💋 She Kissed the Most Dangerous Man in Manhattan for $10,000 — and Became the Secret He Couldn’t Let Go

Chapter 06 - Lily Knows a Different Story

Diane did not remember crossing the room.

One second she stood in the doorway with rainwater dripping from her coat. The next, she was between Catherine Voss and her sister’s hospital bed, every exhausted inch of her turned into a wall.

“Get out.”

Catherine looked amused. “You’re braver when you have an audience.”

“I said get out.”

Behind Diane, Lily made a small sound. Not fear. Warning.

Ravi entered the room so quietly the air seemed to change before he did. Catherine’s eyes flicked to him, and her amusement thinned.

“You move quickly,” she said.

“When people touch what isn’t theirs.”

Catherine held up the chart. “Hospital property.”

Ravi took one step forward. “Put it down.”

For once, Catherine obeyed, though she made even obedience look like strategy. The chart landed on the bedside table.

Lily looked from Ravi to Catherine to Diane. Her eyes, large in her thin face, stopped on the envelope still tucked beneath Diane’s arm.

“Di,” she whispered. “What did you do?”

The question broke something in Diane.

She could face Catherine. She could face security, rumors, even Ravi Greedy’s dark and unreadable stare. But Lily looking at her like that—hurt, scared, ashamed for both of them—made the whole night rush back in one wave.

“I tried to fix something,” Diane said.

Catherine smiled. “That is one version.”

Ravi’s voice cut through. “Leave.”

“You forget,” Catherine said, “this hospital receives significant Voss Foundation funding.”

“And yet,” Ravi replied, “if you remain in this room another thirty seconds, I will make a call that causes every donor list from the past ten years to land on a federal desk by morning.”

Catherine’s smile vanished.

There it was again, Diane thought. The invisible world beneath the visible one. The calls. The desks. The doors money could open and close without fingerprints.

Catherine stepped toward the door. As she passed Diane, she lowered her voice.

“You think he’s protecting you? Ask him what happened to the last woman who trusted a Greedy man.”

Diane stiffened.

Catherine left, her red dress whispering against the hospital floor.

Ravi did not follow. His eyes remained on Diane.

“Is she talking about my mother?” Diane asked.

Ravi said nothing.

That was answer enough.

Lily coughed once, the dry little cough she tried to hide. Diane turned at once, adjusting the pillow behind her sister’s back, touching her forehead though she knew it would not help.

Lily caught her wrist.

“Stop mothering me for one second.”

Diane froze.

Her sister’s grip was weak, but her eyes were not.

“What happened tonight?” Lily asked.

Diane sat on the edge of the bed. “I was paid to embarrass him. Catherine offered money for your deposit. I thought it was only humiliation. Then she tried to frame me for stealing it.”

Lily’s face crumpled. “Because of me.”

“No.” Diane held her hand. “Because of her.”

“And because you keep thinking saving me means destroying yourself.”

The words landed harder than Diane expected.

Ravi looked toward the window, giving them the courtesy of pretending not to listen.

Diane forced herself to breathe. “Mrs. Vale said Mom worked for Ravi’s father before she died.”

Lily went still.

Too still.

Diane saw it immediately.

“What?”

Lily looked down at the blanket. “I found something last year.”

Diane’s fingers tightened. “Found what?”

“In Mom’s sewing box. The one with the broken hinge.”

Diane knew the box. It sat on the top shelf of their closet in the apartment, full of buttons, old receipts, and thread spools their mother had never thrown away.

“What did you find?”

“A photograph.” Lily’s voice dropped. “Mom standing outside some big house with a man. Not Dad. I thought maybe it was a patient. There was writing on the back.”

Ravi turned from the window.

Diane felt his attention like heat.

“What writing?” she asked.

Lily swallowed. “J.G. knew. M.H. kept copy. Voss must never find the second ledger.”

The room became very quiet.

Ravi came closer. “Where is the photograph now?”

“At home,” Lily said. “In the sewing box.”

Diane stood. “Then I’m going home.”

“No,” Ravi and Lily said at the same time.

Diane looked at them both. “I am not helpless.”

“No one said you were,” Ravi said. “But Catherine came here before us. That means she knows the hospital, maybe your apartment, maybe the photograph.”

Diane thought of their small Queens apartment with its sticking kitchen window and the hallway bulb that had been burned out for two weeks. She thought of the sewing box on the closet shelf, untouched because grief made ordinary objects sacred.

“She won’t know where to look,” Diane said, even as she knew Catherine would.

Lily looked at Ravi. “You can get it, can’t you?”

Diane turned on her. “Don’t ask him.”

“I’m asking the person with men downstairs.” Lily’s cheeks flushed with effort. “For once, let somebody help before you bleed yourself dry.”

Diane stared at her sister. She wanted to argue. The words were ready. Sharp, familiar, protective.

Then Lily closed her eyes from exhaustion, and the argument died.

Ravi spoke quietly. “Give me the address.”

“No.” Diane grabbed her coat. “I’m going with you.”

His expression made it clear he expected that answer and disliked it equally.

They left Lily with Mrs. Vale, who had arrived carrying coffee and a look that said she had outlived worse nights than this. In the elevator, Diane and Ravi stood side by side, not touching, both reflected in the stainless steel doors.

“You should stay with your sister,” he said.

“You should stop telling me where to stand.”

His eyes met hers in the reflection.

“Catherine wants whatever your mother hid.”

“Then we find it first.”

The elevator doors opened onto the lobby.

A uniformed police officer stood waiting beside the reception desk.

The moment he saw Diane, he placed a hand on his radio.

“Diane Harper?” he called.

Her stomach dropped.

Ravi stepped forward, but the officer was already moving toward her.

“You need to come with me. There’s been a report of a break-in at your apartment.”