Chapter 2

"Ryan?" I choked out his name, my balance entirely gone as I swayed on my feet.

Jenna stepped in front of me with a mocking laugh, pulling out her phone and searching up a clip to show the entire room.

"Wow, I was wondering why this performance looked so convincing," she sneered. "Turns out our drama queen starred in an indie medical short film last year, playing a patient with a severe allergic reaction. Talk about a masterclass in acting, sweetie."

Ryan’s face darkened instantly.

He shot me a piercing, furious glare, slamming his hand onto the table. "Isabella, enough! Are you ever going to stop? Everyone gathered here tonight to celebrate me making junior partner at the city’s top firm. Can you show some damn respect for once?"

I lay on the floor, my entire face contorting in sheer agony. I didn't even have the breath to answer him as my consciousness began to drift.

"Get up!" Ryan barked, his pride clearly wounded. He grabbed a plate with a slice of the heavy, walnut-and-peanut-crusted celebration cake from the table and shoved it right in front of my face. "Get off the floor, apologize to Jenna, and eat this. Show everyone you can be a team player. Now."

Jenna smiled beautifully, her voice dripping with artificial pity as she squatted down beside me. "Look, Isabella, Ryan went out of his way to offer you a piece of his success. If you don't eat it, you're just being petty. Be a grown-up."

She paused, looking at me with a dangerous, knowing glint in her eyes. "Oh, I get it. You're too busy commitment-acting to feed yourself, right? Don't worry, darling. Let me help you."

She signaled to Ryan’s sycophantic colleagues from the law firm. They caught on instantly, pinning my arms to the floor and forcing my jaw open.

"Mph... no!"

I thrashed in pure terror, but it was useless. I could only watch through blurred eyes as she broke off a massive, nut-heavy chunk of the cake and forcefully shoved it down my throat.

The contaminated crumbs hit my hyper-sensitive system like gasoline on a wildfire. Within seconds, my limbs went completely numb. My heart rate spiked into a chaotic, lethal rhythm, and my chest seized so violently that I tasted the terrifying reality of true suffocation.

I stared up at Ryan, my eyes wide with a desperate, silent plea. Save me... please...

He gave me a look of pure disgust and scoffed. "It's just a piece of cake, Isabella. Stop being so dramatic. Do you really think I’d let things go too far if you were actually dying?"

He turned away from me, lifting a fresh glass of champagne to toast his colleagues. "Ignore her, guys. She doesn't know how to behave in civilized company. This night is about us."

One of the junior associates laughed, looking at the tier-cake on the counter. "Come on, Ryan, a man of your status shouldn't let a gorgeous girl like Jenna celebrate without a proper bite. Why don't you two share the cake?"

Everyone's eyes turned to Ryan and Jenna. To them, my life-or-death struggle on the floor was nothing but a pathetic background performance.

Ryan smiled, breaking off a piece of the rich, frosted cake and feeding it directly to Jenna. "Honestly, Isabella is committed so hard to this little death-scene act that if I try to give her another bite, she might actually pretend to faint. Let's not waste the mood. Jenna, open up."

He fed her with sickening intimacy. A bit of the white frosting smeared at the corner of Jenna's lips. Blushing under the attention, she giggled. Ryan leaned down, his thumb gently wiping the sweet cream away before licking it off his own finger, his eyes locking onto hers.

Jenna closed her eyes, leaning into him completely as the crowd erupted into cheers. "Get a room, you two!"

Looking at them, my heart went utterly dead.

My throat was closing up rapidly, burning like fire from the peanuts. Desperate for anything to wash the poison down, I crawled toward a stray glass of water on the lower shelf of a nearby cart. My fingers trembled as I reached for it, a pathetic, silent plea for survival.

Just a sip... please...

Before my hand could touch the glass, Jenna’s foot shot out, kicking the glass away. It shattered across the floor, the water soaking into the carpet just inches out of my reach.

"Oops, my bad," she scoffed, looking down at my miserable, soaking wet form with absolute disdain.

Through my hazy vision, I noticed the allergy spray bottle near her feet. Driven by a primal urge to survive, I dragged my agonizing body toward it.

But just as my fingers touched the plastic, Jenna’s stiletto heel came down hard, grinding the packet into the floorboards.

"Oh look, she’s finally breaking character because she can't stand seeing us together," Jenna yelled, making sure her voice carried across the room.

"Isabella, you are an absolute embarrassment," Ryan snapped, turning his back on me in disgust.

Jenna reached down and grabbed a handful of my hair, violently ripping my head back to force me to look at her. Her face twisted into a vicious, unhinged smile as she hissed in a low, threatening whisper:

"Stop the act, Isabella. Admit it. Tell everyone right now that you're just faking it for attention, or I'll make sure you really regret tonight."