Ok I think u guys curse me and keifer enough so....read this...
The back garden was a graveyard of shadows, the grass tall and untrimmed, a sharp contrast to the perfection of the front estate.
Jay stumbled through the overgrowth, her vision a smear of salt and darkness.
She didn't stop until she reached the old stone fountain, where the dim LED lights cast a cold, flickering blue glow over the water.
Her strength finally gave out.
With a heavy thud, her knees hit the dirt.
She didn't care about the mud staining the expensive silk of her gown.
She didn't care about the thorns that had snagged her hair.
She simply collapsed, burying her face in her palms as the sobs tore through her chest, raw and uncontrollable.
"Why..."
she choked out, her voice cracking against the silence of the night.
"Why does it always happen to me?"
Every painful memory she had tried to bury came rushing back, hitting her harder than the sight of Nicole.
She saw her mother's face, the birthday candles that had flickered out far too soon, and the cold, empty silence of a home that never wanted her.
"Don't I deserve... any happiness?"
she muttered between gasps for air, her shoulders shaking violently.
"Maybe not. I lost my parents... I lost my friends... I lost my house. And now...
.... now I've lost Keifer too."
She curled into herself, her forehead resting against the cold, damp stone of the fountain.
The weight of her own history felt like a physical burden, pressing her down into the earth.
"Maybe... I'm really just unlucky,"
she whispered, her breath hitching in a jagged, broken rhythm.
"A girl like me... I don't deserve love.
I was never meant to have it."
The wind rustled the unkempt bushes behind her, but Jay didn't move.
She just sat there in the dirt, a broken girl in a beautiful blue dress, waiting for the night to swallow her whole.
Suddenly the faint hum of the LED lights vanished, leaving Jay in a void so absolute she couldn't even see her own hands pressed against her face.
Everything went dark, watson estate face an electricity cut at a very wrong time.
Her breath hitched, snagging in her throat like a jagged stone.
The trauma she had spent years trying to outrun came screaming back.
The darkness wasn't just a lack of light; it was the memory of the night her world ended.
It was the cold silence of a house that had lost its heart. It was the feeling of being small, alone, and completely forgotten.
"No... no... please not now,"
she sobbed, her voice barely a whisper as she curled into a ball on the damp grass.
Her chest felt like it was being crushed by an invisible weight.
"Not now... when... when I am already too weak... please."
But the panic didn't listen.
It surged through her veins, turning her blood to ice.
Her heart hammered so violently against her ribs that it made her dizzy.
The world began to tilt.
She couldn't see anything.
She couldn't hear the wind.
She couldn't even feel the ground beneath her knees anymore.
I'm disappearing, she thought, her mind spinning into a black hole.
There's nothing left.
She tried to push herself up, to find something—anything—to hold onto.
She managed to stumble to her feet for a fraction of a second, her muddy blue gown heavy around her ankles.
But the dizziness won.
Her knees buckled, and she began to fall forward into the endless, terrifying black.
She braced for the impact of the cold stone fountain or the hard earth.
But it never came.
Instead of the cold ground, she felt a pair of strong, familiar arms wrap around her waist, catching her just inches before she hit the dirt.
She was pulled back, hard and fast, against a chest that was rising and falling with a panic that matched her own.
The scent of sandalwood and rain—the scent she knew better than any other—filled her senses, cutting through the fog of her panic attack.
"I've got you," a voice broke through the darkness, raw and desperate.
"Jay, I've got you. Breathe. Just breathe for me."
Keifer's arms tightened around her, his hands trembling as he held her close, as if he were trying to pour his own strength into her collapsing body.
______________-----------__________
~Flashback~
Keifer stood in the middle of the grand hallway, finally alone after Sophia had practically dragged a protesting Nicole toward the guest wing.
He let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding for years, but it didn't bring him any relief.
Instead, his chest felt like it was being constricted by an iron band.
Being near Nicole again hadn't sparked an old flame—it had sparked a bitter, burning regret.
As he stood there, memories of his school days began to flood back.
He saw his younger self—the "Golden Boy" everyone expected him to be—walking through the halls with Nicole on his arm.
He thought about how much time he had wasted on someone so shallow, someone who saw people as chess pieces rather than human beings.
Nicole was a reminder of a life he wanted to bury.
She represented the cold, transactional world of the Watsons—a world that Jay, with her soft heart and messy hair, was currently saving him from.
The thought of Jay hit him like a physical blow.
He had left her alone for too long.
He had let her see him with the one person who represented everything she feared she wasn't.
"Jay," he whispered, the regret in his heart turning into a sharp, urgent panic.
He needed to tell her that the "Golden Boy" from his past was dead, and that the man he was now only belonged to her.
He turned and began to stride toward their room.
"Keifer!"
He turned and see Sophia, her arms crossed and her eyes flashing with a protective anger.
He raised a brow, "What happened?"
"What happened to me? What is that witch doing here?"
Sophia hissed, gesturing toward the guest wing where she had just dumped Nicole.
Keifer sighed, a sound of pure exhaustion.
"You're asking like you don't know, Soph. She's the Mayor's daughter. We need his signatures for the new development project. It's business."
"Business is one thing,"
Sophia stepped closer, her voice dropping to a fierce whisper.
"But why was she clinging to you like that? And why weren't you saying anything? You just stood there!"
"What was I supposed to say?"
Keifer snapped back, his jaw tightening.
He knew the truth.
If he had opened his mouth in that moment, if he had let out the years of resentment and disgust he felt for Nicole, he wouldn't have been able to stop.
He would have caused a scene that would have destroyed the contract and his family's reputation in seconds.
"Do you really forget what she did to you?"
Sophia asked, her voice softening but staying sharp.
"What she did to your friends? To Yuri?"
Keifer's gaze darkened.
"I remember, Soph. I haven't forgotten a single thing."
The memories hit him like a physical weight.
Back in high school, he had been the "Golden Boy" who thought he had everything.
He had liked Nicole with a naive, genuine heart.
But Nicole hadn't wanted Keifer; she had only used him as a stepping stone to get closer to his best friend, Yuri.
She had played them both like chess pieces.
She started dating Yuri behind Keifer's back, whispering lies to keep them apart.
And when the truth finally exploded, she didn't apologize.
She had simply bridge the gaps of hatred between the two best friends and hopped on a flight to London, leaving their friendship in ruins and Keifer's heart shattered into a million pieces.
He had spent years repairing his bond with Yuri, but the scar from Nicole's betrayal was still there.
"I know what she is," Keifer said, his voice cold as ice.
"I know better than anyone that she doesn't have a heart."
"Then go to Jay," Sophia said, pointing toward his door.
"Before that 'business' cost you the only person who actually cares about the man behind the money."
Keifer didn't need to be told twice.
He turned away from Sophia, his pace quickening as he headed for his room, desperate to put the past behind him and find the girl who actually made him feel human.
Keifer strode toward his room, his mind finally clear of the party's noise.
But in the guest suite just a few feet away, Nicole was weaving a different kind of web.
She stood in the center of her room, listening to the rhythm of his footsteps.
A cold, calculating smirk crossed her face.
She didn't want the Mayor's contract—she wanted the power of being a Watson again, and she hated that a "nobody" like Jay had taken her place.
"I'll destroy the part of you that's still standing," she whispered to the empty room.
She went into the bathroom and emerged a minute later, wrapped in nothing but a thin white hotel towel.
She deliberately left the heavy oak door ajar, just a few inches, so the light would spill into the hall.
Then, she let out a sharp, panicked scream.
Keifer froze.
Every instinct told him to keep walking, but the sound was loud enough to wake the whole house.
Fearing she had actually hurt herself.
"Nicole? What happened?"
he demanded, staying by the door, his eyes cold and distant.
Nicole turned, her eyes wide with fake tears.
She stepped toward him, her voice dropping into that low, manipulative purr.
"I slipped... I thought I broke something. Oh, Keifer, thank God you're here."
"If you're fine, I'm leaving," he said, turning to go.
"Wait!"
she cried, her voice sharpening.
"You can't just walk away from me. You were mine first, Keifer. You'll be mine again.
That little girl you're with? She doesn't belong in this world. I'm the one who matches you."
Keifer turned back, his expression like granite.
"Nicole. I'm not the boy you shattered in high school.
I love Jay. For the first time in my life, I'm actually happy, and it has nothing to do with people like you."
Nicole's face shifted.
She saw the iron resolve in his eyes and realized her threats weren't working.
She suddenly slumped her shoulders, looking small and defeated.
"I... I'm sorry,"
she whispered, stepping closer, her voice trembling with a fake apology.
"I shouldn't have left for London like that. I shouldn't have hurt you and Yuri. I was young and scared. Can you ever forgive me?"
She reached out, her fingers grazing his arm.
Keifer flinched, but she didn't let go.
She looked up at him, her expression shifting into a triumphant, predatory smirk.
"You spent so much time with her and without me,"
she whispered, her voice a low, venomous purr that seemed to echo in the small room.
"But I am here now."
Before Keifer could process the words or the sudden change in her tone, Nicole deliberately tripped over the edge of the plush rug.
As she went down, she threw her arms around his neck, using her full weight to pull him off balance.
Keifer stumbled, his hands instinctively reaching out to catch her—or to push her away—but the momentum was too much.
They tumbled onto the bed together.
In an instant, Nicole scrambled on top of him, her towel loosening as she pinned him down with her body, her damp hair falling over his face like a curtain.
"Get off me!"
Keifer hissed, his hands grabbing her shoulders to shove her away.
But the words died in his throat.
Over Nicole's shoulder, he saw the door, which she had deliberately left slightly ajar.
It was pushed open just a fraction more, and standing there, framed by the cold light of the hallway, was
Jay.
She looked small and fragile in her midnight-blue gown.
Her face was deathly pale, and her eyes were wide, filled with a look of such deep, agonizing betrayal that it felt like a knife to Keifer's heart.
A single, hot tear rolled down her cheek, followed by another, and then a flood.
"Jay..." Keifer breathed, his voice a broken, desperate rasp.
He tried to throw Nicole off, but Jay didn't wait for an explanation.
She didn't wait for him to stand up.
She saw the towel, she saw the bed, and she heard the echo of Nicole's "I am here now."
The heart that Jay had just spent last hour trying to find the courage to offer him was shattered in a single second.
She turned around, her blue dress fluttering like a broken wing, and disappeared into the shadows of the hallway.
Keifer finally managed to shove Nicole onto the floor, his eyes blazing with a murderous fury.
"If you ever come near me or her again,"
he growled, his voice trembling with rage,
"I will destroy everything your father has ever built."