Not a Choice

The silence after their proposal pressed against Nuria’s chest until it hurt.

Her eyes flickered between the rings, the petals still scattered across the floor, the faces she knew better than anyone else in the world. Faces that had never looked at her like this before.

She took a step back.

Then another.

“I—” Her voice shook despite her effort to steady it. “I can’t.”

Adrian’s eyes narrowed slightly. Sebastian’s smile faltered—but only for a moment.

“You’re my best friends,” Nuria said quickly, almost pleading now. “You always have been. I’ve never… I’ve never thought of you like this. Not once.”

Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “This isn’t love. This is—this is wrong.”

Adrian rose slowly from the floor.

Sebastian followed, still watching her carefully, as if she were something fragile that might break if handled too roughly.

“I care about you,” Nuria continued, backing toward the door. “But I don’t want this. Please understand.”

She turned.

She almost made it.

Adrian’s hand closed around her arm and he pulled her towards him.

Not hard—at first.

Nuria gasped, the sudden contact sending a jolt through her body. “Adrian—let go.”

He pulled her back effortlessly against the wall, his grip tightening as confusion twisted into something darker in his eyes.

“Leave?” he said quietly and then smirked at her.

She looked with confusion and fear at him as this word sounded foreign on his tongue.

He holds her face with his one hand and said, “How did such a thought even enter your little mind?” His voice dropped, losing its warmth completely. “After everything?”

Nuria struggled, panic blooming in her chest. “You’re hurting me—”

“We protected you,” Adrian snapped, the calm finally cracking. “From school. From people who wanted to use you. From men who would ruin you.”

His body caged her in, solid and unmovable. And Sebastian also blacked her path from the other side. Now she is totally blocked between wall and them and nowhere to run.

“You really think,” he murmured coldly, leaning close, “that we did all of that just to let you walk away to some other man?” His eyes turning dark while saying this.

Her eyes burned with tears—fear, shock, disbelief crashing together. As she has never seen him angry on her.

“You don’t have independence, Núria,” Adrian continued, his voice frighteningly steady now. “Not the way you think. Your life—your choices—we decide those.”

Her chest heaved as she shook her head furiously beneath his hand.

Something inside her snapped.

With all the strength she had, she shoved him.

Adrian stumbled back a step, clearly not expecting it.

Nuria didn’t wait.

She ran.

She barely reached the center of the room before arms wrapped around her from behind—gentler than Adrian’s, and picked her up from the floor but no less restraining.

Sebastian.

He turned her smoothly, pulling her against his chest, one arm firm around her waist.

“There, there,” he murmured softly, near her ears from behind, as if calming a frightened child. “Easy.”

She thrashed. “Let go of me!”

He didn’t tighten his hold. He didn’t need to.

Instead, he tilted his head slightly, studying her with something close to fond amusement.

“You really are innocent,” Sebastian said quietly with a smile on his face. “It’s almost adorable.”

Her breath came out ragged. “What are you talking about?”

He smiled—soft, warm, completely wrong at this moment.

“To think,” he continued gently, “that we wouldn’t plan for this.”

Her heart slammed painfully against her ribs.

“Plan… what?” she whispered.