The chaos of the cliff faded into the distance as Serena sat rigidly in the leather seat of Nikolai's sleek black car. The engine roared to life, and the convoy of vehicles began to move, leaving Ethan behind amidst the turmoil.
Her gaze flicked to the side mirror, catching a fleeting glimpse of him standing frozen on the cliff. His figure grew smaller and smaller, swallowed by the night, until he was nothing but a memory in the rearview.
The silence in the car was suffocating.
Serena sat stiffly, her breath uneven, her pulse erratic. She could still feel the bite of the jagged rocks beneath her knees, the phantom sting of the wind whipping against her face. Her body ached from the struggle, but nothing compared to the weight crushing her chest.
A shift beside her. The brush of fabric. Heat.
Nikolai sat close-too close-his thigh barely an inch from hers. He wasn't looking at her, but his presence was impossible to ignore. One hand rested lazily on his knee, the other held his phone, his fingers moving over the screen with a slow, deliberate rhythm. Every motion was controlled, effortless, like a man who had already won.
A breath hitched in her throat as he moved slightly, the back of his knuckles grazing her arm in the smallest, most unintentional touch. Or maybe it wasn't unintentional at all.
She flinched. He didn't react.
The bodyguards followed closely in the cars behind them, their looming figures casting dark shadows through the tinted windows. There was no escape. Not anymore.
Serena's hands trembled as she clenched them into fists on her lap, nails digging into her palms. The sting barely grounded her.
How did it come to this?
She exhaled shakily, forcing herself to breathe. But the memories clawed their way back, relentless.
____Flashback: (Three months earlier.)_______
Serena sat in a quiet café, the warm scent of freshly brewed coffee curling in the air around her. It was her break day, a rare moment of peace she carved out for herself. She had tucked herself into a corner booth with a book in hand, savoring the simple comfort of unhurried morning.
But then he walked in, it was as if the air in the room shifted .
Nikolai Griffin.
He got her attention, with his presence that was impossible to ignore _ commanding, electric _ that's what his sharp suit said.
It was perfectly clung to his broad shoulders. his brunette skin glowing faintly under the sunlight streaming through the window. But it was the eyes that held her ,dark black, piercing, like they could strip away every layer of her pretense and see straight to her soul.
Her fingers froze mid-turn on the page. She forced her eyes back to her book, willing herself to ignore the magnetic pole of his presence.
She kept flicking over the words on the page, though she wasn't reading a single one.
Men like him don't belong to places like this, among soft morning chatter and the scents of cinnamon pastries.... No, he was something else entirely.
The quiet scrap of a chair across from her dragged her attention back up.
"Dr. DeLuca?!".
His voice was deep, smooth _ velvet over steel. The kind of voice that could slip into your dreams uninvited and linger long after.
Serena blinked, caught off guard, before tilting her head slightly , she noticed a bodyguard standing behind him ,she blinks again:" who's asking?".
"Just someone who's been looking to meet you ,mind if I sit first?"
YOU ARE READING
The Mistake
Romance"She gave her heart to a man she never truly knew. When she discovers the monster hiding beneath his love, it's already too late. Because he's decided-she's his, and there's no way out. ....That was her Mistake "
