Filed To Story: The Broken-Hearted She and The Icy He Book PDF Free
“Ms. Lily, Mr. James is really pitiful. You’ve been gone less than two days, and he’s already lost so much weight, he’s hardly recognizable…”
Lily: “…”
That sounded like a serious exaggeration,
Lily remembered she had just seen James the day before.
At the time, he had still been every inch the tall, handsome, impossibly refined man-how could he have. wasted away overnight?
Ashton, the sly little fox, was clearly exaggerating. He could see perfectly well that Mr. James had already fallen hopelessly for Ms. Lily, so of course he was going to make him sound as pitiful as possible to tug at her heart.
He even dabbed dramatically at the corner of his eye. “Just before I came out, Mr. James was still calling your name, Ms. Lily. His voice is completely hoarse…”
“A man nearly six foot three, skin and bones now, and he just keeps crying… it’s pitiful.”
Lily: “…”
Skin and bones-she doubted that.
James crying? She doubted that even more.
Still, knowing he was burning with fever and refusing treatment left her deeply uneasy.
As soon as Ashton’s car rolled to a stop in front of the main house, she didn’t waste a second and rushed for the master bedroom.
“Lily…”
The moment she pushed open the slightly ajar door, she heard James’s low, pain-laced murmur: “Lily…” “Mr. James, if you don’t want an injection, at least take the medicine. Your fever won’t break without it-” Several doctors stood at his bedside, speaking in urgent, worried tones.
But before they could finish, he cut them off with stubborn resistance. “I don’t want medicine. I want to find Lily…”
“Mr. James-“
The doctors were beside themselves, trying again to reason with him.
Ashton slipped in behind Lily, pointed subtly at the bottle of medicine on the nightstand, then ushered the doctors out.
He even shut the door tightly behind them.
“Lily…”
James’s face was flushed from the fever, his eyes still closed as he whispered name again.
She touched his forehead.
Scalding.
Fear tightened in her chest: “James, your fever’s really high. Will you please just take the medicine?
“Lily?”
Hearing her voice, he slowly opened his eyes.
But the fever had muddled his mind, and even awake, he didn’t seem to know if this was a dream or reality.
Gazing at the face he loved to the marrow yet that tore at his heart, he spoke like he had in countless dreams, a raw note of accusation in his voice. “You are Lily-so why won’t you admit it to me?”
“What?”
Lily hadn’t expected him to have already figured out she was Leila. The shock left her speechless.
Before she could gather her wits, he went on. “I know you’re Leila. That night I sent Lily messages, your phone kept going off. Lily, why did you lie to me, say you were a man? Why, when we met, did you tell me you’d marry a wife and have children? Why… why can’t you like me?”
“I…”
It dawned on her-he must have heard her phone that night she’d left it in his room.
He must have sent all those messages to confirm whether she was Leila.
She had never imagined he’d look at her now, eyes reddened, and ask why she couldn’t like him.
She didn’t know how to answer. “James, your forehead is burning. Please, just drink the medicine first-
“Lily, why can’t you like me?”
He seemed deaf to anything but his question, repeating it over and over, with no intention of taking the medicine.
His voice was soft, almost drifting in from some far-off place-yet it landed heavy as iron.
Every word was like a hammer to her heart, leaving her aching, breathless with pain.
“Why can’t you like me? Lily, will you look at me? Lily…”
He swayed, trying to pull her into his arms.
This time, she didn’t dodge or force herself to stay cold. She wrapped her arms around him first.
Her voice trembled. “You were forced into that marriage. Back then, you hated it so much you even made me sign an agreement to split up.
I thought you couldn’t stand me. I was afraid if you knew I was Leila, you’d hate her too, so when I learned you were Elias, I didn’t dare tell you. Later, when I met you disguised as a man, I thought you could only accept men, so I tried to draw a line. I… I don’t like men…”
James held her as if he could fuse her into his very bones, afraid she would vanish like mist even in a dream.
“I said I could only accept men because I thought Leila was ? man. Before I knew you were Leila, I kept my distance because I hated myself-hated that I couldn’t control my feelings. My heart was only for Leila, yet I couldn’t stop wanting you.
Every time I saw you, I wanted to hold you, to kiss you…. I hated my own weakness, hated feeling like I was betraying someone, hated that with only one heart, I somehow ended up with two people inside it.
Lily’s mind exploded:
She had always believed he could only accept men.
It had never occurred to her that the only reason he’d once said that was because he had been certain she was one.
She had never dared imagine that he hadn’t truly disliked her at all-that whether she was Leila or Lily, he had cared for her both ways.
Warmth and sweetness spread through her chest. She pressed her face against his heart, listening to the strong, steady beat beneath her ear
“James, if I’d known you didn’t hate me that much, I would’ve been braver. I would’ve gone to you.”
Her time with John had left wounds too deep. She’d become cautious, afraid to open her heart, afraid to throw herself completely into an uncertain possibility-and she had nearly missed him entirely.
Feeling the heat radiating from his chest, she coaxed softly, “Will you take the medicine first?”
But he was lost in what he thought was only a dream, her words sliding right past him.
“Lily, I know you really like Jackson,” he murmured, his voice hoarse and aching. “I know he treats you well, that you’re happy with him. But I could treat you even better…. better than Jackson ever could… Lily, I don’t want to divorce you… I don’t want to…”
Her eyes reddened.
The truth was, she hadn’t wanted the divorce either.
She had loved the Luke family deeply; as long as he hadn’t pushed her away so completely, she would have stayed in that warmth forever.
That day, when he’d rushed to sign the divorce papers, she had believed he was disgusted to the point of not wanting to see her again. She had never guessed he hadn’t wanted the divorce at all.
“James, Jackson and I…”
It had begun as nothing more than an employment arrangement.
Later, when she realized he was truly the boy she had once treated as a younger brother, she’d regarded him as family.
She had never, ever felt anything romantic for him.
But before she could finish explaining, she felt a dampness on her neck-
And then that dampness slid down past her collar, to her heart.
Only then did she realize: they were his tears.
She could hardly believe it. For someone as strong and unyielding as him to cry –
Still reeling from the shock, she heard him whisper in agony, “Lily, why did you get rid of our child? Whey didn’t you want him…”
She cradled his face in both hands. His once-dark, steady eyes were now laced with red, bloodshot from pain so deep it seemed to hollow him out.
A tide of red welled up, sweeping him into a hell of despair.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.