Chapter one
Amanda Today I am turning 18 and I am finally an adult My name is Amanda Houston daughter of Sally Houston and Allesandro Houston and married for 19+ years I have a younger brother who is a 16 year old Matteo, we reside in Milan Italy and attending school there.... Well this is my last year and next year I'll be going to college, I've always dreamt of being a nurse and that's what I will be one day People look at me and assume that I get everything that I want and it's true but that doesn't make me a bad person I am still kind deep down Make up artist:"Okay we're done and you're out here looking like a damn Barbie doll" I smile and thank her, why hasn't Nathan seen this? I mean I am Hella beautiful everyone can see it but he don't - I won't ruin my day thinking about him, today is about me and I will be enjoying it the way I want _ I sigh and walk out my room to the stairs and I smile as my eyes land on my Dad first as he smiles up at me and Mom standing next to him, my eyes dart to Nathan and I instantly notice him holding Sabrina's hand, my heart skips a bit... It's jealousy but they're friends right? I mean one of them could've told me if they were dating right? I shake off my thoughts and continue to walk down and the first person to hug me is my Dad Dad:"You look beautiful princess" I smile even more, my Dad, my hero and my first love, if he doesn't love me like my Dad loves my mom then I don't want him Nom:"Oh Baby!" She pulls me into a hug and I laugh a little such a Drama Queen Matteo:"If you didn't look like mom I'd say you are ugly but then " he shrugs his shoulders and I scowl at him, he smiles and laughs a little pulling me into a hug Matteo:"I'm joking Big Sis, you look beautiful" he kisses my cheek Sabrina:"My turn!" She says and I look at her as she untangled he hand from Nathan and she hugs me too Sabrina:"I have some news I have to tell you" she whispers in my ear and my heart skips a bit over that but I brush it off as I nod Sabrina:"Anyway you My Lady are beautiful" she squealed and jumped up and down Nathan:"Come here sweet cheeks" he pulls to him and he burries his head at the nook of my neck and breaths out and I close my eyes feeling my body relax under his touch Nathan:"you smell nice" he whispers Nathan:"Like strawberry and honey" Dad:"That's enough" that's what it takes to wake me up from my trance and Nathan pulls back and smiles at me, somehow I feel Sabrina's eyes on me and I look at her and she's frowning, good Lord let it be nothing or I'll die _ We're seated around the table and we're all eating with conversations in between and Mom keeps glancing at me and Nathan, I give her a face and she looks away giggling which Dad notices and they start talking more like whispering and giggling like small kids, Nathan sitting opposite me with Sabrina on his side and on my side Matteo who's talking with Sabrina, they both have love for cars, they bonded over it and Nathan keeps fixing his glasses and checks his phone regularly as if he's waiting for something or rather someone, my heart drops at the though of "someone" what if him and Sabrina....? I'd die a million times My thoughts are interrupted when I feel a hot foot sliding up my legs and my eyes shot up to him, he's still looking down on his phone and I know he's doing this on purpose, I clear my throat a little and I swallow down nothing and I look around the table and everyone is minding thier own business,the foot continues to slide up my leg to my thighs which are shut tight at this moment, he tries to force his foot inside and I don't budge, he looks up at me and fixed his glasses again and raises one eyebrow as if to ask me "Why" I comply as I open my thighs a bit and his foot goes all the way to my cooxhie, I can feel the moist forming and as soon as his toes touch the base of my panties I take my drink and drink it watching him and he smiles at me going back to his phone, his big toe plays up and down my cooxhie and I sigh taking out my own phone Dad:"Princess" I look up at him, I can feel the heat on my face Dad:"Come" Nathan takes his foot out allowing me to stand up I go to Dad and he takes my hand leading me out side and the family follows behind Mom:"Matteo please lock the house behind you" I frown Me:"Where are we going?" Nathan:"It wouldn't be a surprise now no would it sweet cheeks?" I just rolled my eyes at him trying hard not to think about what he did to me under the tableCHAPTER 19Nathan didn’t sleep. He couldn’t.The walls of the penthouse closed in on him, tighter and tighter, as though the truth had taken shape and pressed against his chest like a vice. Sabrina was pregnant. And it might not even be his.He paced the living room with a whiskey glass in his hand, the amber liquid sloshing with every frustrated step. Outside, Milan was alive — cars moving, people dining, laughter echoing faintly through open windows. But inside him, everything was deathly quiet. The kind of silence that follows after a bomb.By midnight, Nathan had had enough.He needed air. Noise. Anything to shut off the storm in his head.He pulled on his jacket, left his phone on the counter, and walked into the night. He didn’t know where he was going until he got there — a sleek bar near the canal, dimly lit with a live saxophonist in the corner, the kind of place people went to forget. Perfect.He slid into a stool, ordered a scotch, and downed it like medicine.Then he saw h
CHAPTER 18Sabrina stared at the pregnancy test in her trembling hands.Positive.Again.The third stick this week. All three glowed with the same verdict, mocking her.She sank onto the cold bathroom floor, her knees pulled to her chest, heart galloping in panic. The early symptoms made sense now — the dizziness, the nausea, the way her clothes clung tighter around her waist. She had brushed them off as stress. God knew there was plenty of that in her life.But this?This was something else.She didn’t cry. Not yet. Her brain was too loud, her thoughts tangled like a pile of barbed wire.She was pregnant.And she didn’t know who the father was.Nathan?David?Two men on opposite ends of a war — and she was the battle field.Her stomach twisted violently, and she lunged for the toilet.---Two days passed.Sabrina hadn’t told anyone. Not Nathan, not David. Not even herself, reallyb— not in the way that made it real.She wandered around the pent house like a ghost, the glossy tiles col
CHAPTER 17A month had passed.Nathan barely noticed the days anymore. Each morning bled into the next, each night collapsed into sleeplessness or the stench of whiskey he didn’t even enjoy. His world had shrunk down to contracts, board meetings, silence, and the four walls of a penthouse he no longer considered a home.And Sabrina.Always Sabrina.She still haunted the place like smoke—always present, always suffocating.He sat in his home office one Thursday night, fingers rubbing at his temples as his screen glowed back with pending emails. He hadn’t seen Amanda in a month. Not even a glimpse.He couldn’t.Not after the way he’d ended things with her. Cold. Cruel. Deliberate. Necessary.At least that’s what he told himself.He hadn’t expected the hollowness that followed. He thought he’d be able to breathe with the secret buried again. Instead, every breath now scraped his lungs.Sabrina walked past the door, humming. She wore red lingerie beneath one of his button-ups, the fabric
CHAPTER 16The sun dipped low over Milan, casting golden light through Amanda’s bedroom window, but warmth had long left her heart.She sat by the edge of her bed, her fingers curled tightly around her phone. Nathan’s message still sat unread on the screen, a ghost waiting to be acknowledged. The tension in her chest was unbearable, like a scream lodged in her throat. When the door bell rang, she leapt up, heart hammering.She opened the door to find Nathan standing there, hands in his coat pockets, eyes shadowed.“Nathan…” her voice cracked. “Come in.”He stepped inside without a word. Something in his expression— cold, guarded — immediately set her on edge. She tried to read his body language, but the man before her looked like a stranger.She led him into the living room. “You said you’d explain. What’s going on? Why have you been distant?”Nathan didn’t sit. He stayed standing, looming. “I came to tell you this in person because I owe you that.”Amanda felt her stomach twist.He l
CHAPTER 15The silence in the room was so thick it could’ve been cut with a knife.Nathan stood near the window of his hotel suite, one hand on the glass, his mind spinning. Amanda’s scent still lingered on his shirt from earlier in the week— a cruel reminder of what he had almost had. What he still wanted.But Sabrina’s words echoed louder than anything else.“If you leave me, Nathan, I’ll ruin you. I’ll tell them everything.”He clenched his jaw.Behind him, Sabrina poured herself a glass of wine, moving with calm arrogance. She was wearing a silk robe, loosely tied at the waist, the hint of her smile smug and victorious."You really thought you could walk away clean, huh?" she asked sweetly, sipping her drink. “After everything I’ve done for you. After everything we’ve been through.”Nathan turned around sharply, his voice low and dangerous. "That wasn’t love, Sabrina. That was control."She chuckled softly, not even blinking. "Call it whatever you like. But don’t pretend I didn’t
Chapter 15The air in Milan was deceptively calm, as if the city were unaware of the storm unraveling behind closed doors.Amanda sat in her room, the early afternoon sun filtering through gauzy curtains. She stared at her journal, pages filled with emotions she couldn’t say aloud. Scribbles, dates, words she had scratched out only to write again.Nathan.His name appeared more than once. Sometimes next to angry phrases. Sometimes tender ones.She had thought the worst was over when he walked out on Sabrina.But the worst, she was realizing, had only just begun.---Nathan’s POVThe knock on the door was sharp. Urgent.Nathan knew before he opened it that it was her.Sabrina.She stood there, poised, manicured, dressed in her usual designer threads — but her eyes were wild."You're not answering my messages," she said, stepping in uninvited."Because I have nothing more to say," Nathan replied, stepping aside.She turned to him as he shut the door. "We’re not done. You can’t just leav