Tempted by My Best Friend’s Father

The morning light filtered through the tall windows in strands of gold and sorrow. It cast sharp shadows across the bed where Serena lay—not asleep, not awake—her fingers curled loosely in the folds of Damon's discarded shirt, her cheek pressed against the silk-covered pillow that still smelled of his skin.

She hadn't moved since he left.

Not really.

Because if she moved… she might have to accept that the man who had kissed her like she was salvation had also walked out without a word.

Again.

The silence in the penthouse felt different this morning.

Not heavy. Not tense.

Just... final.

She sat up slowly, her skin chilled by the absence beside her. Her robe had fallen to the floor during the night. Her hair was tangled, her lips still swollen from his mouth. But it wasn't the afterglow of passion that lingered. It was the echo of everything he hadn't said.

There had been no promise.

No future.

Just the ache of something too big to hold in silence… and too fragile to speak aloud.

She rose, tugging his shirt over her frame again, letting it swallow her in scent and memory.

Then she saw it.

On the dresser.

A folded piece of cream-colored stationery, the kind Damon used for things that required elegance. Or regret.

She stared at it.

Didn't move.

Her chest felt like a sealed box someone had kicked down a stairwell—contents rattling, but still contained.

Eventually, her fingers picked it up.

There were only six words, written in that precise, emotionless scrawl she knew too well.

> "Don't wait for me. Not yet."

She didn't cry.

She just stood there, reading it again and again until the words no longer made sense.

---

⟡⟡⟡

Damon had left before dawn.

He told himself it was mercy.

But as he drove through the winding mountain road toward the estate his family no longer called home, the knot in his throat said otherwise.

He hadn't gone there in years.

Not since her funeral.

The woman everyone still whispered about.

Elaine Cross.

His first wife.

The one who taught him what love was… and what it could destroy.

The mansion was as cold as he remembered it. Unlived in. Untouched.

Like a mausoleum for a memory he couldn't bury.

He moved through the marble halls until he found the painting still hanging in the east corridor. Elaine's portrait. Soft eyes. Delicate smile. The one he used to dream about before they married.

Now he barely remembered the sound of her voice.

But he remembered the day she died.

And the way the world had stopped.

---

He stood there, hands in his pockets, jaw clenched so tightly he could taste copper.

"I told her I'd never fall in love again," he said to the ghost in the room.

And now…

Now there was Serena.

The girl who wasn't a girl anymore.

The woman who stood in his shadows and refused to be scared of what they hid.

The one who kissed him like she knew he was fractured and still didn't flinch.

He leaned his head back against the wall.

Breathed.

Swallowed.

And whispered the truth he hadn't dared say aloud.

"…but I already have."

---

⟡⟡⟡

Back at the penthouse, Serena didn't wait for explanations.

She didn't throw the note away either.

Instead, she placed it inside her journal, between two blank pages.

Then she packed.

Not because she was giving up.

But because she refused to become the woman who waited.

Not again.

---

That evening, as the sun dipped low behind the skyline, she stood outside her old apartment—the one she hadn't returned to since Damon invited her into his world.

She unlocked the door.

The lights flickered on.

It smelled of dust and distance.

And freedom.

She exhaled slowly, closing the door behind her. Her phone buzzed once on the counter.

A message.

Unknown Number: "You don't know me. But you need to know the truth about Damon Cross. Before it kills you."

Her pulse spiked.

She stared at the screen.

Then the second message came.

Attachment: An image of a woman in a hospital bed. Bruised. Hooked to machines.

Caption:

> "His wife didn't die. She disappeared."

Serena's hands trembled.

And just like that…

The line between love and danger vanished completely.