Married to the Arrogant Billionaire Heir wants my sister

Lily POV

He had the papers drawn up before she even walked through the door.

The hallway to the study ran past the row of family photographs Ronan’s mother had hung years ago and never taken down, decades of Cross family milestones lined up in silver frames. I used to avoid that hallway when I first moved in. Nine months of marriage had taught me it was easier to just walk fast.

I found Ronan in the study an hour later, after the party had thinned out enough that nobody would notice the wife slipping away from her own husband’s birthday.

He was standing at the window with his back to me, a glass of something dark in his hand, untouched.

“You wanted to talk,” I said.

“Close the door.”

I did. The click of the latch sounded louder than it should have.

He turned around, and for a second, he just looked at me, the way he used to look at me in the first weeks of the marriage, like he was trying to find the version of me he’d decided existed before he’d ever actually met me.

“I want a divorce,” he said.

I didn’t flinch. I’d been waiting nine months for him to say it out loud, ever since the wedding neither of us remembered agreeing to.

“Because she’s back.”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.” His jaw was tight. “You know this marriage was never real, Lily. You know why it happened.”

“Tell me anyway. I want to hear you say it.”

Something flickered behind his eyes. “I was drunk. I was angry. I wasn’t thinking straight, and I did something I can’t undo, but I can end it before it does any more damage to either of us.”

“Damage to you, you mean.”

“Don’t.” His voice cracked on the word. “Don’t turn this into something it isn’t.”

“What is it, then? Explain it to me because from where I’m standing, you married me to punish me for something, kept me on a leash for nine months, and now the second the real prize walks back into the room, I’m damage control.”

He set the glass down so hard I thought the crystal would crack.

“You were driving,” he said. “She was in that car because of you.”

The memory hit me the same way it always did, uninvited. Rain on my apartment windows that night. His fist against my door, too hard, too loud. Me opening it in an old t-shirt, hair a mess, too tired to pretend I wasn't scared of what he might say.

I remembered the whiskey on his breath, and my own voice cutting through the haze.

What the hell are you doing here, Ronan?

And then the heat of him when he pushed his way inside, not trying to hurt me, I understood that even then, just needing something solid to crash against.

Words spilled out of him I don't think he ever fully remembered: accusations, grief, Freya's name over and over like a prayer and a curse.

Somewhere between the shouting and the silence that followed, his mouth was on mine or mine was on his, I still don't know who moved first.

The rest blurred into fragments: the cold metal of a courthouse bench under my palms, a clerk's bored voice asking if we were sure, the scratch of a pen that felt heavier than it should have.

I remembered the weight of his hand over mine when we signed, the way my fingers didn't shake even though his did, and then nothing clear until morning light and the sick certainty that we'd both done something we couldn't undo.

When the memory let go of me, my eyes were wet, and I was furious about that more than anything else.

“I need her to have something back,” he said, quieter now. “I couldn’t give her legs. I couldn’t give her the four years she lost. The least I can do is give her this.”

“Give her a husband who was never yours to give away.”

“Lily.”

“Answer me something first.” I folded my arms because it was that or let my hands shake. “In nine months, did you ever once ask me what actually happened that night? Not what the police report said. Not what your mother told her friends at the club. What I would have told you, if you’d ever bothered to ask.”

He was quiet for a long moment. “Would it have mattered?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But you never gave either of us the chance to find out.”

“I couldn’t.” His voice had dropped, rough at the edges. “Every time I looked at you those first few months, all I could see was Freya in that hospital bed, and I needed somewhere to put that. You were there. You were easy to blame.”

“That’s not an apology.”

“I’m not apologizing.” He said it fast, like the words might not come out at all if he slowed down. “I’m explaining. There’s a difference, and you of all people should understand it, since you’ve never once apologized to me either.”

“For what, exactly? For a crime I didn’t commit?”

“No.” I crossed the room until I was close enough to see the vein working in his jaw. “You don’t get to stand here and tell me this marriage was a mistake you’re correcting. You chose this. You chose me, drunk or not, angry or not. And now you want to hand me a stack of papers and call it justice.”

“It is justice.” His voice had gone low, rough, the same voice he used to use before he remembered he was supposed to hate me. “She lost everything because of that night and I lost her for four years. You get to walk away with your name and your freedom. That’s more mercy than I ever meant to give you.”

“Mercy.” I laughed, short and humorless. “Is that what the last nine months were? The locked accounts? The driver you had follow me to every meeting like I was a flight risk? The way you’d go silent for entire dinners just to remind me I hadn’t earned conversation?”

“That’s not fair.”

“None of this has been fair, Ronan. Not to me, and clearly, from the way you keep flinching every time I bring it up, not entirely to you either. The difference is I never got to decide any of it. You did. Every single piece.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. We both already knew what the last nine months had been, the locked accounts, the monitored calls, the small studied cruelties he’d told himself were fair. And underneath all of it, the nights neither of us talked about, when the hatred stopped being the only thing in the room.

The air between us went tight. He took one step closer, close enough that I could smell the whiskey still lingering on him, close enough that the heat of his body cut through the cold of the study.

For a second neither of us moved and his eyes dropped to my mouth. Mine stayed locked on his, daring him.

His hand lifted, hovered near my waist like he might grab me or push me away, I wasn't sure which, and then he stopped himself, jaw clenched so hard I heard the grind of his teeth. He stepped back first, the way he always did when the mask threatened to slip.

“The papers are on the desk,” he said. “My lawyer already has copies. All you have to do is sign.”

I looked past him at the folder sitting there, thick and official, prepared before I’d even walked into the room tonight. Prepared, probably, before Freya had even finished crossing the ballroom to reach him.

“You had this ready,” I said slowly. “Before she showed up. You knew she was coming.”

Something crossed his face, just for a second, gone before I could name it.

“That’s not…”

“You knew.” My voice had gone very quiet, which was worse than shouting, I’d learned that a long time ago. “How long have you known she was alive, Ronan?”

The study door opened before he could answer.

Freya stood in the doorway in her red dress, one hand braced against the frame like she needed it to hold her up, though we both knew by now there was nothing wrong with her legs at all.

“Jules,” she said softly. “Is everything all right in here?”

His whole posture changed and he turned toward her the way a plant turns toward the only light it’s ever been given.

“Everything’s fine,” he said. “Lily was just leaving.”

I looked between the two of them, the man who’d spent nine months making sure I understood exactly how little I mattered, and the sister who’d spent six years letting the world believe a story that was never true.

“How long,” I said again, to both of them this time. “How long have you known she was alive, and which one of you decided not to tell me?”

Neither of them answered and that silence told me everything I needed to know.