Filed To Story: The Broken-Hearted She and The Icy He Book PDF Free
But he cared about her. He wanted to marry her, to spend the rest of his life with her.
If they couldn’t meet, how could they be together?
Reading her message, he started to realize-this wasn’t just her being polite. She was turning him down.
She probably didn’t feel the same way at all.
But because she was the only person he wanted a future with, he was willing to put away his pride and give it one more shot.
“Leila, I want to see you. I like you. I don’t want to just be friends. I want to stand by your side, openly and proudly, for the rest of my life.”
Seeing that he still wanted to meet only made Lily more flustered.
She was so afraid of losing him as a friend. After discovering who he really was, she had chosen to run away. Selfishly, she still wanted to keep hiding behind the name “Leila,” just to keep talking to him.
But when she read his latest message, she realized something: it was going to be impossible to stay just friends.
And she still didn’t have the courage to tell him that Leila was really Lily.
Even if they stopped talking for good, she didn’t want him to look back on their friendship with disgust.
If he knew Leila was really her, he would definitely feel disgusted.
She could only make up an excuse-to completely erase his feelings for “Leila,” to end things with some dignity.
“Elias, we can’t meet because I’m planning to go abroad.”
“Leila, which country? Are you at the airport right now?”
Almost instantly, another message came through.
“Which airport? I’ll come find you right now.”
Panic rising in her chest, Lily knew she couldn’t let James come looking for her.
All she wanted was for him to stop liking her and give up the idea of meeting. She acted in haste, without thinking, and sent a message.
“I lied to you. I’m not a woman. I just wanted to play a joke at first, but I didn’t expect you to believe it, and I didn’t know how to explain the truth later. I’m really, really sorry.”
“We’re both men, so we shouldn’t meet. And you definitely shouldn’t like me.”
After he confessed to her again, Lily knew she could never ask to be just friends.
Now, all she could hope for was that James would forget about “Leila,” and that if he ever looked back on their chats, he wouldn’t feel completely revolted.
Only after hitting send did she realize-having him believe he’d fallen for a guy after chatting all this time… might actually make him feel sick.
But then again, the person he hated most was Lily.
He hated her so much, just seeing her disgusted him.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have told her so coldly that morning to stay away from him unless absolutely necessary.
If he thought he’d fallen for a man, that was still better than knowing he’d once had feelings for her.
With that thought in her head, Lily suddenly felt reassured-what she’d just said was probably the best way out.
James did have a health issue. He didn’t have… male ability. But that only made it more impossible for him to ever like another man. Once he believed Leila was actually male, he would never reach out again.
To kill any lingering hope, she even used a face-altering filter in a video app to transform a selfie into a smiling young man with short hair, then sent it to him.
“I know you could never like a guy. So let’s not talk anymore. Elias… I really am sorry.”
Lily waited a long time.
But no reply ever came.
She knew that once this steel-hearted straight man cut off his feelings for her, that would be the end of it.
He would never reach out to her again.
He’d never be her friend again.
He had probably already deleted her from his contacts.
Thinking about waking up tomorrow with no one to say good morning, no one to say goodnight before bed, left a hollow ache in her chest.
She really didn’t want to let him go.
Really couldn’t.
But maybe this was for the best.
She and James were about to finalize their divorce anyway.
He despised her that much. Once the divorce went through, they’d have nothing to do with each other anymore. That was probably what was best for him…
James was still at the caf?.
He’d actually arrived a little before five thirty.
But even as the neon lights flickered on outside, he still hadn’t seen his Leila.
After he messaged to ask what airport she was at, he waited anxiously for her reply.
He hoped she’d tell him which airport it was so he could go find her.
He’d also prepared himself to be turned down again.
But he never expected what came next: she said she’d lied to him.
She wasn’t a girl.
She was a man.
Right after that, he received a photo.
Short hair, peach blossom eyes glowing with light, bright and handsome beyond belief.
Clean-cut, fresh-a graceful young man.
The moment his eyes met those vibrant, beautiful ones in the photo, James felt like he was sick. His heart skipped and surged wildly, almost bursting from his chest.
But Leila was a man.
Everything he’d been taught, everything he believed, made it impossible for him to accept that he might have fallen for a man.
And Leila… she couldn’t possibly like men either..
He’d confessed to her-she probably found it disgusting.
His cold, pale fingers trembled.
He still wanted to message her.
Still wanted to see her.
But he remembered that when they first started chatting, she’d never actually mentioned her gender. He was the one who saw her cute avatar and asked if she was a girl.
She’d replied, playfully, “Yep.”
She hadn’t meant to deceive him. He couldn’t blame her for that.
He just didn’t want to gross her out, didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable because of him.
Slowly, James curled his fingers into a fist.
In the end, he didn’t send another message.
He sat there, staring at his now-dark screen like a soulless shell, remaining in the caf? long after the night deepened-until finally, he rose and left with nothing but loneliness clinging to him.
Lily wandered the streets like a ghost for a long time.
After getting a call from Grace, she didn’t want to worry anyone and headed back toward the caf? to pick up her car and drive back to the Luke family estate.
She’d already done the mental prep.
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