Chapter Sixteen
Too Late
I waited until Sunday breakfast, which felt like the right time to end things. Civilized. No drama. Two adults at a table with coffee and daylight, agreeing that something had reached its natural conclusion.
I'd had Clara send me a template. I'd filled it in myself. Clean language. Fair terms. All my additions in accordance with the original agreement.
Lucas was already at the table. Reading. Coffee. The particular composed morning version of himself that I'd memorized without meaning to.
I sat down. Slid the papers across.
He looked at them.
"We're six months from the agreed date," I said. "There's no reason to extend what isn't — what isn't working." I kept my voice even. "Let's end it cleanly. Now, while there's still something clean to preserve."
He was very still.
He looked at the papers the way he'd looked at my fabric swatch in the window light — with real attention, as if they contained information that mattered.
He picked them up.
My heart did something I told it not to.
He set them back down.
"Sophia."
"Lucas, please—"
"I'm not signing these."
The words landed in the kitchen like something physical.
I stared at him.
He was looking back at me — not composed, not calculating, not the boardroom version of himself that I'd been trying to hold at arm's length for eight months. He looked, for the first time, like a man who was afraid.
Lucas Lancaster. Afraid.
"This is what we agreed to," I said. My voice was less steady than I wanted.
"I know."
"You said yourself — no feelings. No entanglement. A contract—"
"I know what I said."
"Then sign the papers."
He looked at me for a long moment.
"No," he said.
I stood. I didn't trust myself to sit still any longer. I crossed to the window. The city below was Sunday-slow and indifferent.
"This isn't fair," I said quietly. To the glass. To myself.
"No," he agreed. "It isn't."
I heard him behind me. Not moving. Just — there.
I didn't turn around.
I already knew that if I turned around, everything I'd been carefully not saying was going to have nowhere left to hide.
