unplanned destinies

5 | boundaries broken

The loud banging jolted me out of sleep, my heart hammering in my chest. Disoriented, I sat up in bed, the clock ticking. It took me a second to process where I was again, the hotel in Dubai. And then, the banging came again, more insistent this time.

Who the hell could that be?

I threw off the covers and stumbled to the door, my body still heavy with sleep. As I opened it, my breath caught in my throat. Kye stood there, his expression stormy, his jaw clenched. His eyes locked onto mine with a fury that made my stomach turn.

"Kye... what are you doing here?" I managed, still trying to shake off the fog of sleep.

He stepped inside without waiting for an invitation, slamming the door behind him. "What am I doing here?" he spat. "What are you doing?"

Confusion washed over me. "What do you mean?"

He pulled out his phone and shoved it in my face. On the screen was a picture of me and Jordan in the hotel lobby from the night before. Paparazzi? The headline screamed something about "mysterious encounters" and "potential romance." I felt my blood drain as I realized what Kye had seen.

"You think I wouldn't find out?" Kye's voice was a low growl. "You're hanging out with some famous girl behind my back?"

"Famous?" I frowned, trying to understand what he was talking about.

"Don't act like you don't know!" He stepped closer, his hands balling into fists. "That's Jordan ashford, one of the biggest pop stars. You didn't think that would be important to mention?"

I blinked, the realization hitting me like a brick. Jordan... a pop star? How had I not known? I'd just thought she was someone staying in the same hotel, someone who happened to overhear my breakdown.

"Kye, I swear, I didn't know who she was," I said, my voice shaking.

"Yeah, right," he sneered. "And you just happened to spend time with her, all cozy in the lobby? What else are you hiding?"

His words hung in the air, venomous. He took another step toward me, grabbing my wrist. The same wrist he'd bruised the other night. The pain shot through me, but I bit my lip, refusing to let him see me wince.

"Kye, I'm not hiding anything," I said softly, trying to calm him down. "It wasn't like that. She was just giving me advice about the speech."

He stared at me for a moment, his grip tightening before he let go. I rubbed my wrist, my heart pounding in my chest.

Kye paced the room like a caged animal. "So where are you headed today? Another meeting with your famous new friend?"

I froze. I was supposed to meet Jordan for lunch, and I was already running late. But there was no way I could tell Kye that. He would lose it. Instead, I forced a smile. "I have a shoot. Just work stuff."

He narrowed his eyes at me, the suspicion still etched across his face, but eventually, he nodded. "Fine. Go to your shoot."

I breathed a sigh of relief, grabbing my purse and making a quick exit before he could ask any more questions. My hands were still shaking as I hurried downstairs to meet Jordan, my mind racing. I couldn't shake the fear of Kye finding out where I was really going.

Lunch with Jordan was a brief respite from the storm I was living in. Her energy was infectious, and she had a way of making me feel lighter, like maybe everything wasn't crashing down around me. We laughed, talked, and for a moment, I almost forgot about Kye's jealousy, about the bruises and the lies.

Here's an updated version of the lunch
I wasn't sure why I'd agreed to lunch with Jordan. Maybe it was the curiosity, the little voice inside me that missed being around someone who wasn't Kye. Someone who made me feel like I wasn't suffocating. Whatever the reason, I found myself sitting at a small café table, staring out the window, wondering how it would go.