My Husband. Those two words were enough to cause Billy's blood to simmer. He hated the way she said it, so matter of fact, and with purpose. She could have easily said, Nick, but she wanted to remind him that she was married. Billy didn't know why she bothered, when he really didn't care. Nicholas Newman was a tiny bee, who'd been buzzing around His flower for way too long. And just like a bee, Nick only had one sting, one chance, to do some damage, before he was put out of commission. Billy sighed, perhaps little Victor would surprise him. He highly doubted it, but he hoped, oh yes, he hoped.  His victory would be that much sweeter, if Nick put up a good fight. However, Billy was more than certain that the woman before him would pose a much greater challenge. She was not happy to see him, and that he did care about. He frowned.  He would have to be very careful in the way he dealt with her. She was his true weakness, and he would have to be just as ruthless with her, as he was with everyone else, or she would sense it, and go in for the kill. Lily Amanda Winters just didn't realize the power she had over him.

"So, are going to say something, or are going to continue to ignore me?" she asked slightly perturbed.

Billy looked up at Lily, who was standing next to her desk, hands on her hip. He hadn't even realized that she'd gotten up.

"Well,"

"Well what?" he asked, and at her glower added, "Come, sit down," he patted the seat next to him.

"No, thank you." As if she'd sit next to him. Ha, he'd like that. So that he could...not going to happen. She was going to stay over here, where it was safe. Sit next to him indeed, when it was taking a considerable effort on her part, to even stand in the same room.

"Are you sure? I wouldn't want you to have another...accident," he said, smiling at the memory of her in his arms. "I'm fast, but not that fast. I wouldn't want you to hit your pretty head on the edge of that desk."

"I..." she started, crossing her arms over her chest, "I am fine, and I assure you Mr. Abbott, that I do not now, or ever intend on fainting."

"Again," he added, glancing from her face, to admire the handsome amount of cleavage now showing because of her new position.

Lily took a deep breath.  Breath in, breath out, she thought.  Oh God, was she feeling lighted headed? Maybe she should sit. No, no, she was fine. She was. She really was fine. She wanted to scream.  Why was she letting him get to her? He hadn't really said anything, and yet here she was second guessing herself, because he said so. He said that she might faint, but she wouldn't.  It was just a little warm in here, that was all. She was fine.  She really was.

Billy saw the tiny frown that marred her brow. She always did that, when she was trying to organize her thoughts. She did it a lot when she was studying, or had a problem that she couldn't solve. She would be so focused on whatever was going on in her head that she'd forget that he was even in the room.  He used to take one finger, and run it across her brow in an attempt to smooth it out, which would usually cause her to blink and then blush. Her eyes abashed, he would kiss her forehead and ask her to tell him about it. Today he didn't need to ask her what was on her mind, when he was more than likely the answer. But that didn't mean that his fingers didn't itch to trace their past, and follow it with his lips.

"Thank you for your concern, but I am fine," she said slightly leaning on the desk. "Now please state your purpose."

"Wow, why so hostile?" he said holding up his hands in mock surrender. As if he would, this early in the game.

"I am," she paused, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. "I...am not hostile," she said calmly.  

"Really...State your purpose?" He said in a high pitched voice.

"I do not sound like that," she said tightening her folded arms, which pushed her breasts up even higher.

"I was joking," he said trying to hold eye contact, but finding it extremely difficult. Calm down, this is only the beginning, he told himself. His blood was pumping faster and faster as he watched her breasts rise and fall with every breath she took. She was playing peek-a-boo with him, and didn't even know it. Keep you eyes on the prize Abbott, throwing her on that desk and making love to her is not part of the plan. Well at least not at this early stage.

"Well you're not funny."

"That's not what you used to say."

"I used to say a lot of things, that I don't say anymore," she remarked feeling a bit calmer. She could do this, she could handle Billy Abbott.

"Yeah?" he asked straitening up, and slightly adjusting his pants, so as not to apprise her of the bulge growing there. He felt nineteen again, barely experienced, and madly in love and in lust with a tiny caramel vixen, who didn't even know the power she had over the male species. Lily, only his Lily had the power to make him hard by simply looking at from under her lashes. Only his Lily, at the tender age of fifteen, had the power to make him stop, without so much as a protest, even as his balls turned blue, just by looking at him with doubt filled eyes. "What's changed?"

"A lot," she said simply, not wanting to discuss her life with him.

"Wow...that just blew me away," he said sarcastically.  "Well young lady," he said in a terrible imitation of a German accent, "What have you learned from your mistake?"

Lily rolled her eyes, he was so...Billy.

"I learned," he said in a high pitched female voice. "Yes," he said switching back to the other voice, "What, what did you learn?" He returned to the female voice, "I learned a lot."

"You're not..." she was lying, and they both knew it. It took all of her power not to giggle.

"Funny, I know" He said, staring at the left side of her bottom lip, which rested between her teeth. She was going to fight him every step of the way. "So tell me."

"What,"

"Come on TL," he said using the initials of her pet name, "You might have changed, but you still know me well enough to know that your answer isn't going to satisfy," he said uttering the last word softly, "me."

He needs to leave, thought Lily, as she removed her hands from under breast to rest of the edge of the desk.  "I don't really care if that answer satisfies you or not." And she didn't, she only wanted him to leave. She sighed, "Billy..." finally ready to ask the question she'd been asking herself for the past three days. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting you, what does it look like?" he said, with an easy grin on his handsome face.

"I don't have all day, either tell me what you want, or get out," she stated firmly, surprising herself. "This is my place of business, and if you didn't come here to discuss a business matter, then please leave." She was tired. Tired of feeling flustered, tired of feeling as if she were standing in twelve feet of water, without a drop of air to sustain her. She was tired of the ache that began again, moving it's way through her body, making her nervous, jittery, and...nostalgic. She wasn't sure how she felt, but she was tired of feeling, and that was the only thing Billy Abbott did. He made her feel a thousand emotions, which where so old, that they were practically foreign to her, in regards to him. She eased up from the desk, "Look, I don't have time to play with you."

"Play?" Billy questioned. "You-don't-have...time-to," he said each word carefully, as if measuring them for their validity. "Play-with me." He stood up, "Is that what you've been doing?" He began to walk towards her, slowly, and methodically. Each step was measured before the next one was taken.  He wanted her to be able to count the number of steps it would take, before he was standing in her personal space.  

Lily swallowed, and held her ground. Although it wasn't like she could go any where, with the desk touching her thighs. She wasn't sure if she could move even if she wanted to. He moved with grace for a man his size. Billy wasn't a small man or a large one either. He had a medium build, with broad shoulders and back, and stood at six feet even. His eyes held hers, teasing, probing, daring. She tightened her arms over her chest again, this time hoping they would warn him off. This was her ‘I'm not in the mood' stance. Nick knew to back up when she stood with her arms folded tight under breasts, so it stood that Billy would know too...Right?

"Let me assure you, that I didn't come here to play," he said stopping a few steps in front her. Four, he thought, it would only take four steps for them to be toe to toe.   

"Then...why did you come here?" she said tightening her arms reflexively.

He looked from her face and then boldly down at her cleavage, "You know," he took another step, "you really shouldn't do that, unless you want me to take you up on the offer you're so carelessly presenting." He said in a low voice that ran up and down her skin like tiny pine needles, soft on the sides, and prickly at the point.  

"I am not offering you anything."

He smiled. His eyes went to her cleavage, which caused her to look down and gasp. She removed her hands as if she'd been burnt. No wonder he'd said that, her breasts were nearly escaping her top, which was a trial, because she didn't have large breasts.

He gave a dramatic sigh, "I guess the offer's off the table."

She gritted her teeth. This man, this...Person, he was, "There was never an offer on the table."

"Really?  It didn't look that way to me," he said lazily staring at her breasts.

Lily was angry, she was really angry. Who in the hell did he think he was? He comes back into her life, after seven years, and ogles her goodies, as if he has the right. As if...as if it were his God given right. "The only person, who would be made any type of an offer, is Nicholas Newman, you know...my husband." She smiled. Loving that she'd wiped that stupid grin off his face. She could do this, she could handle him....She could, she really could.

Billy sighed again, shaking his head sadly. His sweet, delectable, love, didn't have a clue as to what was about to happen. She could scream that she was married to him a thousand times, and it would still have the same effect on him. One, pissing him off, and two making him hell bent on destroying said marriage. Billy was a bastard, he knew it. Hell, he was sure that there were many other expletives that could be used to describe him. After all, what kind of man sought to purposefully destroy someone's marriage? A man who was crazy in love, lonely without it, and empty because he'd so carelessly discarded it.  He didn't have anything to lose, only someone to gain. He didn't have her, so he couldn't loose her, and he was determined not to ever again.

"What?" she asked breaking into his thoughts, "Billy...why, are you shaking your head?"  

He loved the way she said his name, whether angry, loving, or in the throws of passion, his names always sounded like music on her lips.

"Billy?"

"Lily," he mocked taking another step forward.

"Why are you here?"

"I came to see you," he answered honestly. Seeing her up close that night, holding her in his arms, even if she wasn't aware of it, had haunted him all weekend. He'd wanted to do something foolish, like go to her house, park outside, and wait to get a single glimpse of her again. Since that fateful day, when he saw her picture in that magazine, her image had been branded on his brain. She was everywhere and in everything. Lily was never too far from his thoughts, even when he didn't acknowledge the tear stained face, which had been haunting, since the day he'd broken her heart, and killed his in the process.   

"Why?" She said automatically crossing her arms over her chest.

Billy smiled, he couldn't help. His Lily was determined to have him blow his plans to hell, by picking her up, and ravaging her on top of her desk, everyone be damned. "You know, I just wanted to catch up."  He said taking another step closer. One step, just one step, and he would be in her personal space, and she his.

"Catch up?" she asked, shifting uncomfortably at his close proximity.

"I just want to talk to you."

"What...what would we have to talk about?"

"I don't know anything, everything. For god's sake Lily, it's been seven years."

"I know exactly how many years it's been," she said finding her backbone, which had vacated her, from the moment she'd seen him, but no more. No more. How dare he come into her office, and disrupt her life, as if they were old friends? "I haven't heard from you in seven years Billy, seven years, not a hello, how are, are you still alive, and now...after all this time, you want to catch up." She was angry. She felt it spreading throughout her entire body, like molten lava. It was so acute, that she was certain if provoked, even the slightest, she might actually hit him again.

Billy was silent. He'd rarely seen Lily angry. She'd gotten angry, but not this angry, not where he could feel it coming off of her in waves, building like a tidal wave ready to crash. "Lily..."

"No," she said. "No, you don't get to talk. You are going to stand there, and listen to what I have to say, and when I am finished, you are going to leave my office, and never darken my door step again."

He sighed, he could tell her that it wasn't going to happen, but he held piece.  She'd find out soon enough.

She took a deep breath, needing to calm herself. She could feel the blood pumping through her veins, her heartbeat increasing. "You showed up at an event, when you knew you weren't invited, just so that you could cause a scene. You wanted to see my first reaction to your reappearance in my life, without me having the slightest knowledge of your presence in Genoa City. Unprepared, you wanted me vulnerable, and unprepared," she said. "I know you Billy.  I know you very well, and although the man before me isn't as warm as the boy I used to know, I still know you, or at least things about you." Her anger grew more and more with each word. The need to say this to him was so strong that it nearly buckled her knees. "But you see, it turns out that I really didn't know you at, did I?"

"Lily,"

"Did...I?" she said, her voice rising slightly. Her emotions where taking over, and she let them. It felt good, so...very good.  "After three years, three years of loving you, two years of giving myself completely to you and a year...a year of fighting to be with you." Her hands clinched into fists at her side. "It turns out, that in all that time...all those years, I never knew you...really, really knew you. "

"You do..."

"Shut up," She said taking a step forward. "If I knew you, then I would have known that you were going to get tired of me...tired of us."

"Lily, it wasn't like that."

"Oh, really?" she said sarcastically.  "So it wasn't you who said, that I need more. I need to get out of Genoa City, and be...free. I can't do this anymore. I feel as if I need to explore something else." She tapped a finger under her chin, "I think that's it. Although, I may have inverted a word here or there, I don't know it's been...seven years.

"Lily?" Billy said, feeling his own anger grow, as she recited part of the last conversation he'd had with her.

"Maybe...maybe I just don't remember anything," she said, hands now resting on her hips. "So tell me Billy, did I leave anything out?" He didn't answer, "What's this?  I thought you wanted to talk. I mean, we have soooo much to catch up on. It has been seven" she stopped and breathed out the last word, "years."  She stared into his eyes, eyes that she could always read, but now, she wished she couldn't. There was so much...regret in them, that it caused her physical pain. They were too close.  They were much too close. She made to step back, but he brought her up short, when one of his hands wrapped around the top of her left arm.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," he began.

"It doesn't matter," she said tiredly, trying to step out of his grip. She couldn't take him touching her, not like this, not with the regret in his eyes. She would have preferred the arrogant man who'd walked through her door. The man that looked like her first love, but seemed so far removed from the easy going, hot tempered, cocky, bad boy she used to love. But this man, this man in front her, well...he was Her Billy. He was the Billy who'd looked down at her in an open field, and told her he loved her. He was the Billy who didn't pressure her into having sex, and always stopped, whenever they tried, and knew that she wasn't ready, even when she protested that she was. Billy...Her Billy, who she had loved more than life itself. Stupid teenage love, stupid blind love, stupid all consuming love. She'd been stupid, so stupid to give him not only her heart, but her soul, and all that she was, and all that she would ever be.

She turned away, she could feel the tears gathering, and she didn't want to cry. She swallowed hard, pushing back the tears with everything that she had, and then turned back to face him. "I'm not going to do this with you."

He reached out finger and a caught the single tear that escaped from her eye. "You have to."

She watched mesmerized as he took her tear, and pressed it against his lips. "I don't want to," she said in a small voice.

"I know," he said staring into her bottomless brown eyes. "And we won't," he couldn't press her any further today. There would be other times, but not today. Today was just a testing of the waters, and those waters were dark, and deep. Her pain at his betrayal, and the emotions stirred awake by his presence, had only just resurfaced. It was too fresh, much too fresh for her to talk with him now, even if only as a "friend." Yes, he would be ruthless with her, but not today, he loved her too much to continue today. "I'm sorry my presence upset you."

"Billy..."

"But I am not going anywhere. I'm back in Genoa City, and I am going to stay as long as it takes." He said, stepping aside and departing without looking back. It was the second time that he'd walked away from her, both times, using all of his strength not to look back.

Lily replayed his last words in her head, as she stumbled to her desk as if she were drunk, and slid down into her chair. She felt drained, emotionally, physically, and mentally drained.  "What?" she thought, leaning back in her chair, her feet stretched out in front her, head tilted back, with her eyes closed. "As long as what takes?"  She took a deep breath, hoping that her instincts were wrong, because what they were screaming would not do. It simply would not do.