Page 24 of Dr. Lillian Harrington
When Lillian finally noticed her, their eyes locking across the room, Rebecca’s heart skipped a beat. For a moment, the noise of the gala disappeared, and it was just the two of them, the connection between them buzzing with an intensity that couldn’t be ignored. Lillian’s expression shifted, somethingplayful sparking in her eyes, and Rebecca could feel the pull between them stronger than ever.
She watched as Lillian whispered something to Benji, then turned and began making her way toward her. Every step Lillian took sent Rebecca’s pulse racing. She shouldn’t want this. Not here. Not now. But the sight of Lillian walking toward her, stunning and confident, undid every piece of logic Rebecca tried to hold on to.
When Lillian finally reached her, her soft voice, filled with teasing warmth, broke through Rebecca’s defenses. "Rebecca."
Rebecca’s gaze swept over her, taking in the gown, the way it hugged her curves, the way the blue made her eyes even more vibrant emerald. For a moment, she couldn’t speak, the words caught in her throat. Instead, she gave a small, calculated smile, her voice steady, though laced with something darker. "Lillian."
The room felt smaller now, the space between them crackling with tension. Lillian’s presence was intoxicating—too much, too close. Rebecca’s eyes flicked over to Benji across the room, the jealousy rearing its ugly head again.
"Quite the date you brought with you tonight," Rebecca said, her voice cooler than intended, but there was no hiding the edge of possessiveness in her tone.
Lillian’s smile was soft, unbothered. "He’s just a friend."
Rebecca’s jaw clenched slightly, but she kept her composure, even as the jealousy simmered just beneath the surface. "Is that so?"
Lillian met her gaze, holding it with an intensity that sent a rush through Rebecca. There was no mistaking the pull between them, the way they seemed to gravitate toward each other no matter where they were. But here, in the crowded ballroom, they had to maintain appearances. Rebecca couldn’t let anyone see the fire burning between them. Not yet.
Her eyes swept the room again, making sure no one was paying too much attention. Then, leaning in just enough that only Lillian could hear, Rebecca’s voice dropped, low and full of intent. “Meet me in the bathroom near the service corridor in ten minutes. No one goes there.”
She didn’t have to raise her voice; she didn’t have to explain. The words threaded neatly between the clink of glassware and the polite laughter rising off the ballroom like steam, and Lillian caught them the way a pulse is caught beneath careful fingers—immediate, undeniable. It was not an invitation. It was a directive dressed in velvet, a line drawn with a steady hand, and the way Lillian’s breath hitched, the way her pupils widened and then steadied on Rebecca’s mouth, told Rebecca everything she needed to know about how the next ten minutes would go.
Rebecca stepped back by a fraction, enough space to see the effect, to taste the anticipation she had just placed under Lillian’s skin. Her lips curved—no flourish, nothing showy, the smallest private smile that said good girl, then, “Good.”
She turned away before she could be tempted to soften it with anything like a caress, letting the movement of the room carry her. The chandeliers threw warm light across beaded gowns and black tuxedos; somewhere a quartet slid from Debussy into something more modern; waiters arrowed through the crush with trays balanced like instruments. Rebecca moved through it all with her usual composure, shoulders squared, glass held with surgeon’s economy, and yet under the armour the truth pressed hard against bone: she had wanted to tell Lillian how it felt to watch her laugh at the wrong man’s joke, wanted to admit that jealousy was an ugly, adolescent thing and she was above it and also, tonight, entirely at its mercy. She had wanted to say, I don’t share well, and you look like trouble I intend to keep, and I am not built for this, but I’m building it anyway.
Not here. Not now.
So she did the one thing she knew would not betray her—she let her body speak first, the way it had learned to in sterile rooms and quiet hotels and the darker corners of corridors where decisions are made by touch instead of language. The physical need was clean in a way emotion never was; it didn’t wobble, didn’t lie. It said: mine, and not yet, and come here—things she could not say with her mouth without setting off alarms in herself she did not know how to silence.
She cut left at the end of the champagne bar, slipped behind a column where the photographers weren’t angling for a better shot of the Harrington sisters, and took the narrow exit the staff used when the main doors clogged. The air changed back here; it lost the perfume and the money and picked up bleach and old stone, a cooler breath that raised a fine line of focus along her arms. Her heels clicked once, twice, then softened on rubber matting as the glamour dropped away and the service corridor received her: white walls, a green FIRE EXIT sign humming faintly, a trolley abandoned beside a stack of crates labelled GLASS—FRAGILE.
Her pulse quickened, not frantic, just deliberate—an extra beat tucked neatly into the rhythm she carried through long cases, through boardrooms where time stretched and retracted at other people’s command. Anticipation coiled low and tight in her chest. Ten minutes, she had said, but she already knew Lillian would make it eight, perhaps seven, the same way she always did—always a little ahead of the rule, never late to a command that wore Rebecca’s voice.
As she neared the bend that hid the bathroom door from the main thoroughfare, Rebecca ran a hand along the wall—not a caress, a check of texture, cold paint beneath her knuckles, grounding. She felt absurdly, gorgeously alive: that thin, bright edge between danger and decision where every sense sharpensand the future tilts in your favour because you have dared to name what you want. She would not give a speech. She would not perform contrition. She would put Lillian where she needed her, open her with patience or with urgency depending on what the first touch told her, and she would write the truth against Lillian’s skin in a language they both understood: mine now, not later; quiet, let me; yes, that.
A burst of laughter from the ballroom reached her even here, blurred by two sets of doors and the elbow of corridor, reminding her that beyond this bend the world still liked its rules neat and its women neater. Rebecca smoothed her face into neutrality out of habit and then, because there was no one here to read it, let the neutrality slip. She let herself think, just once, tonight I need you to obey, and felt the answering throb in her blood like a reply from the far end of a line.
She paused at the corner, listened: nothing but the low hum of the extractor and the far-off clatter of a tray being stacked. Perfect. She could already picture Lillian as she would be in a minute’s time—cheeks flushed from the walk, a line between her brows where conflict lived and dissolved, hands that never quite knew where to rest when Rebecca was this close, that faltering, sweet deference giving way to certainty the moment Rebecca put her there.
She straightened, set her shoulders, and turned the corner.
Lillian would follow. She always did.
And tonight, more than restraint, more than clever words, Rebecca needed that obedience like she needed to breathe.
9
LILLIAN
Lillian’s heart raced as she slipped into the bathroom near the service corridor, her heels clicking softly against the tiled floor. The quiet hum of the gala faded behind her, leaving only the faint buzz of fluorescent lights and the heavy thrum of anticipation in her chest. She was here, alone, waiting for Rebecca. The weight of what was about to happen made her pulse quicken, her body humming with a mix of nerves and desire.
The bathroom was small and dimly lit, far removed from the opulence of the ballroom. The faint smell of jasmine soap lingered in the air, a subtle reminder of how out of place this encounter would be compared to the glittering affair happening just outside. Lillian walked to the mirror, her reflection staring back at her. She looked different tonight, even to herself.
Her pale blue gown, once pristine, now clung to her skin in the humid air, and her blonde hair framed her flushed face in soft waves. Her lips, still slightly parted from the rush of slipping away unnoticed, were painted a soft pink that matched the flush creeping up her neck.
She pressed her palms to the cool marble sink, leaning in closer to the mirror, adjusting a loose strand of hair and taking a deep breath to steady herself. But no amount of adjusting could shake the whirlwind inside her. Rebecca was coming. And everything about tonight—the tension, the hidden desire, the unspoken words between them—was about to culminate in a way that left her breathless just thinking about it.
Lillian’s mind raced as she stared at her reflection. Rebecca had looked...incredible. Stunning, really. The deep emerald gown hugged her body in all the right places, accentuating her athletic frame and exuding an air of control and power that Lillian found irresistible. She had felt the pull between them, even from across the room, and now, standing here alone, waiting for Rebecca to arrive, that pull felt more intense than ever.
