She didn't expect him to be like this.
When Jack first gave her the plan—
"Make him trust you. Make him fall. Then break him."—
she thought it would be easy.
She had done worse before.
Manipulated harsher men.
Played colder games.
Never once felt a tremor in her heart.
But he wasn't like the others.
He was quiet…
too quiet.
Not the quiet of arrogance or disinterest,
but the quiet of someone who had been silenced by life.
He looked at the world with eyes carrying years of hurt,
yet somehow still soft—
still hopeful in a way that made her chest tighten.
She hated that feeling.
Hated that every time he smiled—shy, unsure—
something inside her shifted.
She wasn't supposed to feel anything.
She wasn't supposed to hesitate.
She wasn't supposed to care.
But she did.
A little.
Too much.
Every day she came to trick him,
and every day she left carrying pieces of his sadness with her.
She would walk away, call Jack, lie, manipulate, plan—
yet somewhere between the lies,
her heart betrayed her.
Because sometimes…
when he looked at her with that innocent trust,
that raw sincerity—
she forgot it was an act.
She forgot why she was there.
Forgot the orders.
Forgot the mask.
And in those small moments,
she felt something dangerously real.
Not love.
Not yet.
But a tenderness she had no right to feel.
A tenderness she shouldn't have felt for someone she was deliberately hurting.
She knew she was doing wrong.
She knew he didn't deserve any of it.
But she kept going.
For Jack.
For the plan.
For the revenge that wasn't hers to begin with.
Still…
when she looked at him,
a whisper inside her begged:
"Stop. Don't do this to him."
And another voice—dark, obedient—answered:
"You have no choice."
So she stayed trapped between two worlds:
A world where she played the perfect gentle stranger meant to ruin him…
and a world where she secretly wished
she could save him instead.
The tragedy was simple:
She was betraying him now…
even though
a small, fragile part of her
had already begun to care.
He didn't know when it happened.
Maybe it was the way she called his name—softly, as if the sound itself might break him.
Maybe it was the way she waited for him every morning, pretending she just happened to pass by.
Or maybe it was the way she looked at him like he mattered,
like someone finally saw the pieces of him no one else bothered to notice.
Whatever the moment was…
he missed it.
All he knew was that one day,
he found himself searching for her.
Listening for her footsteps.
Arranging the flowers the way she liked.
Looking at the street before she arrived.
Feeling something warm rise in his chest whenever her shadow finally appeared.
He had never felt this before.
Never.
Not the flutter in his stomach.
Not the fear of saying the wrong thing.
Not the sudden awareness of how close she stood next to him,
how her hand brushed his when she picked a flower,
how her laugh—light and gentle—made something inside him ache in the sweetest way.
One afternoon, she reached for a rose, and her fingers grazed his again.
This time, she didn't pull away.
And neither did he.
For the first time in his life…
he didn't flinch.
He didn't shrink.
He didn't fear the touch.
He allowed himself to feel it.
Allowed himself to want more.
And she smiled—
a soft, tender smile that melted the walls he didn't even know he had built.
"You know," she said, brushing a loose petal off his sleeve,
"I like spending time with you."
His heart stumbled.
Literally stumbled.
"I… I like spending time with you too," he whispered,
voice trembling like a boy saying something forbidden.
Her eyes softened.
Dangerously so.
"Then… stay close to me," she murmured.
He didn't understand what she meant.
He didn't know if she meant it the way he hoped.
But hope—
that fragile, terrifying thing—
bloomed inside him anyway.
He walked with her.
Laughed with her.
Listened to her stories as if they were lanterns lighting the dark corners of his mind.
He showed her the meanings of flowers,
and she listened as if every word he said was precious.
She made him feel seen.
Wanted.
Chosen.
And slowly—
quietly—
against all his fears…
He fell in love with her.
Not because she was beautiful
(not just because of that).
But because she made him feel, for the first time, like he deserved softness too.
He didn't know that every smile she gave him was calculated.
He didn't know that every gentle touch was part of a plan.
He didn't know that love—this new, trembling love—
was the exact weapon being sharpened against him.
He only knew one thing:
When she looked at him,
his broken heart didn't hurt as much.
And that was enough
to make him fall
completely,
blindly,
tragically
in love.