Chapter 3
1170 Words
The Woman in the Greenhouse
The diary’s words bled into me long after I should have been asleep.
Day Two: I saw her in the greenhouse.
Day Three: I will try to run.
It wasn’t my handwriting. But it might as well have been—my thoughts, my fear, laid bare on the page before I could even think them. By morning, I had convinced myself it was a dream. The human mind, when it wants to survive, invents lies to comfort itself. I wrapped myself in them like a blanket. But when I reached beneath my pillow, the diary was still there. Cold. Waiting.
--- Craig was already in the gardens when I found him, sleeves rolled up, trimming the thorns off a vine. The sight was disarming—this man, so precise and ruthless in his business empire, tending to flowers like fragile children.
“Morning,” he said smoothly, glancing up. “You look pale.”
I forced a smile. “Didn’t sleep well.”
“Nightmares?”
“Something like that.”
His gaze lingered on me, sharp enough to peel away layers of my excuses. Then, without pressing, he extended his hand. “Walk with me.”
The path wound toward the greenhouse again. Every step closer tightened my chest, but I told myself to breathe, to act normal. If he suspected I’d been there last night…
We stopped just outside the door. Craig’s hand grazed my arm, almost protective, almost possessive.
“This place holds memories,” he said quietly. “Some sweet. Some bitter. That’s why I told you not to come here alone.”
My pulse skipped. He knew.
“Memories of what?” I asked, my voice too sharp.
His jaw flexed, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he unlocked the greenhouse and pushed the door open. “If you insist on knowing… then see for yourself.”
--- The air inside was thick, humid, heavy with the scent of soil and decay beneath sweetness. Sunlight filtered through cracked panes, painting fractured light across tangled vines.
And then I saw them.
Photographs.
Pinned along the wooden beams, tucked into leaves, resting against clay pots—women’s faces staring back at me. Smiling, radiant, beautiful. Each photograph had a date scrawled underneath in neat black ink. None of the dates stretched beyond a year. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
“Who are they?” I whispered.
Craig didn’t look at the photographs. His gaze stayed fixed on me. “Women who once walked this island. Women who thought paradise could last forever.”
“And what happened to them?”
“Paradise,” he said softly, “is always fleeting.”
My throat closed. I stumbled back, my heel striking something on the floor. I looked down—and froze.
A diary. The leather cover was warped with moisture, but the pages inside were intact. I opened it, heart pounding.
"He loves me. He swears he’ll keep me forever. But forever is shorter than you think".
The handwriting was feminine. Curved. Terrified.
My vision swam. I slammed the diary shut. “Why are you showing me this? To scare me? To—”
His hand shot out, catching mine before I could throw the book away. His grip was firm, unyielding.
“Adele.” His voice was steady, almost pleading. “I didn’t want you to see this. Not yet. But you don’t trust me, do you? So what choice do I have but to let you drown in the truth?”
The truth. That word again. It tasted like poison on my tongue.
I yanked my hand free. “Tell me you didn’t hurt them. Tell me these aren’t—aren’t women you…”
The word killed stuck in my throat.
Craig’s face hardened. For the first time since I met him, the mask of control cracked. A shadow of pain flickered in his eyes.
“I loved them,” he said hoarsely. “Every single one. And still… they left me.”
The way he said it chilled me. As though leaving him wasn’t a choice they had made, but a fate they couldn’t escape.
He stepped closer, backing me against the glass wall. The humid air clung to my skin. His presence filled the space, suffocating, intoxicating.
“You want to know the worst part?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “No matter how many times I swore never again… I found myself falling. Again. And now…” His hand brushed my cheek, trembling. “Now it’s you.”
I should have screamed. Should have run.
Instead, traitorously, my body leaned into his touch. His thumb traced my jawline with aching reverence, as though he worshipped and mourned me all at once.
“If you don’t trust me,” Craig murmured, his lips inches from mine, “then at least trust how you feel when I touch you.”
And God help me—when his mouth claimed mine, the world dissolved. His kiss wasn’t soft. It was desperate, consuming, the kiss of a man clinging to his last tether. And I—fool that I was—kissed him back.
--- By the time I stumbled back to my room, the sun was setting. My lips still burned with the memory of his. My mind was a storm.
Was he a monster? Or was he a man cursed by grief, haunted by loss?
The diary on my nightstand didn’t care.
Because the words on its page had changed.
Day Three: She will try to escape the island.
My breath caught. The book had updated itself, as if mocking my confusion.
Shaking, I clutched the diary and whispered into the silence of my room:
“Who’s writing this?”
No answer. Only the echo of my voice bouncing back.
--- That night, sleep refused to come. The prediction on the page pulsed in my brain like a ticking clock.
Escape.
The idea burrowed under my skin until I couldn’t ignore it. If the diary was prophecy, I wanted to test it. Could I outwit fate? Could I rewrite my story?
I rose from bed, silent as a shadow, and padded toward the shoreline. The moon cast silver ribbons over the waves. In the distance, the dock stretched into the water like a lifeline. Maybe there would be a boat. Maybe I could steal it.
But when I reached the dock, my hope shattered.
The boats were gone. Every single one. My stomach dropped. Someone had known.
My footsteps faltered back toward the mansion. I needed answers. I needed to confront him. But when I opened my bedroom door, Craig was already there.
Sitting in my chair.Holding the diary.
The flicker of lamplight carved shadows across his face, rendering him half angel, half devil.
“You weren’t supposed to read ahead,” he said softly, flipping the book shut.
The sound of the cover snapping closed was louder than thunder.
---Craig knows I read ahead, making him more ominous.
- Writer
