Chapter 6 - Lila Learns the RulesLila Summers had always believed beauty was a kind of currency.
Not the only kind, of course. She was not stupid. Money mattered. Family mattered. Timing mattered. But beauty opened doors that stayed locked for other girls from small apartments in Queens with mothers who worked double shifts and fathers who disappeared before kindergarten.
By twenty-three, Lila had learned how to enter a room and become the reason men forgot their sentences.
Andrew Weston had been the largest door she had ever seen.
He was not warm. She knew that. Warm men bought flowers at grocery stores and cried during sad movies. Andrew bought penthouses, judges’ tables at charity galas, and silence. Lila had mistaken his coldness for strength because, for a while, it protected her from feeling small.
Now she stood barefoot in his Madison apartment, watching Emma’s statement loop across every gossip account in New York.
I left my marital home after a painful and public betrayal.
Painful.
Public.
Betrayal.
Three words, and Lila had become the villain.
Her phone would not stop vibrating.
Girl what did you do???
Is this you in the red dress?
You kissed a married man with his pregnant wife there?
Lila threw the phone onto the couch.
She had known Emma was pregnant. Everyone knew. But knowing and seeing were different. Across the ballroom, Emma had looked pale and still, one hand resting protectively over her stomach. Not dramatic. Not hysterical. Just quiet in a way that made the whole room look uglier.
For one second after the kiss, Lila had felt something twist inside her.
Then Andrew looked at her, and she had pushed the feeling away.
Now it was back.
The apartment door opened.
Andrew entered with Martin behind him. His tie was loosened, his expression controlled too carefully.
Lila crossed her arms. “You need to fix this.”
Andrew looked at her as if she were a chair placed in the wrong corner. “Excuse me?”
“My face is everywhere.”
“You wanted visibility.”
“Not like this.”
“There is no bad visibility if you know how to use it.”
Lila stared at him. “Your wife is pregnant.”
His eyes cooled.
“She was pregnant yesterday too. That did not trouble you when you walked into the ballroom on my arm.”
The words hit cleanly because they were true.
Lila looked away.
Andrew removed his coat and handed it to Martin, who hung it without being asked.
“Pack a bag,” Andrew said.
Lila turned back. “What?”
“You’re going to Palm Beach for a few weeks.”
“No.”
Andrew’s brows lifted.
The tiny movement terrified her more than shouting would have.
“No?” he repeated.
“I am not being hidden like some embarrassing mistake.”
“That is exactly what you are right now.”
Lila’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Andrew stepped closer. “Listen carefully. Emma is playing victim because it is the only role she understands. The press will tire of it. My lawyers will handle the filing. When this is over, you will be wherever I decide you are useful.”
Useful.
There it was.
The word no expensive dinner could hide.
Lila felt heat rise behind her eyes. “You said you loved me.”
Andrew actually looked amused.
“I said you made me feel alive.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
For a moment, Lila saw herself from above. Red dress from last night hanging over a chair. Mascara smudged beneath her eyes. Bare feet on another woman’s battlefield. Young enough to have believed being chosen by a cruel man meant winning.
Her voice came quieter.
“What happens to Emma?”
Andrew’s face went still.
“She signs a settlement. She agrees to medical supervision. After the child is born, custody is negotiated.”
“And if she doesn’t agree?”
Andrew smiled.
“Everyone agrees eventually.”
Lila’s stomach turned.
Martin’s phone rang. He answered, listened, then covered the receiver.
“Sir. Miriam Blake has filed a preservation notice. All communications, company devices, security footage, travel records.”
Andrew’s smile vanished.
“Already?”
“Yes.”
Lila watched the change in him. Not panic. Calculation.
Andrew turned toward Martin. “Move anything sensitive off the main servers.”
Martin hesitated. “The notice—”
“Did I ask for a legal seminar?”
“No, sir.”
Lila heard it then.
A click inside her memory.
Three months earlier, Andrew had handed her a company phone. “Easier,” he’d said. “Encrypted. No messy screenshots.” She had thought it was romantic in a dangerous way, like they were spies instead of adulterers.
Now she understood.
Evidence.
That phone was in her purse.
Andrew looked at her.
Perhaps he remembered at the same moment.
“Give me your company phone.”
Lila stepped back.
His voice lowered. “Lila.”
“Why?”
“Because it belongs to Weston Capital.”
“My personal pictures are on it.”
“Then you should have made better choices.”
He held out his hand.
Lila looked from his palm to his face.
This was a test.
Not of loyalty.
Of ownership.
Slowly, she reached into her purse.
Her fingers closed around the phone.
Then, instead of handing it to him, she said, “I need to use the bathroom.”
Andrew’s eyes narrowed.
“Now.”
Lila forced a laugh. “I’m not running out a window, Andrew. We’re on the thirty-second floor.”
He stared at her another second, then stepped aside.
In the bathroom, Lila locked the door and turned on the faucet.
Her hands shook as she opened the phone.
There were texts.
Photos.
Voice notes.
A message from Andrew three weeks ago: Once the baby is born, Emma becomes much easier to manage.
Another: She’ll never leave. She has nowhere to go.
Another: If she acts unstable, we use it.
Lila’s breath caught.
She opened her personal phone and began recording the company phone screen.
A fist struck the bathroom door.
“Lila.”
She nearly dropped both devices.
“One second!”
“Open the door.”
The knob rattled.
Lila’s eyes scanned the bathroom. Marble counter. glass shower. no window she could reach. No miracle.
Then she saw the laundry chute panel near the floor.
Not large enough for a person.
Large enough for a phone.
Her mother had once told her, “When rich men give you gifts, look for the leash.”
Lila had laughed.
She was not laughing now.
She wrapped the company phone in a hand towel, shoved it through the chute, and listened as it slid into darkness.
The bathroom door burst open.
Andrew stood there.
Behind him, Martin.
Lila straightened, heart hammering.
Andrew looked at her empty hands.
“Where is it?”
Lila lifted her chin.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
For the first time, Andrew Weston slapped her.
Not hard enough to leave a dramatic bruise.
Hard enough to teach.
Lila touched her cheek.
Her eyes filled, but she did not cry.
Because suddenly she understood Emma Weston better than she had understood her all night.
Andrew was not a prize.
May you like
He was a room with no handle on the inside.
And Lila had just made herself the next woman trying to get out.
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