It took Clara one week to find out where Julian worked, the time he shows up at the bookshop, and two more to turn up at the bookshop in a white dress with her hair curled.
"I'm looking for something to read," she told him, smiling over a stack of novels she had no intention of opening.
"Of course," said Julian politely. "What kind of book?"
"Something romantic." She leaned on the counter. "You must have a recommendation."
He gave her one. She laughed too loudly and bought three books she could not name later. She came back the next day, and the next. She invited him to dinner. She invited him to a party. She sent him a text with a heart in it.
He declined, gently, every time.
"I'm sorry," he said on the fourth visit. "I think you're very kind. But I'm seeing someone."
"Who?"
"It's early. We're only friends so far." He glanced across the shop to where Lily was shelving books and pretending not to listen. "But I'd like it to be more."
Clara followed his gaze. Her face went very still.
When Lily came home that night, the front door was open. Clara was standing in the hall with her arms folded, and Evelyn was behind her, holding a glass of wine.
"There she is," said Clara. "The little thief."
"What?"
"You think I didn't see? I know exactly what you've been doing." Clara's voice rose, sharp and shaking with rage. "You sit in that dusty shop, with your pathetic books and your pathetic face, and you throw yourself at every man who walks in."
"I haven't done anything."
"You took him from me."
Lily stared. "Clara, I don't... I never even knew you liked him."
"I told you days ago."
"You said his name was lovely."
"I meant he was mine!" Clara screamed. "Everything good in this house is mine, and you know it.
Everything! You live off our kindness and you still want to take what's ours!"
Lily took a step back. "He's a friend. That's all."
"Liar."
Clara's palm struck her face with a crack that echoed down the hall.
For a moment, Lily could only stand there, a ringing in her ear and her cheek burning. She had been slapped before.
Cecilia did it often. But Clara had never done it so openly, and with such pleasure.
"Stay away from him," Clara said, in a low, vicious whisper. "Or I will make your life hell."
"My life is already hell."
The second slap landed on the other side of her face.
Evelyn giggled behind her glass. Upstairs, a door opened and closed. Nobody came down. Nobody ever did.
Lily wiped her mouth with her hand. There was blood on her thumb.
"Fine," she said quietly. "I'll stay away."
And she meant it. She did not want to be the cause of more fighting. She did not want to put Martha at risk.
She had survived this house for years by keeping her head low and her mouth shut, and she could do it a little longer.
She would ignore Julian. She would act like he didn't exist. If it kept the peace, it was a small price.
She did not understand that, for Julian, the peace was not the point.
The next day, when she left the bookshop, he was waiting at the bus stop, holding two cups of hot chocolate.
"You haven't answered any of my messages," he said. "Did I do something?"
"No."
"Then what's wrong?"
She wanted to tell him everything. But Clara's voice was still in her head, and so she looked at the ground and said the hardest thing she had said all year.
"Please stop coming around. It's better for both of us."
He stared at her. Then, to her surprise, he set the cups carefully on the bench and stepped closer.
"Lily," he said, "I don't care who told you to say that. I'm not going anywhere."