Though sparks flew from the start between Lily Winters and Cane Ashby, she was still smarting from her failed marriage to Daniel Romalotti; Cane, from the dissolution of his even more disastrous union with Amber Moore. Plus, Cane was a good bit older than the object of his affections. So they sensibly decided to make themselves comfortable in the friend zone. You can imagine how well that went — not well at all!
They say that you never forget your first time, and certainly, that was true for Cane and Lily — when they finally surrendered to passion on Valentine’s Day, they were busted by her father, Neil! As if that wasn’t traumatic enough, Lily then discovered that she was pregnant, refused to marry Cane for fear that he wasn’t “I do”-ing so for the right reasons and, in a twist that broke both of their hearts, lost the baby!
No sooner had Lily accepted Cane’s proposal than it suddenly seemed indecent: Conniving fashionista Chloe Mitchell came forward and claimed that he was the father of her unborn child. Having learned nothing from being duped by Amber, Cane married his supposed babymama while Lily began dating Billy Abbott, who was — wait for it! — Chloe’s actual babydaddy! Honestly, messes don’t get much hotter.
Only a year earlier, Cane and Lily had been making love for the first time. Now… oy! Now Chloe was crashing Lily and Billy’s Valentine’s Day trip to the Abbott cabin and going into labor to boot! (And they say romance is dead!) Finally, Billy saved Maury Povich the trouble of saying, “You are the father!” by admitting that he was indeed newborn Delia’s pop. Within weeks, Cane and Lily had tied the knot.
When Lily found out that Cane’s entire life as she knew it had been a lie — Phillip Chancellor, her ass! — she separated from him faster than oil does from water. But when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, whoever he was, he was by her side, holding her hand as she underwent a hysterectomy and had two eggs harvested.
As Lily’s death match with cancer intensified — to the point that biodad Malcolm Winters returned to Genoa City — pal Mac Browning agreed to carry to term her and Cane’s twins. Miraculously, despite his habit of bending the truth till it was close to snapping, the dad-to-be managed to avoid deportation long enough to see Charlie and Mattie born.
Cane and Lily’s new beginning came to an abrupt end when she learned that he’d been involved with cattle rustlers (no, really!) and the Mob (that just stands to reason after cattle rustlers, doesn’t it?). But, as she was developing a habit of doing, she decided to forgive him… right as he was murdered by his dad Colin Atkinson’s underworld associates. Or so it appeared…
Obviously, Cane wasn’t really dead; the deceased turned out to be his twin brother. (Everyone in Genoa City has a doppelganger, don’t ya know?) Despite the amazing second chance that was within reach, Lily was so ticked about having been deceived yet again that she divorced her husband. Then, as she’s historically been wont to do, she forgave him and, in this case, remarried him in France. Ya know, just for a change of pace!
While Tyler Michaelson nearly proved too tempting for newlywed LIly to resist, scheme queen Hilary Curtis attempted to seduce Cane for reasons other than… well, that she’d seen how attractive he was. Both of them failed. Ha! This marriage was built to last, suckers!
OK, maybe this marriage wasn’t built to last — not forever, anyway. Lily kicked Cane out yet again after she discovered that he’d known about her brother Devon Hamilton’s affair with stepmom Hilary — and while her husband Neil was blind, no less! To quote Maggie Smith in Murder by Death, oh, that’s tacky!
Under the impression that Cane had done more than merely kiss Lauren Fenmore, Lily slept with Joe Clark. A mistake on — wow — so many levels. Almost more levels than we even knew were levels. Not only was she wrong about the base that Cane had rounded with Lauren, she soon needed rescuing from her unstable lover by her on-again/off-again husband.
While on a business trip to Asia, Cane awakened from a night of exuberant drinking with colleague Juliet Helton with a wicked hangover — and a bun in her oven. All together now: Oh, Cane! Lily did her best to stand by her man, but in the end, she decided, erm, “No, you stand over there, and I’ll just, you know, be over here.” Hate to say we understood, but… we did.
After Juliet croaked — well, wasn’t that convenient! — Cane and Lily reunited, if only for the sake of their soon-to-be-blended family. It was not meant to be, though, it seemed. After Lily ran a red light while bickering with Hilary — oh, as if you don’t have hobbies! — the latter lost her life (as well as her and Devon’s child), and the former was sent up the river.
Lily had killed her brother’s wife and child. She was sad. She was in jail. And Cane… oh, Cane. He spent his time on the outside locking lips with Victoria Newman. Under other circumstances, it might have been a great career move — right, Ryan McNeil? — but under these, it was just a fast track to a divorce, after which Lily left Genoa City the same way that she had Cane.
When Lily returned to Genoa City after Cane’s departure, she took a job working with Billy. And what do ya know? After all those years, the sparks still flew — sparks the likes of which we hadn’t seen since Lily and Cane connected. Meanwhile, Cane hasn’t been seen in Genoa City since he took off to find Colin and perhaps introduce him to the kind of hot water in which he’d dunked his son. Can you say, “The time is right for Cane to return?” No? We’ll do it for you — because it so is!
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