His First Love Returned, So I Married His Assistant

The knock was the nurse. She hurried in with a roll of gauze and a fresh needle. Nobody in the room looked at her.

Sebastian still hadn't answered my question.

Daniel lowered the throw pillow. His face was red. "Oh, come on. Just tell her. Tell her about the bathroom floor."

"Daniel," Sebastian warned.

"Seven years ago he cut his wrist because you dumped him." Daniel flung the pillow onto the sofa. "I found him. I was the one holding the towel."

My smile had been hanging on by a thread. The thread snapped.

I turned to Sebastian. "Explain that. Right now."

"Lily..."

"No. Listen to me." I held up one finger. "I'll own the letter. I copied it, I signed my name, I was a lazy sixteen-year-old. Guilty. But I am not claiming a relationship that never happened."

He stared at his bandaged hand for a long time.

"Seven years ago, I emailed you proof that Ryan was cheating. Screenshots. Hotel receipts." His voice was flat, like he'd rehearsed this in his head a thousand times. "A week later, you added me online. You said you wanted to get back at him. Together."

"I said that."

"You did. We talked every night for six months. Then one day you told me you were sorry. You still loved Ryan." He swallowed. "That same month, my father cut me off because I refused to study abroad. No money. No apartment. And the girl I loved picked the guy who cheated on her."

The nurse quietly taped the new needle in place and slipped out.

I laughed. It came out ugly.

"Okay. Let's go point by point." I counted on my fingers. "One. I never got an email from you. Two. I never added any account of yours. Three. I never dated you. Not online, not offline, not in a dream."

"Lily."

"Four." My voice climbed. "I dumped Ryan after six weeks junior year. He came crawling back senior year with roses, and I was an idiot. I found out he was cheating in our *fourth year*. Not from you. From a girl named Jenna Morales, who showed up at my door crying and holding his hoodie."

Sebastian's head lifted slowly.

He grabbed his phone, tapped through screens, and turned it toward me. An old chat app. A contact named **LilyBee**.

I took it from him.

My track photos. My trip to the Outer Banks. My twentieth birthday post, the one with the lopsided cake.

Then I scrolled down and went cold.

Me in flannel pajamas, hugging a coffee mug, no makeup. Nobody had that picture. I'd sent it to exactly one person.

"Where did you get this?"

"You sent it to me."

I didn't answer. I pulled up my own old social account on my phone and set the two screens side by side on the coffee table. Daniel leaned over my shoulder.

LilyBee had told Sebastian my parents screamed at each other every Sunday. That I bombed my chem final. That I had "plans" every Friday at seven.

Every Friday at seven, I'd been on a date with Ryan.

The hair on my arms stood up.

"You never met this person," I said slowly. "Not once. In six months?"

"She always said nobody could know." His knuckles whitened around the edge of the cushion. "I drove to your campus one time. To surprise you. You were walking out of the library holding Ryan's hand."

"So you just left."

"I thought you'd chosen him. Again."

I pressed my palms over my eyes.

"Do you still have Jenna's number?" Daniel asked.

---

It took a full day.

Jenna answered on the second try and sent us a folder she'd kept "in case I ever needed to sue him." Old chats. Screenshots. Ryan's lazy little habits.

He typed "lol" with a period after it. He never capitalized "i." He signed off every late-night message with *later, champ*.

At two in the morning, Sebastian found the same sign-off in LilyBee's messages. Eleven times.

Then Jenna found the slip. LilyBee had once complained about "my stupid shoulder from pitching." I'd never pitched in my life. Ryan had played baseball for four years.

Sebastian sat frozen on my sofa. He didn't move. He barely seemed to be breathing.

Daniel's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Nothing came out.

I swallowed hard against the sour taste rising in my throat.

"So let me get this straight," I said. "I got played by Ryan. You got played by Ryan pretending to be me. And now you're here asking *me* to pay you back for your youth?"

Sebastian flinched like I'd slapped him.

His hair stuck up on one side. His shirt was wrinkled. The man who'd once fired a chef over cold soup looked like a kid who'd lost his parents at the mall.

Something in my chest pinched.

I crushed it.

"I'm sorry it happened to you. Really." I sat on the arm of the sofa, out of his reach. "But that debt isn't mine. I won't carry it."

"I know," he whispered.

"You don't. So here's the rest." I drew a breath. "Three years ago, my mom got sick. Insurance covered the hospital. It didn't cover the nurse, the rent, or groceries. I needed money fast."

Daniel shifted on the floor.

"I picked a rich guy. Some trust-fund kid. I thought I could handle him." My mouth twisted. "He wanted to impress you. So he slipped something in my drink and delivered me to your hotel room like a fruit basket."

Sebastian's eyes shut.

"It was pouring that night. I could barely sit up. And you didn't touch me." My voice wobbled. "You put a blanket on me and sat in the chair until the sun came up."

"You kept asking for your mom," he said hoarsely.

"Yeah. Well." I cleared my throat. "That's how we started. I was grateful. I still am. And I never once pretended it wasn't about money."

"I knew that."

"But grateful doesn't mean I'm okay with another woman and her kid walking into my life whenever you feel like it."

He reached for my hand. I let him hold two fingers.

"Sebastian." I looked straight at him. "Will you marry me?"

The silence went on so long that Daniel got up and walked into the kitchen.

"My family has an arrangement," Sebastian said at last. "I'm not in a position to break it. But I'll love you. I'll take care of you. Always."

There it was.

My mother had heard those exact words once. She'd believed them. Then she'd raised me alone in a two-bedroom rental and cried in the laundry room where she thought I couldn't hear.

I slid my fingers out of his.

"Your love comes with a lot of terms and conditions," I said softly. "I'm not renewing my subscription."

---

I packed a backpack. Phone charger, wallet, Mom's old cardigan. Nothing he'd ever bought me.

Adrian's car idled at the curb. He was already out, holding the back door open.

"Where are you..." he began.

"Don't."

His hand tightened on the door frame.

"Don't find me for him. Don't find me for anyone." I pulled out my phone and opened the airline app. My flight home to Millbrook. Departing Friday.

I tapped **Change Flight**. Then I typed in a city I'd never been to. Somewhere with salt air and nobody who knew my face.

Portland, Maine. Tonight.

Adrian watched me do it. He didn't say a word.

I climbed into the car and caught the door before he could close it.

"He can keep missing his fake girlfriend," I said. "The real one isn't coming back."

The door clicked shut.

Adrian walked around and slid into the driver's seat. He didn't start the engine.

Instead, he looked at me in the rearview mirror. His glasses caught the streetlight.

"Lily," he said quietly. "There's something about that hotel night you don't know."