She Hates Me

Finally.

Leo finally had her where he wanted her. The fragile bird could no longer escape him, not now that she was living in the room next to his.

The moment their eyes met, his whole world shifted. It wasn't gradual or subtle — it was like a thunderclap in his chest. An intense, all-consuming love ignited within him, raw and unrelenting.

Everything he saw reminded him of her. Every sound echoed with the memory of her voice. She had become his addiction, his obsession, a craving that no amount of distance or logic could silence.

He needed her close. Always.

And so, in what he considered a stroke of genius, he made her his personal maid. A foolproof plan, he told himself. If she worked under him, she'd have no choice but to stay near.

But to his growing frustration, Eliana still avoided him at every turn, like he was some kind of plague. She barely even looked at him.

Why does she keep running from me? he wondered for the hundredth time.