Chapter 3
A month later Amanda It's not very easy watching the person you love playing boyfriend to your best friend and your best friend rubbing it in your face every chance she gets, Sabrina talks about Nathan all the time and it's annoying now. I've not gotten used to them dating and dating infront of me, also Nathan has gone from super touchy with me to straight up avoiding me and I think it's better that way, to think he did all of those things on my birthday knowing very well that he's dating Sabrina says a lot about him and his character Waking up today was a real struggle but I had to because it's writing season, and today we're writing Maths... I sighed looking at the time and I looked at myself in the mirror satisfied with my look I walked downstairs to find Dad and Mom already eating Mom:"Nathan is outside waiting for you" I frown Me:"Waiting for me? Why?" She sighed and shrugged her shoulders Mom:"I don't know, said something about taking you to school" no wonder Dad is calm, he knows someone is here to get me Me:"Okay, Good morning Dad" I kiss his cheek taking an apple and Banana in my way out Dad:"Have a blast !!!" He shouts behind me and I giggled walking out and immediately stop as I see Nathan's car, I shook my head and went over to his car I opened the back seat Me:"Good morning" I am already wondering what's happening because Sabrina is not here and I don't feel very comfortable with us two in the car and also this is the 1st time he picked me up without Sabrina... If he does pick me up, it's always with Sabrina but most times, Dad drives me school Nathan:"Come on the passenger side" Me:"I do not feel comfortable with that" true, that's Sabrina's place, he pinches the breech of his nose closing his eyes and groaned a bit Nathan:"Amanda" he calls out my name and my heart skips a beat as I feel my stomach drops and a bunch of butterflies play in it Me:"Okay" I whisper just enough for him to hear and I go seat in the front and he starts the car and drives off, I put my bag in my thighs and my hands on top of it and I close My eyes for a second and open them Nathan:"Are you okay?" I release a small nervous chuckle Me:"Yes" I opt to say because if I start talking I will ramble non stop Nathan:"how are the exams going?" he steals a look at me and I sigh Me:"Not bad" I shrugged feeling Myself calming down, he released a sigh also as he turned a corner and entered the school gate Nathan:"Sabrina and I had a fight" he says Me:"Oh?" I don't know what to say really, does he need to tell me that? Nathan:"It was about you" I turned to look at him with my brows furrowed, me? Me:"Me?" He parks the car in the student parking lot Nathan:"Yes" then he kept quiet, I figured he won't tell me more than that Me:"well thanks for the ride " I say and get out still thinking about what he just told me.... I sighed and began walking to my class refusing to be distracted before the test _ Sabrina ignored me for the whole day today, when I tried to talk to her, she just walked away with some girls... Means girls to be exact and I just shook my head Her and Nathan had a fight about me so I guess she's blaming me somehow? Anyway I am by the gate waiting for my mom when I hear my name being called behind me, I turn and it's Leonardo Me:"Hey" Leonardo:" Amanda, how are you?" Me:"I'm okay thank you " I smiled at him and be smiles back, Leonardo is one of the popular kids but he is humble I guess? Reason I'm saying that is because he doesn't use popularity in a bad way and he is actually a very nice person and I know he wants me, I might just give him a chance Leonardo:"Sooo Uhm school's ending in like a month" I nod thinking about my life decisions of going abroad Me:"Yeah" I say absentmindedly Leonardo:"So Uhm I was thinking, actually wondering if you would go on a date with me after the tests?" He asks me and I look up at him and smiled a little, it won't hurt experimenting right? I mean the one guy I wanted doesn't want me and is actually dating my friend and I've waited for him my whole life so I think it's best I just try out new things and see where that lands me Me:"Okay" I smiled a wide toothy grin and he smiled back at me Leonardo:"Thank you so much, you won't regret it" he says and hugs me taking me by surprise but I hug him back before he kisses my cheek and turns to run leaving me red as a tomato from blushing, he smells nice.... This doesn't sound right I scold myself before hearing that voice taking me back to reality once more "Amanda what are you doing with that boy" Gosh!!!CHAPTER 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