The ride home was a silence made of glass.
Zane hadn't spoken since they left the rooftop. He'd simply opened the car door for her, waited while she slid into the passenger seat, and driven off into the night—calm, precise, untouchable.
Willow sat angled toward the window, watching the city unfurl in fractured reflections. The streetlights streaked across her face like passing ghosts—fragments of laughter, betrayal, and the fire that still smoldered under her skin.
Her pulse hadn't settled since the kiss.
Not because of guilt—there was none. She knew why she'd done it, and she would do it again if it meant splintering Miles's carefully polished world.
But the aftermath… that, she hadn't planned for.
The kiss hadn't gone the way she imagined.
In her mind, it had been an act of control. Cold. Exact.
A weapon dressed as intimacy.
But when her lips met Zane's, the world had tilted.
It wasn't her who'd faltered. It was him.
He hadn't pulled away. He hadn't hesitated. He'd kissed her back with the kind of restrained hunger that made her forget why she started it at all.
The pressure of his hand at the back of her neck, the low exhale that wasn't shock but surrender—it was too real. Too unscripted.
She'd wanted revenge, not electricity.
And yet here she was, sitting beside him, every nerve still burning from the memory of his mouth on hers.
The car glided through quiet streets. The city's noise dulled into a hum, distant and civilized again, as if the chaos on the rooftop had never happened.
When Zane turned onto her street, the headlights cast smooth arcs across the stillness. He parked neatly in front of her building, hands resting on the steering wheel as the engine exhaled into silence.
Neither moved.
The air between them was heavy—not awkward, but aware.
Finally, she broke it. "Thank you for driving me."
Zane's fingers flexed once on the wheel before he answered. "You're welcome."
His voice was level—neither distant nor close, balanced on the edge of something he refused to name.
Willow turned her head slightly, studying him. His face was calm, but there was tension in the way his jaw tightened when she looked at him too long. "You haven't asked me why."
He met her eyes briefly. "Would it change anything?"
"No," she admitted, "but you seem like someone who likes answers."
He exhaled quietly, gaze fixed forward again. "I already know why."
"Do you?"
He looked at her fully this time, the shadows deepening around his eyes.
"You wanted to hurt him," he said softly, "even though we're together now."
She smiled faintly. "And did I?"
"Yes." His voice gentled, almost tender. "But you hurt yourself too."
Her breath hitched. That tone—so sure, so careful—cut deeper than any accusation.
He thought she was bleeding from heartbreak.
He had no idea she was bleeding from betrayal.
She leaned back, voice calm. "You didn't have to play along."
"You didn't leave much room for refusal," he said, a flicker of dry humor threading his tone. "You told me not to move."
Her lips curved slightly. "And you always follow orders?"
"Not usually."
"Then why this time?"
He paused, fingers tapping once against the steering wheel before stilling.
"Because you looked lost," he said finally. "Like someone trying to remember where they belong."
She turned toward him, her tone sharpening. "And you thought you'd help me find my way back?"
He hesitated, then said quietly, "Amnesia's a tricky thing, Willow. Sometimes it makes people remember the wrong things… or the wrong people."
The words were meant to soothe.
Instead, they froze her.
Amnesia.
He still believed it.
Still thought she didn't remember.
Still thought Miles had walked away a misunderstood man instead of the architect of her memory's ruin.
Her pulse steadied into something darker—the kind of calm that comes right before a storm.
He pitied her. That was the worst part. His voice was full of quiet care, as if she were something fragile. As if she hadn't already pieced the truth together from every fractured conversation, every misplaced glance between them.
He thought she was lost.
She wasn't lost. She was waiting.
She forced a small, weary smile. "Maybe you're right," she said softly. "Maybe I don't remember as much as I think."
He nodded, almost relieved. "It doesn't matter," he said. "You're here now. With me."
With me.
The words were gentle, but they landed like chains. He didn't even realize how close they came to confession—or how much they revealed.
He thought he was helping his friend by keeping her close, protecting her from ghosts she'd never really forgotten.
He didn't know that she already saw through both of them—the liar who'd broken her, and the man now trying to bandage her with the same hands that helped him do it.
"Amnesia," she murmured, almost to herself. "Seems to be catching."
He gave her a puzzled look, but she was already turning back to the window. Her reflection looked serene, but her eyes betrayed the quiet storm gathering behind them.
If he was still playing for Miles, he'd chosen the wrong side.
If he wasn't—if this tenderness was real—then she'd make sure it burned him anyway.
The car idled in silence for a few seconds before she spoke again.
"You could have pushed me away."
"I could have," he said, tone neutral. "But I didn't."
"Why not?"
His voice was quiet now, the kind that made her lean in despite herself. "Because you didn't kiss me like a plan."
Her pulse jumped. "What does that mean?"
He turned his head slightly, eyes shadowed but steady. "It means maybe I wanted it to happen as much as you did."
Her throat tightened. He didn't mean to sound vulnerable—that wasn't his nature—but the words carried something unguarded.
And that, more than anything, unsettled her.
She opened the door before she could think better of it. The night air rushed in—cool, clean, sobering.
"Goodnight, Zane."
He gave a single nod. "Goodnight, Willow."
She stepped out, the sound of her heels soft against the pavement.
Halfway to the door, she turned back. He was still there—sitting motionless, hands on the wheel, eyes on the road ahead. The streetlight framed him in amber and shadow, a man made of calm hiding something volatile beneath.
For a heartbeat, she almost believed the quiet between them was real.
Then she remembered—everything.
And that faint flicker of tenderness turned to steel.
She went inside.
Upstairs, the apartment met her with silence. She set her clutch down, walked straight to the mirror, and stared at the woman staring back.
Her hair was loose, her lipstick gone. Only the faint warmth on her lips remained—a reminder, not of desire, but of the power that still simmered beneath it.
She touched her reflection—her own mouth, her own eyes—and whispered, "Tricky thing, amnesia."
Her expression hardened. The line between anger and focus sharpened to a blade.
Because now she understood something new:
Zane might have been honest in that car, but honesty didn't make him innocent.
And if he wanted to play savior in a story built on lies—
then she would become the storm that washed them all clean.
The lipstick was gone.
The warmth wasn't.
And what lingered wasn't guilt.
It was purpose.