PROLOGUE
290 Words
The hospital room smelled of antiseptic and regret.
Adrienne lay motionless in the narrow bed, eyes half-lidded, staring at the pale ceiling tiles that blurred in and out of focus. Every breath scraped through her like broken glass. Machines beeped steadily beside her, mocking how fragile she had become. Half dead. That’s what one of the nurses had whispered earlier when they thought she couldn’t hear.
She almost laughed at the irony, but even that hurt too much.
Where had it all gone wrong?
Was it her father? The man who taught her that love was something you had to earn through silence and perfection? The one whose shadow still lingered over every choice she made, even now?
Or was it the marriage? That beautiful, suffocating cage she had walked into willingly, chasing security and the illusion of being wanted? The ring that had once felt like a promise now felt like a chain that had slowly choked the life out of her.
She closed her eyes, tears slipping down her temples and into her hair.
Or maybe… maybe it had all started with her.
With one reckless night in London. With one arrogant, nameless stranger who f****d her like the world was ending and left her burning for more. With that single decision to let desire override caution. To step into his car, into his bed, into his life.
One night that should have been nothing.
One night that became everything.
Adrienne’s lips curved into a weak, bitter smile as the monitors continued their indifferent rhythm.
If she survived this, she would finally know the truth.
But right now, drifting between pain and darkness, only one thing felt certain:
It had all started in that nightclub. That darn nightclub.
- Writer
