It was always you

A Stranger with green eyes

Here's a continuation of the chapter from Selena's POV:

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**Selena**

“How many times do I have to tell you that everything is going to be fine?” Diana's voice cut through the thick fog of anxiety as I stood in front of the mirror, my hands trembling. I took deep breaths, trying to calm my racing heart. Today was supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life—the day my father would place my hand in the hand of the man I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with. But instead, I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, about to plummet into an abyss.

“Yeah, it’s my wedding day, and I should be happy, but I’m not,” I replied, my voice barely above a whisper. Diana has been my friend since high school, and we’ve shared more good and bad moments than I can count. She’s a periodontist, while I, on the other hand, am a gynecologist. We’re complete opposites—she with her black hair and brown eyes, me with my blonde hair and blue eyes.

“Selena Walters, think positive, and the outcome will be positive,” Diana said, holding my hand and guiding me to the couch. She sat beside me, her eyes full of concern. I looked at her, trying to absorb her words, but my mind kept spinning around the idea of marrying Edward Hamilton. I wasn’t in love with him. My heart belonged to someone else—someone who could never be mine.

People often joke that my secret love is Henry Cavill, and while I have my limits, it’s not him. My heart was tied to a man with whom I’d made a silent promise to spend every moment of my life, even into the afterlife. But life is cruel, and promises mean little in the face of reality. Worse, I had this gnawing feeling that something unnatural was going to happen today. People call it pre-wedding anxiety, but it felt like something else. Something more.

And to top it off, my sister—my half-sister, but a sister all the same—wouldn’t be here to see me get married. She’d been called away on a ridiculous business trip, and it left a hole in my chest where her comforting presence should have been.

“Miss Diana, Mr. Miller wishes to see you.” A knock interrupted our conversation, and I couldn’t help but smile. Miles Miller. He’d been in love with Diana for years but had never had the courage to admit it. Instead, he found ways to be near her, to talk to her, to make his feelings known in the subtle glances and stolen moments. Diana had no idea, and I never told her because, well, she’s too innocent to notice.

Diana glanced at me, ready to refuse him entry, but I assured her that I would be fine here, safe within the four walls of this lavish hotel that belonged to my father. Security was always tight. My father, Bradley Walters, had always been against this marriage, but my stepmother, Katherine Walters, had pushed us both into it. She always wanted to be a step ahead in her social circle. When she heard that one of her friends’ daughters had gotten engaged, she set her sights on me. She thinks I’m too old to be single—at twenty-seven! Soon to be twenty-eight, but she never understood that I was happy with the way things were.

When Diana left, I switched on my phone to reply to a message from one of my patients. I had just hit send when I heard the door open. I didn’t bother turning around, assuming it was Diana coming back. She worried more about me than I worried about myself. It had only been five minutes since she left, after all. I tried to act normal, hoping to reassure her that I was fine, even though my insides felt like they were twisting into knots.

But then I noticed something strange—she was too quiet, standing behind me, her shadow long and distorted in the afternoon light. I frowned and turned around, ready to tease her about her overprotectiveness. But the words died in my throat.

A man stood there, his face obscured by a mask. Panic surged through me, my breath catching in my throat. Before I could scream or demand to know who he was and what he was doing in my room, he lunged forward, pressing a handkerchief against my mouth. My mind whirled, my limbs flailing as I tried to fight him off. But that scent—familiar and intoxicating—filled my senses. And those eyes, those sea-green eyes...

My struggles weakened, the world around me fading into darkness. The last thought that flashed through my mind before everything went black was that I knew him. I knew him too well.

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