visible force she couldn't escape. The air between them was charged with an intensity that left her breathless, and the soft hum of

mething else. A mix of curiosity, perhaps, or maybe something far more complicated. It was gentle, almost tender, but there

taste of the air between them. She didn't know how to react to him. He had been her tormentor for the past two years-her thesis supe

or she had despised. He was not the cold, calculating man who had crushe

now, almost a whisper. "But you don't have to do this.

r. She had expected disgust, judgment, even anger-but not this. Not this strange, understanding tone. I

thing that might have been regret, or perhaps even empathy. The world she had constructed in her mind about him,

single word hanging between them like a plea. "Why are you

rying to peel away the layers of her soul. "Helping you?" he repeated. "I'm not helping you, Serena. I'm showing you the truth. Yo

, pretending that somehow, she could outrun her failures, her mistakes. But now, standing here, it felt

acknowledge something she refused to see. "That selling yourself is the only option you have

u know me?" she spat, the words escaping before she could stop them. "You think you understand what

lightly, his gaze never wavering. The air seemed to crackle with the intensity of their exchange, as

out you to know that this-this isn't you. This isn't the woman I've watched for the past two years, fighting f

y hit her harder than any insult or rejection ever had. He was right-she was desperate, and that desperation ha

upposed to do? What oth

ike an insurmountable obstacle, the promises she'd made to herself about finding a way out-but none of it seemed to ma

ed, the words more to herself than to him.

make choices, Serena. And sometimes, those choices are made for us." He took another step toward her, his voice lower

er-something she hadn't felt in a long time. Hope. Hope that maybe, just maybe, there was another way out of this hell. Ho

looked down at the floor, ashamed of herself for even allowing

y lifting her gaze to meet his a

r left hers, though there was something unreadabl

replied at last, his voice barely a

w felt fragile, as though they might crumble under the weight of his words and his presence. It was as if

cted man who seemed to see through all the walls she had built around herself. The man who had

on, Serena knew-this w