Second Chance With Dr. Dreamy

Chapter Three

Ninas pov-

But then Maxine and Alex’s frightened gasps were audible as I heard Selene spit out venomous words and their little bodies cower behind my couch as their mother’s voice echoed through my apartment. “You think you can hide? You b***h! f*****g c**k sucker,” Selene spat. Her assistant Mike stood silently by her side, a presence that only heightened the danger. The children’s fear ignited something fierce in my chest, a protective rage that drowned out my panic. I moved a step ahead to protect the kids, my heart pounding but my voice steady.

"Get out, Selene," I said in a quiet but firm tone. “You’re not taking them.”

Maxine whimpered, there with Alex, who had put his head in his stuffed dinosaur. Selene narrowed her eyes, her manicured nails digging into her palms. “You have the gut to tell me how to deal with my children?” she hissed, taking a step nearer. “You’re just a pathetic nurse looking to snoop around my husband!”

Her words hurt, but I wasn't about to back down. “You are a horrible mother,” I fired back, starting to raise my voice. “You abducted children, Selene! They locked them in a room and scared them half to death just to get to Daniel. You don’t give a good goddamn about Maxine and Alex — you’re just using them to control him!” My hands were shaking but I didn’t back down.

Selene’s face contorted, her beauty deformed by anger. “You b***h!” she shouted, her voice reverberating around the walls. “You wrecked my home taking Daniel from me behind my back! I’ll bring you down, Nina Hartley. The entire hospital is going to hear what a homewrecker you are!” She raised a stabbing finger. Mike moved, eyes flitting between us, but he didn’t step in.

I took a step closer, my tone ringing with anger. “You do not get to play the victim here,” I said. “Daniel loves me, Selene. He has loved me longer than you can bear, and you know it. You have manipulated him, lied about him to keep him bound. You feigned illnesses for your dumb little internet attention, and said I was stealing to manipulate me and turn people against me, and now you’re using your kids. You’re the monster — not me!”

The truth came out — raw and unfiltered, the years of watching her be so mean to Daniel and kids like him, behind every word. Maxine’s small hand reached out and touched mine lightly from behind, and I straightened, refusing to allow Selene’s poison to infect me.

Selene gasped, and her face turned red at my words. For an instant I thought she might lunge at me. I tensed, prepared to die to shield those kids. But then, something shifted. Her lips twisted into a cold, calculating smirk, and her green eyes glowed with a new kind of maliciousness. She c****d her head, and her voice turned to a chilling purr.

“Oh, Nina,” she said in a mocking voice. “You’re so brave, aren’t you? But can you tell me if the court trial is soon?”

My thoughts raced to interpret her taunt. Court trial? What was she planning now? Mike, stood idly by her side, a passive threat. I gripped the doorframe harder, my heart racing and I tried to keep my voice even. “What do you mean, Selene?”

She didn’t answer right away. No, she withdrew her phone instead, her long, manicured nails clicking against the screen with purposeful accuracy. “Oh, Nina, you’re so innocent,” she purred, pivoting the phone toward me. I couldn’t catch my breath as a video rolled, the grainy picture grainy and unmistakable — me and Daniel in his office, the kiss unselfconscious and incomplete, my hands in his hair and his arms around me. My stomach fell out of me and the world skewed out from under me. The video cut to photographs: Daniel and me hand in hand in a stairwell, his lips against my forehead outside the hospital. I tightened my hold on the doorframe, my knees threatening to fold, and my mind spinning. How? How had she gotten these?

Selene's grin widened, her tone smug. “You both thought you were so brilliant, skulking around like a pair of love struck teenagers. You actually thought I wasn’t going to find out? I have people watching you, Nina— people that are a lot closer than you can imagine!” Her words were a blow and I recoiled, my mind swirling with the hospital, with the rumor that haunted me for months. Aria’s oblivious revelation of my crush on Daniel burned through my mind. Has she betrayed me further?

“What do you want, Selene?” I asked, my voice shaking but full of defiance. “What on earth are you going to do with that video?” My gaze darted to Maxine and Alex, their tiny forms huddled behind the couch, Alex hugging his dinosaur, Maxine’s eyes wide and glued to their mother. I needed to protect them, protect them from Selene luring them back into her plans.

Selene laughed. “What do I want? Oh, Nina, you’ll learn soon enough. Just wait and see!” She put her phone away in her purse. I wanted to go off, I wanted answers, but that smug confidence kept me from it. She was running a game, and Daniel and the kids and I were pawns. I felt sorry for them, what Daniel and I had declared only hours ago, now sullied by her watchful eyes.

She walked off, Mike following. But then she abruptly came to a stop, her smirk turning into something closer to a sneer. “And guess what?” she said in a whisper, her eyes piercingly meeting mine. “I’m pregnant with his baby!”