Lily's Point of View
The drive takes twenty minutes but it feels like hours.
Xavier doesn't talk. He drives with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on his thigh like he's not nervous at all. Like this is normal for him. Picking up girls from their apartments. Taking them somewhere they don't know. Controlling everything without asking permission.
Lily sits pressed against the passenger window watching the city blur past.
Her studio is in the warehouse district. The worst part of the city. The place where landlords don't ask questions and rent is cheap because nobody wants to be there. She's decorated it with string lights and her designs pinned to every wall but it's still just a warehouse. It's still just a place where she works sixteen hours a day for almost nothing.
She's never brought anyone there before.
Xavier pulls up at exactly 10 AM.
Lily knows it's exactly 10 AM because she checks her phone and the time hasn't changed since he picked her up. He drove in circles on purpose. He wanted the arrival to be perfect.
He wants everything to be perfect.
He gets out of the car and comes around to open her door. His hand reaches for hers and she takes it because she doesn't know how to refuse. His skin is warm and his grip is firm and he doesn't let go when she tries to pull away.
They walk toward her studio together and Lily realizes she's shaking.
Xavier notices. Of course he notices.
"You're scared," he says.
"Yes."
"Good. Fear means you understand what's at stake."
They enter the studio and Xavier stands in the doorway scanning everything like he's assessing a property he's about to buy. The sewing machines. The fabric stretched across tables. The designs pinned to the walls. The photos of clothes she made years ago. The sketches she threw away because they weren't good enough.
He walks deeper into the studio without waiting for an invitation.
He touches a dress hanging on a rack. One of her originals from two years ago. She sold that piece to someone for eight hundred dollars. It was the most money she'd ever made from a single design.
"This one," Xavier says, lifting the fabric. "I bought this through an intermediary in Brooklyn. I paid twenty-four hundred dollars for it. You probably never knew."
Lily's breath catches.
Xavier moves to another dress. And another. He touches each piece like they're precious. Like he's been holding them in his mind for so long that feeling them is almost too much.
"I bought your early work," he says quietly. "The pieces you made when you were just learning. Before you understood how brilliant you were. I have thirty-seven of them. Some I bought at auctions. Some I tracked down through private collectors. Some I convinced people to sell by offering them amounts they couldn't refuse."
He turns to face her and his eyes are different now. Not cold. Hungry. Like he's been starving and she's the only food that matters.
"I've been waiting for you to need help enough to accept it," Xavier says. "You're too proud. Too stubborn. You would rather destroy yourself than ask anyone for anything. So I didn't ask. I just bought my way in."
"That's not love," Lily says and her voice sounds strange in the empty studio. "That's possession."
"It's both," Xavier says. He pulls out his phone and shows her his screen. Photos. Dozens of them. Her designs. Her sketches. Her workspace. Photos taken from angles that make her realize he's been inside her studio. More than once. Without permission.
She grabs his phone but he pulls it away easily.
"How many times have you been here," she demands.
"Enough times to know your routine. You work until midnight on Tuesdays. You eat lunch at your desk on Wednesdays. You call your mother every Thursday at 6 PM. You cry in the bathroom on Fridays when the week didn't go well. You spend Sundays with fabric swatches trying to figure out next month's collection."
Xavier's Point of View
Xavier watches Lily's face change.
She's terrified. She's angry. She's realizing that the man standing in her studio is not who she thought he was. Or maybe he's exactly who she thought he was and that's what frightens her.
He's been in this studio forty-three times over two years.
He's memorized every inch of it. The way she organizes her colors by emotion instead of by shade. The way she keeps a photo of her father in the corner of her mirror. The way she writes notes to herself about designs that probably won't work but she tries anyway because that's who she is.
Someone who tries when the world tells her to stop.
Someone who sacrifices everything for people she loves.
Someone he decided two years ago he would own.
"I'm going to tell you something," Xavier says and his voice is steady. "And you're going to listen. And you're going to understand that everything I did was necessary."
Lily tries to back away but he steps closer.
"Your landlord was going to evict you six months ago. You didn't know because I paid the debt. Your mother's medical bills got sent to a collection agency last year. I paid those too. Your employees haven't been paid real salaries in months but they keep working because I've been supplementing what you can't afford."
He watches her face crumble.
"I didn't do it to control you. I did it because I couldn't stand watching you destroy yourself. Every day you wake up and pretend you're fine when you're drowning. Every night you work until your hands bleed because you think that's the only way to survive. You won't accept help. You won't ask. You won't let anyone in."
He moves toward her slowly.
"So I became someone you couldn't keep out. I bought my way into your life because you were too stubborn to let me walk in through the door like a normal person."
Lily's Point of View
Xavier is inches from her face now.
His eyes are the color of storms. Dark and endless and dangerous.
"I've owned your work for two years," he says. "I've preserved it. I've documented it. I've kept it safe. And when the right moment came, I used the one thing you couldn't refuse. Money. Desperation. Your mother's life."
"That's not fair," Lily whispers.
"No. It's not. Life isn't fair. But I am. I'm offering you something better than fair. I'm offering you someone who sees exactly who you are and wants you anyway. Someone who will move mountains. Someone who will destroy anyone who threatens you. Someone who will love you so completely that you'll never have to be afraid again."
He reaches out and touches her face.
This time she doesn't pull away.
"You came with me today," Xavier says. "You got in my car. You came to your studio where I've been a ghost in your walls for two years. That means you're ready. Ready to stop pretending you don't need help. Ready to stop drowning alone."
Lily feels tears on her cheeks.
"What do you want from me," she asks.
Xavier smiles and it's the most honest thing she's seen from him yet.
"Everything, Lily. I want everything you have to give. And I'm going to take it. Because you gave me permission the moment you hit submit on that auction platform."
He kisses her then.
And she doesn't stop him.