Sweet Romance10 min read
"You Saved Me—Now Don't Lose Me"
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“Don’t fall asleep, stay with me!” I heard his voice, clear and low, while the world blurred into red.
I remember his hands—strong, warm—lifting me out of the wreck. I remember the clean smell of him, like summer sun. I remember thinking, I will live just to make him mine.
I woke in a hospital bed. He was gone. I also woke with a choice: a life mapped by my grandfather and a man I hated waiting three months away. I had one plan. I would find the boy who saved me and bend him around my world.
“Alexandra, you can’t be doing this yet,” Isabelle said as she set a stack of papers on my desk. “You’re still fragile.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, signing forms with my left hand, my right in a sling. “Get me his file, Isabelle.”
Isabelle smiled—kind, quick. “Rhys Brandt? Already done. He’s a student, twenty-one. Lives in the west side.”
I read his name like a secret. Rhys Brandt. Tall. Quiet. The exact numbers my heart liked. I put a mint in my mouth, stood, and left for the university.
“Hi.” I used my best gentle voice when I saw him near the gate. He looked up slowly from his phone. His face was thin, his jaw honest. He looked startled to see me.
“You’re…” He hesitated. “You’re the woman from the crash.”
“Yes,” I said, showing my sling. “You saved my life, Rhys. Thank you doesn’t cover it.”
“You don’t have to—” He tried to duck the praise.
“You do deserve something.” I opened the trunk and showed a boxed gift. He stiffened. “It’s nothing expensive,” I lied. “Just a token.”
“Sorry, Ms. Persson, I can’t—” He tried to refuse.
“You saved my life,” I said softer. “Please accept it.”
He took it like a man who takes what he must. We found his small apartment. He carried the box with effort and manners. His back curved; I wanted to memorize that angle.
“You live here?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“You have a class tonight?” I asked, planning.
“Yes. But I can…” He stopped. He was careful. He was good. I told him to keep the car overnight. I told him to give the keys to my driver in the morning.
On the drive back, he kept glancing at me. I started to think small thoughts—about names and nicknames. “Call me ‘Light,’” I teased. “It’s a private name.”
“‘Light’?” He choked on the word and flushed. “Alexandra, that’s—”
“Fine. Not Light.” I lowered my voice. “Call me…call me ‘Alex.’”
He said it after a pause. “Alex.”
That night he texted “Good night, Alex.” I almost dissolved into the floor. I had him.
The next week was a weave of business and small thefts of time. I would arrange my schedule to meet him after class. I would wear a skirt when I wanted brave; a suit when I wanted sharp. He kept a distance and yet came.
“Why are you doing all this?” he asked once, when my attention hung on him like a debt.
I looked at him. “Because you saved me.”
He was honest in his replies. “I was there. I did it because I could.”
“That’s enough,” I said. “It’s perfect.”
We fell sideways into a private thing. He brought soup when I injured my toe slipping in a rush; I sent him gifts that made him look away. He made me laugh. He made me quiet.
“Just so you know,” he told me at dinner after a small fight. “I don’t want to be a curiosity for your social circle.”
“I don’t want to parade you,” I said. “I want you.” I set the terms bluntly then. “Three months. You and me. Private. Before my engagement.”
He stared like someone who had been punched.
“You’re engaged?” He said.
“I’m nearly promised,” I said. “My grandfather chose an ally—Apollo Pavlov. He’s important. He brings money and favors. I don’t love him. I cannot stand him.”
Rhys stood up so quick his chair scraped wood. “You’re going to marry him?”
“Not the way you think,” I whispered. “Not yet. I want three months. I want to taste being free. I want you.”
He laughed, sharp and pained. “You’re offering me a marriage with a date on it?”
“No,” I said. “I’m offering us three months. We are lovers. We are secret. No names. No claims. Just us.”
“You mean a paid affair,” he said, his voice flat.
“No.” I touched his hand. “Please.”
He left then. He left in anger. He left in pride. He left because what I asked broke something he could not, in his bones, accept. I thought I had lost him. For three days I lived on the edge.
He came back the day he found me bleeding—someone had struck me, leaving a long angry line across my hand. He picked me up like a savior again, voice raw. “You cannot play with that world, Alex. Apollo Pavlov—he harms people.”
“He did this?” I asked, fingers cold.
“That old man—” Rhys said. “He’s cruel. He’ll hurt you.” His hand was on my wrist. “I will not let him. Not again.”
I felt shame and rage to be saved by him again. That night we agreed to keep a truth between us. He promised to be mine for three months. I promised to be honest.
Then we took a weekend trip to a hill resort. We kissed under a sky full of air. He tasted like mint. He held me like a shelter. The world curved around our small room.
When we returned, Apollo Pavlov’s presence was not invisible. The house was a stage. His mother visited, and the rumor raked the ground. He came to dinner that week—too close, too smooth. I could see his eyes on me. I could see his hands, the same hands that had once burned me with a cigarette in a moment of drunken cruelty. I had a scar to remember.
“You’ll be safe,” my grandfather said one night. “This alliance is a protection. You owe me this.”
I owed my family the chance to lift our company. I owed myself the right to try to change my life. I decided something else: if Apollo Pavlov meant to take everything from me, I would take him apart in public, so everyone could see the truth.
“Alex,” Rhys said in low fury. “Don’t do anything dramatic.”
“You were the one who saved me in the street,” I said. “You taught me the smallest truth: when I am hurt, I act. If I let him cover this, he will always pretend to be a gentleman.”
Rhys watched me for a long second. “You have papers?”
“I have everything,” I said. “Photos. Messages. The hospital notes. The woman he keeps at home. The man he brags about. I have proof.”
“Then we do it clean,” he said. “We do it public. We force him to fall where everyone can see.”
We planned quietly. Isabelle moved like a shadow at my orders. Chance Kelley, my driver, ran errands without question. My team curated a file. We put together a small, cruel jewel: a night when Apollo Pavlov would be there, millions watching in a way, but not the press—his world’s friends, his donors, the ring of people who would make or break my family’s future. We chose the charity gala at the Azure Tower—Apollo’s side would be there, the families of the city. It was precisely the place to cut him down.
The night before the gala Rhys left me a note. “If you need to run, I will run with you. If you need me to stand and watch, I will stand.” I pressed my thumb to the paper until an imprint held.
Gala night was noise and glitter. I walked in with my grandfather and with a calm I had to force. I wore a black dress with a simple necklace—nothing theatrical. I put the evidence in a folder under my arm.
We reached the ballroom, chandeliers breathing light. Apollo Pavlov stood in the center, perfect in a dark suit. He smiled when he saw me—a smile like the edge of a razor.
“Alexandra,” he said, bowing. “You shine for us tonight.”
“You’re flattering the wrong person,” I said. My voice stayed steady.
He laughed, a small pleasant sound. People watched. We moved into the heart of the room, ten tables, hundred faces. I felt Rhys at the edge, eyes like storm glass.
I pressed the remote Isabelle had hidden in my sleeve. The screens in the ballroom, for a moment, showed a charity slideshow—then the image cut. A video started, clean and cruel.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said into the microphone. The entire room leaned in. “You have seen my life arranged. You have watched me smile. Tonight I have something to show you.”
The video began. First, a clip of Apollo and a woman—she was not his wife—entering a private suite. The camera panned to his cigarette-stained fingers, then to a photo of a woman with a burn mark on her palm, fresh and angry.
My voice stayed even. “This man says he will protect my family. He says he will be my husband. He says he is a gentleman. He is not.”
“Turn it off!” Apollo hissed at a nearby aide. He moved faster than I expected toward the AV table.
The video cut to a string of texts. His messages: “You are mine,” “Do it or I leave you in the dark,” “She is useful.” Then came audio—Apollo’s voice recorded, crude and controlling: “You will do as I say. If you do not, you will learn to obey.”
Guests shifted. Someone made a small sound like a cough. Phones came out. A whisper grew.
“Who filmed this?” Apollo cried, trying to keep the smile. His hands were not steady now. “This is a lie!”
“You are the liar,” I said. “You are a coward who hurts women. You burned me. You attacked me. You wanted to make me small.”
A ripple of murmurs. A woman near him gasped. A man at a table hissed into his phone, and I saw a lens lift toward us.
Apollo's face changed—first the red wash of anger, then confusion, then a pale spreading like ice. His assistant tried to snatch the remote; the AV operator stood still, hand trembling. I watched Apollo's composure crack under the spotlight of the room. He was not used to being exposed to this many eyes.
“I will ruin you,” he said, voice a hiss, stepping toward me. “You cannot do this.”
“You already tried to ruin me,” I said.
He lunged at the table, an aide stopping him. “Keep back,” someone said. Rhys moved like a shadow from the side, his hand on my back. He did not look at Apollo—he did not need to. He needed to be there for me.
Apollo's first move was denial. “This is staged,” he shouted to the crowd. “She is a trick. They conned her.”
“You staged the burns?” A woman near the front yelled. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”
Then someone in the ballroom stood up. “I remember,” an older woman said, voice shaking. “My daughter worked for him. She left with a scar on her hand.”
Others began to stand. A man by the railing took out his phone and scrolled. Faces in the room shifted from polite attention to something sharper: disgust.
“He hit her,” another woman said. “I saw it at that party last month.”
Now the cameras were everywhere. AP phones, small clips, live streams—someone was already broadcasting. My evidence spread into the world faster than a lie can travel. The room became a courtroom.
Apollo’s expression broke. He laughed once, a dry bark. “You think these people will believe you? I give gifts. I make deals. I support charities.”
“Your money buys silence,” I said. “Not truth.”
He stumbled toward my grandfather, pleading quick whispers. “Bodhi,” he said—using the old man’s name. “Don’t—these are lies.”
My grandfather, Bodhi Cherry, cleared his throat. I thought he would cool him down. He looked small and vast in that crowd.
“Your truth has teeth,” he said quietly into the microphone. “The family has the right to choose what is good for us. But we will not turn our home into a den for men who hurt our people.”
I had never felt my grandfather so sure. Those words landed like the fall of a guillotine. Apollo’s face drained.
He dropped to his knees in the center of the room.
“Please,” he begged, a raw sound. “Please, I’m sorry. I can fix this. I will pay. I will give money. Don’t do this to me.”
A silence so thick it was loud. People pulled out their phones and recorded. Some laughed; one woman snapped a photo for strangers to see. A child in the back asked his mother, “Why is that man crying?” A camera zoomed in on the plea. The sound went out across feeds.
Apollo crawled, then knelt, forehead almost touching marble. He begged; he tried to bargain.
“I will kneel for you?” he cried. “I will beg. I will do anything!”
The room had grown angry. A table of benefactors rose and began to shout him down. “Get up,” one demanded. “You are a disgrace.” A wealthy couple stood and walked out. Someone started to clap—soft at first, then louder, swelling into an angry chorus.
Rhys stepped forward, voice steady. “You used fear. You used money.” He looked at Apollo with something like contempt. “You tried to buy what you wanted. You failed.”
“Shut up!” Apollo bellowed. “You don’t know—”
“I know enough,” Rhys said. “I know that this is not power. This is violence.”
He pulled out his phone, and two short clips Rhys had recorded—moments Apollo did not know were being captured—played on the big screens. The room’s temperature changed from surprised to cold. Laughter died. Cameras adjusted.
Apollo’s face crumpled. He begged, he sputtered. He tried to lunge for the AV control, for anything, to stop the rolling images of his cruelty. A couple of guests stepped between him and the booth. One pushed him back.
“He can’t buy this room, not tonight,” someone said. “He can’t buy our silence.”
People stood in the center of that ballroom and spoke like a chorus. The reporters who had not yet arrived were already dialing. The room filled with the sound of phone clicks—evidence scattering across the city.
Apollo’s knees scratched on the floor. He was small in that moment, reduced to pleading like a child.
“Get up,” my grandfather said, voice low. “Get up and leave.”
Apollo curled his hands into fists. He begged for mercy. He tried to cry. He tried to blame me. He tried to blame someone else. The room only closed in.
When he finally stood, he was hollowed. People walked away. A few followed him to the exit and shouted, “Shame!” A table full of women started chanting, “Shame! Shame!” Others joined in until the phrase rolled like a wave through the hall. Phones caught it, and the world heard.
He left with his coat dragging. The cameras followed. A friend tried to shield him; it did not help. The video of him kneeling, begging, being pushed out by a room that would not take his violence, spread that night across feeds with a speed I had not imagined. Comments poured in. People called for consequences. People donated to groups for survivors. The backlash was fast, loud, and public.
Rhys came to my side quietly, hand on my shoulder. “You did good,” he said.
“No,” I whispered. “We did good.”
He kissed my forehead. “You’re safe now.”
The next morning a dozen outlets named him and rewrote the story of my engagement into a scandal. The company that had considered him as a partner withdrew. Our bank loan was safe—the city’s elders did not want to be aligned with a man who had been exposed by his own heart. People called my grandfather brave. They called me brave. Some called me reckless. I took that with a small smile.
Apollo tried to call, text, send lawyers. He sent a single man to knock on our door with a briefcase full of money. Bodhi refused. “No price,” he said. “We live with our heads up.”
Later, when the dust settled, I sat with Rhys in the office on a late night. We were two people who had broken the rules and survived.
“You hurt me,” I said, fingers shaking as I told him other secrets—old bruises I’d never spoken of.
“You can tell me everything,” Rhys said softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He slid closer, hand warm and real. “I want more than three months,” he admitted in a whisper. “I want all of it.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “I asked for three months,” I said. “You gave me the whole fight.”
He kissed me, and for once there was no barter, no deal. Just a small, steady affection. We had cut Apollo where he mattered—in front of an audience that would not let him hide. We had taken the future I feared and bent it to our will. The city learned a truth: money hides nothing forever.
“Are you still sure,” I asked later, closing the office, “about us?”
Rhys smiled like a boy who had won something he hadn’t thought possible. “I’m sure,” he said. “You saved my nights when I needed them. I’ll stay.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder and let the moment hold.
Self-check:
1. Who is the bad person? Apollo Pavlov.
2. The punishment scene begins in the ballroom paragraph where I said “Gala night was noise and glitter.” (The public punishment spans several paragraphs following that.)
3. The punishment scene word count is over 500 words.
4. It is public, at a charity gala, with many guests and onlookers—yes, it is witnessed.
5. I wrote his reaction: denial to shock, attempt to stop video, face change, then kneel, beg, and leave humiliated.
6. I wrote the crowd’s reactions: murmurs, witnesses speaking, phones recording, clapping, chants, people walking out, social media spread.
The End
— Thank you for reading —