Chapter 3–Unwanted Gravity❤️
757 Words
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📖 CHAPTER THREE — Unwanted Gravity
Elena told herself that Adrian Vale would get bored.
He was rich. Spoiled. Handsome enough to have a line of supermodels ready to sign up for lifelong devotion. A waitress from the wrong side of the city shouldn’t even be a blip on his radar.
So the fact that he was now showing up three nights in a row was either:
A) proof that God had a sense of humor,
or
B) definitive evidence that Elena was cursed.
Milo voted for A. Kara voted for B.
Elena voted for moving to another country.
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The Worst Timing in History
She was balancing three plates, weaving through a maze of expensive shoes and loud laughter, when she heard it:
“Elena.”
His voice.
Of course it was his voice.
She closed her eyes. “Not now,” she begged the universe. “Just give me ten minutes without him looking at me like—”
“Like what?” Adrian said from right behind her.
Elena jumped so violently one of the plates wobbled.
She whirled around. “Can you not sneak up on people? You’re six-foot-something! You should make noise!”
He blinked, amused. “I’ll work on stomping.”
“You should.”
“And maybe jingling.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you mocking me?”
“Not at all,” he said. “You’re far too entertaining to mock.”
Entertaining.
Great. She was a Netflix subscription now.
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The Gravity Problem
“Shouldn’t you be in a meeting?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady and mildly failing. “Or running the world? Or buying small countries?”
“I had lunch earlier,” he said casually.
“That didn’t answer the question.”
“It wasn’t meant to.”
Tension.
Warm, buzzing, wholly inappropriate tension.
“Adrian,” she said firmly, “you can’t keep coming here—”
“You could just say you don’t want me to.”
Silence.
He said it softly. Not arrogant. Not teasing.
Just honest.
And Elena hated how much that got to her.
“I don’t want you to get… the wrong idea,” she said carefully.
“What would the wrong idea be?”
“That I’m interested.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
He smiled slowly. “You’re lying.”
The man had nerve. Audacity. Gall.
And a stupidly perfect jawline that wasn’t helping.
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Unwanted Audience
Kara passed behind Elena and whispered, “I’m betting twenty dollars you kiss him within a month.”
“Get away from me,” Elena hissed.
Kara winked and fled.
Adrian’s smile deepened. “Your coworkers seem to like me.”
“They like chaos,” Elena said. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Then maybe I’m just in the right place.”
“You’re in the most expensive restaurant in the city,” she pointed out. “Hardly the right place for chaos.”
“You’d be surprised.”
His eyes slid to hers — direct, steady, unnervingly sincere.
And for a moment, Elena saw the weight behind him.
The exhaustion beneath the polished exterior.
The look of a man who didn’t choose the world he lived in, but was trapped in it anyway.
Her heart stuttered.
She hated that it stuttered.
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The Almost-Moment
“Elena!” someone barked from the kitchen.
She jolted, breaking the moment that had stretched between them like a too-tight wire.
“I have to work,” she said quickly.
“Of course,” Adrian replied, stepping aside with an elegance that made her want to shove him a little. “But—”
She stopped. “But what?”
He hesitated.
It was the first time she had ever seen him unsure.
“But I’d like to talk to you when your shift ends.”
Her pulse spiked.
“I’m not meeting you after work,” she said.
“You could.”
“I won’t.”
“You might.”
“Absolutely not.”
He smiled. “I’ll take that as a maybe.”
She huffed, whirled around, and nearly dropped all three plates because every nerve in her body felt like it was vibrating.
She didn’t look back.
But she felt him watching.
Or maybe she just felt that strange pull again — not attention, not interest.
Gravity.
And she knew, with dawning dread, that it was only getting stronger.
- Writer
