It started with a laugh.Not just any laugh — a sharp, confident one that cut through the noise of the bar like a blade through silk.
I turned.That's when I saw her.
Sitting at the corner table, black dress, one leg crossed over the other, eyes like she'd seen every lie in the world and decided to enjoy them anyway. She wasn't looking at me — she was looking through me.
Something in that stare felt like standing in front of a mirror that didn't lie.
Her name was Reya.Marketing consultant. Smart. Elegant. The kind of woman who didn't flinch at silence and never filled it with nervous words.
We met by accident — or maybe not. She was a friend of a client. We exchanged polite smiles over drinks, but her words carried a strange weight.
"So you're Dhruve," she said, leaning closer. "The man who can make anyone say yes without saying a word."
I froze for half a second, then smiled faintly. "That's an interesting rumor."
"It's true though, isn't it?" she said. "You have that… presence. The quiet kind that people mistake for mystery."
She tilted her head, smirking. "But it's not mystery, is it? It's control."
That word hit like a spark to dry wood.
The next few weeks, I kept running into her. Cafés. Client dinners. The gym. It was too frequent to be coincidence, but too casual to be planned.
She'd drop hints, small questions that felt like bait."So tell me, Dhruve," she'd say, "when you look at someone, what do you see first — their beauty or their weakness?"
"Depends," I'd answer. "Sometimes they're the same thing."
She'd laugh. "God, you're dangerous."
But her eyes said something else: So am I.
One evening, she invited me over.Her apartment was like her personality — sleek, composed, yet filled with tiny chaos if you looked close enough. Books stacked unevenly, candles burned halfway, a single glass of red wine already waiting on the table.
"I like to prepare," she said when I noticed. "Control freaks, remember?"
I smirked. "Guess we have something in common."
"Oh, we have a lot in common," she whispered.
That night, everything felt different. She didn't fall into my rhythm like the others. When I stepped forward, she didn't step back — she matched me. When I tried to read her, she turned the pages first.
It was like playing chess with a mirror.
After that, I couldn't stop thinking about her. Not in the way I obsessed before — this was different. Uneasy.Every time I texted, she took hours to reply.Every time I pulled away, she didn't chase — she waited.
And that was the hook.
She knew the game.She wasn't just playing it — she was teaching it back to me.
One night, I finally asked, "What do you want from me?"
She smirked. "To see how far you'll go before you realize you're not in control anymore."
For a second, my breath caught. It was thrilling and terrifying all at once — to be understood so completely.
She stood up, walked close, her perfume brushing against me. "You think you can manipulate people because you're hurt," she said softly. "But what happens when someone like you finds someone like me?"
I swallowed hard. "Maybe we destroy each other."
"Maybe," she said, smiling. "Or maybe we finally find someone who understands the language of broken people."
That night, I couldn't sleep. I kept replaying her words, her tone, her eyes.Reya wasn't like the others. She didn't want my attention — she wanted my reaction.
And for the first time since everything happened, I felt something dangerously close to fear.
Because if Mira's betrayal had shattered my heart…Reya was aiming for my mind.
Days turned into nights, and we kept circling each other like predators pretending to flirt.She'd send cryptic texts like —
"You hide behind logic, but your eyes still ache when you lie."or"Do you ever miss who you were before the fire?"
I didn't know whether to admire her or destroy her.Maybe both.
As I stared at my reflection in the mirror one night, I whispered, "The mirror trap, huh?"
Reya was reflection and temptation both — a woman who didn't want to be saved or conquered, but to prove that I wasn't as untouchable as I thought.
And maybe… she was right.
Because for the first time in a long time, I wasn't sure who was playing who.