MY WORST NIGHTMARE.

EPISODE 5

LUCAS' POV

After cleaning the staircase and the down floor, I was so exhausted, I decided to rest for sometime before watering the grass beside the pool. I went to the servant quarters, which was where we're staying, when I got there, I heard some whimpering and sniffing, I opened the door and saw my mom on the bed in tears. when she saw me,she quickly cleaned her face and cleared her throat and said.

"Hey, you're back, I thought..."

"why are you crying?" I asked.

"I wasn't crying...."

"Mom come on, I saw you crying some minutes ago. what's wrong?"

" nothing.... I'm just missing your father" she stated. I knew that she was lying, she doesn't want me to find out.

" Mom...... I'm your son,you can tell me anything." she gave up and started crying the More, she said.

"it's... it's Margaret... again, she slapped me."

"what? why?"

"do you even have to ask?" she asked raising her right brow at me.

"don't worry Mom, we'll find a way out of all this shit." I hugged her tightly for long before she fell asleep in my arms.

I left my mom to sleep, although I was tired before but I'm not in the mood to sleep anymore. I was mad, I was furious, why would she do that to my mom, I wish I could get even for what she did to my mom.

I took the watering can to the pool to finish my work there, then I saw a petite figure in the pool with blonde hair flowing above the water. Vivian.

For a second I forgot to breathe. She looked like she belonged in some other life...sun on skin, laugh bubbling up like it had no owner. She was wearing a bikini; that thought should have been the end of everything sensible. Instead, the memory of my mother's tears pushed itself in front of whatever small heat had risen in my chest and I wiped the stupid smile from my face.

She glanced my way, startled, then...like she always does...she smiled. Not shy this time. Mischief lined the curve of her lips. A creepy, delicious smile that crawled up to her face and made me want to crawl in with it.

"Come swim with me," she said.

"No thanks," I lied and meant it with a kind of steel. "I'm here to work, not play a squid game with you."

She laughed, the sound bright. "What gentleman rejects an invitation from a noble princess?"

"Who said I'm a gentleman?" I muttered, turning back to the plants, letting the watering can hiss while I filled the flowerbeds. I could hear the echo of her movement in the water...small splashes, the whisper of hands through liquid. I kept my face to the hedge.

When I turned, she was already out of the pool. Water threaded down her shoulders, the bikini clinging to her like it had always been part of her. The sight of her...wet hair, the soft hollow at her throat, the easy sweep of her hips...hit me harder than I expected. I wasn't supposed to want this. I wasn't supposed to be undone by someone who should be untouchable.

"Like what you see?" she said, drifting me out of my trance.

I cleared my throat and tried to find a answer that wasn't a traitor. "No."

She stepped closer slowly, barefoot on the stones, droplets flashing in the sun. "You're lying."

"Maybe." The words came out small.

She stopped inches from me. It was too close. Too dangerous. But I didn't move.

Then she reached up...hands in my hair...soft, bold...and the first kiss landed on my neck. A light, teas ing press. The kind that made my spine ache and the world shift. Every kiss slid its heat along the line of my throat, and I felt like a glass about to crack.

"Vi-" I started, because excuses breed like rats.

"Don't be a chicken," she whispered, low, breath warm. "You are always so serious. For once...for once... let it be about something that feels good."

My head argued: you can't. You mustn't. Your mother. Your job. Sir Edward. Lady Margaret. The list was long and sharp.

Her lips found me again, insistent now. I wrapped my hands in her hair before I knew I had, pulling slightly, tasting the salt of the pool. She moaned...soft, stolen...and whatever sense I had left cracked.

"Please," she mouthed against my mouth. "No one will know."

"Vivian," I said, fingers tight at the base of her skull. "It's not...it's not that easy."

She looked up at me with those green eyes, that stubbornness, and suddenly all the reasons evaporated like mist. "If you don't want it, say it," she said. "But don't stand there pretending you don't want me."

"I don't want to ruin your life." My voice was a whisper even to me. "I don't want to ruin my mum's."

Her face softened, then hardened. "Then we be careful."

"Be careful is a word that doesn't do much in this house," I told her. "They watch everything."

"So we sneak," she smiled. "We are clever. We keep it just for ourselves. A little delicious secret."

She stepped closer and kissed me properly then...not on the neck, not a tease...but that full, claiming kiss that made me see stars. My mouth opened, my hands forgot caution. For a breath we were reckless and hers and I leaned into the dangerous taste of forbidden.

I could hear the world at the edges...distant call of a footman, the clink of china...but inside that stolen second there was nothing but us.

Then a noise to the left...sharp, a heel on stone...and the blood drained from my face.

I froze.

Vivian's eyes darted. She made a single small sound, half-laugh, half-hiss. She pressed her forehead to mine, smiling, whispering into my ear like we were conspirators.

"Go," she breathed. "If she comes... hide. Play the part. I'm not stupid, Lucas Salvador."

My feet moved like a puppet. I stepped back, hands still in her hair, wanting to drag her with me. She broke from my grip and started to wrap a towel around herself.

From the corner of my eye I saw a figure move past the far hedge...Margaret, perhaps on her way to one of the greenhouses. She was a black s***h through the light; she walked fast and unbothered. For a single breath I thought she had seen us. My chest locked up, panic and the scissors-sharp fear of losing everything rushed me.

Vivian moved like smoke...quick, practiced. She seized a pare of slippers and walked away...no panic, nothing. She looked back once, a grin that was half promise, half incitement. The sort of grin that got men in trouble.

"We'll see each other again," she said. Not loud. Not a shout. Just a vow, soft as silk.

I wanted to stay there and gather the pieces of that sentence like a talisman. I wanted to tell her I would wait. I wanted to tell her I'd leave tomorrow and come back with pockets full of something that might buy her a life.

But all I managed was a small nod. My voice had packed its bags and left.

After she left, I stood alone near the pool. The watering can was spilling in a small, steady drip. The sun felt like a lamp over a stage. I could feel the imprint of her mouth along my neck like a brand.

I should have hated her. I should have hated the way she toyed with my life and my mother's. I should have been furious that her laughter could drown my Mum's tears. Instead, my thoughts crowded with images...her walking away with a towel, the way her shoulder blades moved under wet skin, that laugh when she called me a coward.

You'd think that knowing the cost would be enough to push desire away. But desire is a thief. It takes what it wants and doesn't apologize.

I kept picturing that grin as the sun slid lower. The house hummed behind me, servants moving in their small worlds, but for me everything had narrowed to the echo of her voice. We'll see each other again.

There was nowhere safe to put that sentence, nowhere I could tuck it and forget. It sat in my pocket, warm. I tried to make sense of it. To plan. To count the cost like coins.

My mother. My job. A roof. A future that was small and honest. Versus a laugh and a kiss and a night that might be fire.

I walked slowly, almost ritual-like, watering the last beds because work was the only thing that steadied my hands. I set the can down and leaned my forehead against the cool stone of the pump. I could still feel the salt of her lip on mine.

"Get a grip, Lucas," I told myself, because words sometimes do for the heart what hands cannot. "Get her out of your head."

I walked away, but every step echoed like her name.

By night, the images kept returning...the way she looked in the water, the reckless promise in her voice. I tried to scrub it away in the sink, but the mirror only returned the same haunted look. My fingers still smelled faintly of pool salt and perfume.

I closed my eyes but instead of sleep, I imagined her...making plans, laughing...coming back.

The thought felt like a bell in my chest.

I didn't want to lose her.

And that scared me more than Margaret's wrath ever had.