my grip. Cold. Too cold.
That couldn’t be right.
Max had been… normal. Annoyingly calm. Dryly polite. Men with dynasties didn’t stand on bridges at night listening to strangers unravel their lives.
“I didn’t know,” I said finally. The words felt inadequate, like they belonged to someone else.
Lisa watched me carefully. “I can tell.”
I stared at the table, at the neat symmetry of cutlery and linen, at anything that wasn’t the shape this revelation was taking in my chest.
A St. Clair.
The name settled heavy now, rearranging memories. The way he’d taken control without raising his voice. The way the registrar had deferred to him without question. The way the room had subtly shifted when he entered.
It hadn’t been coincidence.
“I didn’t marry him because of that,” I said, quieter. Not to Lisa. To myself.
If Max St. Clair was who she said he was, then nothing about this was small anymore. Nothing could stay contained.
Lisa’s gaze searched my face. “Why?”
The question settled heavy and familiar in my chest.
Because I was afraid. Because I was running out of time. Because every path I could see ended the same way unless I broke it.
But I couldn’t say any of that.
Instead, I shrugged. “Because I needed to.”
She stared at me for a long moment, then reached across the table and squeezed my hand.
“You always do this,” she murmured. “You carry the impossible things alone.”
Before I could respond, my phone buzzed against the tabletop.
The sound felt unnaturally loud.
I glanced down, my stomach tightening as I read the notification.
> Dad
“Come home. Now.”
My chest constricted as dread crept in, cold and familiar.
Lisa noticed immediately. “What is it?”
I swallowed. “My father wants me home.”
Her expression darkened. “That’s never good.”
I slipped my phone back into my bag, unease coiling tighter with every second.
Somehow, despite everything that had already happened today, I knew this was only the beginning.
And whatever waited for me at home was not going to be gentle.
- Writer
