Chapter 5 - The Girl They Called a Thief
The post appeared on a Wednesday morning.
Lily saw it while standing beside the diner’s coffee machine.
A photograph of her outside Vale Bridal filled the screen.
Beneath it was a caption about a waitress who had spent months studying a celebrated gown before claiming it belonged to her family.
Another photograph showed a page from Lily’s sketchbook.
Her design.
Evelyn.
The post described it as an obvious imitation.
For several seconds, she couldn’t hear the diner around her.
Then Frank said her name.
She looked up.
“Go sit down.”
“I have tables.”
“I have legs.”
She went into the small office behind the kitchen and closed the door.
The comments multiplied.
Some people called her greedy.
Others called her delusional.
One suggested she had invented a dead mother to attract a billionaire.
That was the one that made her cry.
Not because it was the cruelest.
Because there were people who might believe it.
Grant called within minutes.
“Lily.”
“How did they get my drawing?”
His silence told her he didn’t know.
Then she remembered.
At dinner, she had left the sketchbook on the table while using the restroom.
No.
Not dinner with Grant.
The previous afternoon.
Marianne had stopped her outside the diner.
Her tone had been unusually pleasant.
She had asked whether Lily really drew.
Lily, foolishly hopeful that a conversation might prevent a fight, had shown her two pages.
Marianne had lifted her phone.
“For comparison,” she had said.
Lily had been too startled to object before the photograph was taken.
Now she understood.
“I showed her.”
Her voice sounded very small.
Grant’s anger came through the phone.
“She used you.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you need.”
Lily pressed her palm against her eyes.
“I need everyone to stop looking at me.”
He didn’t tell her that was impossible.
He simply said, “I’m here.”
That afternoon, two customers requested different tables.
One woman told Frank she preferred not to be served by someone involved in “that dress situation.”
Frank picked up the menu.
“Then today you’ll be served by another restaurant.”
Lily found him behind the counter afterward.
“You can’t throw out everyone who dislikes me.”
“Watch me.”
She laughed through tears.
He looked suddenly serious.
“Your mother used to come in here.”
Lily froze.
“Before you bought it?”
“Before I bought it. I was the cook.”
He reached beneath the counter and took out an old photograph from the diner’s anniversary display box.
Evelyn sat in a booth with a sleeping baby beside her.
A sketchpad lay open near her plate.
“That was you,” Frank said.
Lily stared.
“I didn’t know.”
“She paid for pie with alterations once. Fixed the owner’s wedding suit.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because sometimes I’m an idiot.”
She wiped her face.
“You and Dad are forming a club.”
“I’ll make shirts.”
By evening, Dana had sent formal preservation requests concerning the post, the photograph, and the boutique’s records.
She warned Lily against fighting strangers in comment sections.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
“I was planning to throw my phone into the lake.”
“Less helpful than it sounds.”
Then Grant arrived at the duplex.
Tom let him in.
Lily sat at the table wearing an old sweatshirt, surrounded by documents and cold tea.
Grant stopped in the doorway.
He didn’t pretend not to notice she had been crying.
He sat across from her.
“I need to tell you something else before you hear it from anyone.”
Lily’s stomach tightened.
“Claire’s family believed we were moving toward marriage. My mother encouraged it. I never proposed, and I told Claire clearly that there is no engagement.”
“When?”
“Before our first dinner. Again yesterday.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I thought ending it made it irrelevant.”
“It becomes relevant when people are calling me a thief.”
“I know.”
She looked down.
“I don’t have the money to survive being your scandal.”
The words struck him harder than anger would have.
“I’m not asking you to.”
“But I’m already in it.”
He nodded.
For once, he had nothing useful to say.
Lily stood.
“I need some space.”
Grant rose immediately.
At the door, she added, “I don’t regret dinner.”
He turned.
“I don’t either.”
“But I need to know that when this gets uglier, you won’t start deciding things for me.”
He held her gaze.
“Then judge me by what I do next.”
After he left, Lily opened her sketchbook.
For twenty minutes, she stared at the page they had used against her.
Then she turned to a clean sheet.
May you like
Her hand shook when she began.
She drew anyway.
