Anila read the fear and hurt in Sidoreli's eyes, as well as the concern in the gaze of the man to his left, who, from his close physical appearance, she suspected was his brother, Leonardi.
 
    They had probably been discussing a personal topic, had thought that she had been hearing them behind the door, and if they hadn't left the office, they would have never known, unless Anila had told them herself.
 
    "I just came here," she said the truth to Sidoreli, to calm them down. She understood best the importance of having privacy when talking to someone, and she respected the boundaries set by that person. "I didn't see the secretary at the reception; that's why no one informed you that I was coming. I was just about to knock."
 
    Leonardi looked for evidence of pretence on her face but didn't see anything, while Sidoreli immediately believed her. She hadn't heard them when they had talked about Amarildo.
 
    "How are you?" Anila greeted Leonardi, and the thought of shaking his hand remained just a thought, like a fragile dream left in the drawer due to low self-confidence, to become a reality. Since she was no longer dating Sidoreli, it didn't seem appropriate for her to behave informally with a member of his family.
 
    "Good," he said, seemingly calm, as he looked at her and imagined himself in her position: a murdered brother, the killer still free, and a little sister to protect.
 
    How wrong he had been. He, who was an older brother himself and had always felt responsible for his younger brothers and his sister, should have understood more than anyone else how difficult that role was and told her the truth about Amarildo to free her from the anxiety—that she was in danger with her family, that someone could hurt her sister—and he should have assured her that it had been a coincidence and that they had never intended for Amarildo to die.
 
    Sidoreli had wanted to go to the police, but Leonardi had stopped him with the argument that the law could've been on his side but not Amarildo's family. His sister could take revenge by killing their family members, and, as long as there was no evidence against him, Sidoreli had to remain silent, and he had accepted his brother's advice.
 
    Now Leonardi was too late. No matter how many bandages were placed on the broken pieces of the glass, the marks of those breaks would never disappear, and no matter how much joy was poured into that glass, the full amount would never be fully retained because of those breaks. Anila would create doubts as to why they hadn't told her before, hadn't testified to the police, and would really think of taking revenge on them.
 
    But why had she come to the company?
 
    "Can we talk for a minute?" Anila addressed Sidoreli.
 
    "No, I don't have time today," he said icily, also gaining Leonardi's surprised attention. "Leave a contact address at the reception, and I'll let you know when you can meet me."
 
    She came up with the idea to drown the ethics too, in the water of Drin, and take revenge on him, not to flatter himself, by giving orders to her in the presence of his brother, who was looking reproachfully at Sidoreli as to why he was talking to her like that.
 
    "Okay," Anila agreed without complaining, and he left in silence.
 
    "Goodbye," Leonardi greeted her before leaving.
 
    "Goodbye," she closed her eyes and lowered her head a little as a sign of respect.
 
    "Why did you talk to her like that?" Leonardi reached Sidoreli at the stairs.
 
    Because maybe she would ask him to get back together. He would accept because he still loved her, and the next day Anila would continue the breaking-up routine. It was as if her heart poisoned him only to kill his love. But Sidoreli still wanted to have a place in that heart, just like Anila had in his.
 
    He was getting debilitated. His family members were also noticing that the trips were not the reason for his little distance from the world, which was constantly expanding, but something else, and every time he met his mother, her soft eyes were every day brighter from the glass cover of tears from his state.
 
    He loved Anila. She was like drawing for him. A day without drawing was like a day without living, and he felt the same when he didn't meet Anila. He could choose her over himself because a part of him belonged to her from their memories together, but not over this family when the latter was in the right.
 
    But... he considered Anila a member of his family too. He couldn't give up on her completely.
 
    "She probably wants to work here again," he justified. "Maybe after a few days she will think about working somewhere else, and we will really get rid of her."
 
    Leonardi didn't insist any longer, and they went to their cars, parked at the end of the company yard.
 
••••
    Anila had the feeling that he wouldn't contact her, as he had promised, and on the one hand, she didn't blame him. She was just negativity for him now, which Sidoreli didn't want to have anything to do with; that's why she didn't insist any longer on talking. She would soon leave the job she had anyway. Then she would get him and his girlfriend out of her life. Ignoring them and comparing their value to zero in her eyes would be the best revenge.
 
    His girlfriend. That she would be talking about someone else, when she said that, she never believed that things would go to that point between them.
 
    It was as if life's heart became a mountain when Anila entered the game of practicing self-confidence, and life threw the next obstacle in front of her.
 
    On that weekend, an event would be organised in Ksamil. There would be prizes given for some specific products offered on the market by some companies, and a party afterwards.
 
    She had to attend and pretend that she wasn't going to be impressed at all by the presence of Sidoreli and Arbeta there. She would have to pretend, because she knew for sure, as a fact like she existed, that one of them wouldn't leave her alone without stirring her up at least once.
 
    'This is so cool.' Visara clapped her hands continuously, and her eyes shone like amber jewels with excitement. 'A business trip like in the movies. Two-day hotel stay, beach, event, party... oh, Ania. The latest life, exactly like you have wanted it.'
 
    'Exactly.' It was obvious from her cloudy face that Anila didn't share the same opinion at all.
 
    She only created in her mind scenarios of the meetings between her and Sidoreli, his indifferent reaction, and hers, who had to behave the same way, but she didn't have enough psychological strength, except that she was circling herself in vain again, and in the end would be pain from the agony of hurt.
 
    Would all that ever end?
 
    She kept her eyes on the sweet blue sky almost the entire journey to the south of Albania, and when she arrived at the hotel, she was ready to go to sleep immediately. She notified her mother and Brunilda that she had arrived and fulfilled her wish. She closed the pale navy curtains, put on her blue pyjamas, and laid down on the white-covered double bed.
 
    The painting of a winter landscape above the head of the bed, hanging on the olive grey wall, the cocoa-hued wardrobe and the bedside tables, the light hazel laminate, the two forest green armchairs opposite the bed, and the black circular table between them were instantly hidden in the dark as soon as she turned off the room light, but her thoughts' existence couldn't be so easily dismissed. Even when she slept, they came true in her dreams and disturbed her.
 
    Was he going to be there, or had he made some excuse because of her, and therefore he wouldn't be present at that event? Why was he still managing the company "Brus & Ashton" in Albania since she had left? He had said that he had taken that job only for her. Now, of course, the priorities would have changed. Luck had come to his door, and he used it to leave the impression of a very important businessman on women.
 
    She couldn't believe that she was judging him like that. Sidoreli had never shown that he had such thoughts. With whims made from sleep for a few long dragging minutes, she managed to sleep for a few hours and relax, a feeling that was stolen from her by the anxiety, as soon as she became aware of where she was and why there.
 
    There was a mirror in the bathroom. She could put on the sunglasses she had brought with her and avoid it, but her inside voice told her that she didn't have to. She had the power to make it.
 
    Since she had seen Sidoreli in the mirror at the bar a few days ago, she no longer felt the fear of them, that she might remember the past. There was only her physical appearance, how she had looked to him that day, how she still looked, and him in the background, the intense gaze of the deep jade eyes on his taut face, and the moment when he had expressed his feelings to her by first looking at her at a training meeting of the previous company, where she had worked before Sidoreli became its manager.
 
    How had she allowed herself to end up at that turning point in their history, when it seemed impossible to be in a relationship with him again? The stones, which he had used to build bridges and reach her, Anila had completely demolished, and now Sidoreli had built walls between them with those stones. She didn't feel that she had the right to even touch them, as she hadn't allowed Sidoreli to tear down the surrounding walls that she had built.
 
    She could make it; she walked slowly to the bathroom and stopped at the door. Or was it too early, and she had to wait a little more? Maybe delaying wouldn't help her at all, and as long as she felt ready, even just a tiny bit, she had to take that chance.
 
    The heart felt the same squeeze as the silver handle of the black door from her right hand, which slowly lowered, and the door was pushed in the same way. Anila turned on the light and looked at the glass cabin of the shower opposite her, the clay tiles, and the large circular mirror to the left above the square white sink.
 
    She stepped in with her right foot, never taking her eyes off the seemingly innocuous mirror, and slowed her steps when she was about to face it.
 
    She would only look at herself—her current self. That's how she had to think for that to happen.
 
    She raised her foot, causing the weight of the soul to be lifted as well, aware that after a few moments, nothing would be like the last six years; she was either going to be free from the nightmare of the mirrors, or she would be imprisoned deeper in her fear and would hardly ever be able to recover.
 
    She met her eyes first in the mirror, and, as if she were meeting herself again after years and that she had missed seeing her, she smiled. She remembered nothing of her past with Blerimi; she was making a new memory with her grown and changed face.
 
    She studied every feature of her face: open-mouthed with longing, her tousled dark almond hair, her eyes in the colours of bright cocoa and cinnamon, her gently arched eyebrows, the same shape since she was a teenager, and generally attractive. It seemed to her that the maturation of her face, along with her age, had made her more beautiful.
 
    She smiled sweetly, and the beginnings of her eyebrows rose as she remembered her younger and more energetic twenty-two-year-old self. That age version was a little shorter, standing in front of her and smiling warmly at the two reflections in the mirror. If only that past self was another body. She would have pulled her close, hugged her tightly behind her back, kissed her on the cheek, and told her that she was a star.
 
    "Doll," she could only compliment the reflection of herself and the image of her six years ago. "I will be happy for you, too," Anila swore for sure, that she wouldn't throw that sentence down like some other promises. She would consider it as important as oxygen and would fight to achieve that goal. "Toxic people won't even get our attention, let alone hurt us, anymore," she smiled convincingly with a fiery look to herself, and then softened the arch of her lips in a peaceful and sad ending.
 
    Sidoreli had made that happen, but he wasn't there to be thanked.
 
    "You would have never thought, would you?" She smiled to herself and to the twenty-two-year-old she had been. "That you would date him when you have thought about introducing him to someone else."
 
    Her younger self chuckled at how things had gone.
 
    Anila arranged her hair in different models, loved the energy of the seductive light that she was spreading, and stepped back so that the mirror could take in her whole.
 
    "I think this body deserves an amazing dress," she remarked and thought about which of the three outfits that she had brought, not really convinced that she would like to wear dresses, but better to have them with her than regretting not getting them, she had to choose, the dark red dress, soft blue, or the black one?
 
    She came out of the toilet more cheerfully than she remembered herself lately, and she took the grey suitcase next to the sofa by the door to place it on the bed. Since she was in the mood, she wanted to look at the dresses first to get an idea before having dinner with the colleagues she had come to the event with.
 
    The black one was tight and knee-length, had only the right sleeve, and seemed appropriate for such evenings, but the blue one with leg length, a bust, and a slit on the left leg managed to put her in a dilemma, not to choose so easily. The short, tight red dress with thick shoulder straps had a plunging neckline and a narrow V-shape at the centre of the chest until near its bottom. That one seemed more appropriate for the party organised after the event.
 
    The black one, or the blue one? The moonless and cloudy winter night or the cool summer night with countless stars in the sky—she romanticised the two colours in front of her.
 
    She thought about giving herself more time until the next day, and she decided to get ready for that evening.
 
    She looked for Sidoreli's presence to take measures so that she wouldn't see him from that side, but she didn't see him anywhere and remained mostly silent during dinner under the conversation of her colleagues in the hotel restaurant.
 
    She ended that night with a long video call with Brunilda, and she woke up early the next day.
 
    The evening had the bottle ready to throw it into the air; she would have to meet Sidoreli and Arbeta.
 
    It was a good chance to prove to them that she had decided not to depend on giving them attention at all, but could she really do it that easily?
 
    In front of her eyes, Arbeta would touch his hands, which had touched Anila, and kiss the lips that had kissed her.
 
    How could Sidoreli replace those kinds of memories with hers? Had he really never thought about giving her one last chance?
 
    She would hide the existence of her heart for those two nights and act as if she were unaffected by their presence.
 
    The ticket to the event was won by the blue dress. She guessed that it would be a less chosen colour that evening, unlike the seductive black one, so she decided to wear the midnight colour.
 
    She didn't see Sidoreli anywhere when she entered the hall and glanced around, but he immediately noticed her with Suela to her left, wearing white heels and a purse of the same colour in her right hand. Her naturally wavy hair was left to the side over her left shoulder, and her confident look helped the outfit quite a lot to attract attention.
 
    Grudge, that she seemed to have moved on so easily, and admiration of addiction to her, that she was so beautiful, and he wanted to win her heart again.
 
    It seemed indeed a privilege, as she had said, if he could have her love, even if it meant that he could neither earn it nor ever forget her; it would always remain an unrequitted love.
 
    He was in the same room with her, and besides the fact that he couldn't treat her as his girlfriend, he couldn't even look at her like he wanted to, only to notice how others looked at her, and he didn't have the right to stop them.
 
    He glanced secretly a couple of times at her during the event, when she wasn't paying attention, and risked keeping his eyes on her for a few moments, hoping that she would look at him, but Anila didn't see him at all.
 
    She had indeed been using him in their relationship, and she had asked for a breakup because she had been annoyed by him. He hadn't contacted her, precisely because his suspicion would come true—that Anila had wanted to get back together and play with him—but what if that time she had been serious and he had lost the chance to be with her?
 
    Why were there all those misunderstandings between them? Was it really his fault that he hadn't tried hard enough for her? Because he had behaved badly with her at sea, that's why she had decided to give up on him? Why hadn't he been sympathetic from the beginning, but only after Anila had suffered an emotional breakdown? Now she had surely found someone who was always kind to her, and she had completely forgotten her past with Sidoreli.
 
    The best thing for both of them was for him to give up on her, he thought while weighing the situation three hours later, when he arrived in his room. Anila needed to stay away from every toxic person in her past, and Sidoreli had put his name on that list too.
 
    He caught on to the hypothesis that maybe she hadn't forgotten him and had dressed up that evening to get his attention; she would have seen him a lot of times, but he hadn't noticed her. He immediately let go of that rope and fell, surrendering to the precipice that he was writhing in vain; everything was over between them.
 
    But what had she wanted to talk about?
 
    He took his phone out of the pocket of his light wheat jacket and found the number that Anila had left at the receptionist in the company. A conversation with her and being close to her would be like the light of a house at night in a dense forest. Maybe they would be given the chance to clear up any misunderstandings until that night and give each other another chance. She probably realised that she loved Sidoreli too, and she wanted to fight for their relationship.
 
    With a thread of doubt still tangled in the thought that he was doing the right thing, he touched the green phone icon and called her.
 
    Anila read quickly the unregistered number, recognised who it belonged to, and her hands froze as her heart did, which prevented her from beating a few times from her emotions. She had deleted his contact, but not blocked it, so that she wouldn't go and look at it constantly to unblock it, but she hadn't been able to forget his number. It was permanently tattooed in her mind, and she remembered it every time she thought she had forgotten it.
 
    He would have noticed that she hadn't seen him at all during the evening, and he was angry that he no longer had any influence on her. Had she really managed to make such an impression, as she had planned? Why was he calling her? He already had a girlfriend, Arbeta. Was she aware that he was calling Anila? She didn't believe that they had planned to play with her, because then Anila would see herself, making sure that their corpses were really found in the water of the river Drin.
 
    She had asked to talk, and he was accepting her request. He probably wanted to set a time for them to talk. From hearing his voice, whenever she wanted to, she had ended up looking for crumbs for a few minutes to come up with an excuse and talk to him. Was it really entirely her fault, or something beyond their power to stop it would have happened anyway, and they would have come this far?
 
    She slid the green phone across the screen and reluctantly decided to accept the call.
 
    "Hello?"
 
    "I'm in room 304. There is no one from my company on this floor. Come and let's talk."
 
    "Wow! How insolent you have become!" She cried out without any effort to try speaking calmly.
 
    How could he say that? He must have planned a trap with Arbeta or wanted to be with her at the same time.

    "You asked me to talk," Sidoreli continued calmly. "I have time only now. If you want, come. No one is forcing you."
 
    "So, you're at that low level too," she remarked, disappointed. "I don't know how I lied to myself by thinking that you were different."
 
    "Anila, are you afraid of me?" He asked rather mockingly, but her silence wiped his smile from his face. "Wait. Is that why you broke up with me?"
 
    Anila ended the call, and he shook the phone away from his left ear.
 
    No, this one didn't have a second chance at all. If she was afraid that he would touch her against her will, he couldn't take away that kind of fear.
 
    Late, like the pilgrim, who is overtaken by night on the way because he didn't leave in time for his mission, to repent for the mistakes he had made, Sidoreli recalled every intimate moment with her, and when he could have gone too far, but she hadn't had the courage to tell him anything because she had been afraid that he wouldn't understand. Now he really had to give up on her. Anila's discomfort with him was also making Sidoreli feel uncomfortable with himself.
 
    The door got his attention with a light knock on it, and without first suspecting who it could be, he went to open it.
 
    For sure, it wasn't Anila. She had made it clear to him a while ago that she didn't want to be alone with him in a hotel room for fear that he could hurt her, but apparently he was wrong because Anila was waiting in the hall opposite his room.
 
    He opened the door immediately, as soon as he saw her through the magic eye and stared at her, mesmerised by her sweet eyes and her face, the outfit changed from a dress to blue jeans, a closed blue jersey, and white sneakers.
 
    She entered the room so as not to be seen by anyone and looked at him seriously, a face that was in danger of breaking from moment to moment from his lake-green eyes filled with the memories between them.
 
    "I'm not afraid of you; you are of me," she corrected.
 
    "What are you talking about?"
 
    Anila chuckled ironically. "That Arbeta has trained you very well. Or you must have trained her. I'm not understanding anything now."
 
    Sidoreli wanted to ask her to speak more clearly, but she continued on her own, without any such request being made to him first.
 
    "I know that you told the organisers of the event at 'Plazza' a few days ago to kick me out, just to embarrass me in front of the others," she accused angrily.
 
    "Who kicked you out?" he asked in the same tone of voice. "I thought you left by yourself."
 
    Anila quickly composed his words.
 
    "Are you seriously going to keep playing the innocent?" She chose not to believe him. "You and your girlfriend are trying to hurt me..."
 
    "Anila, what are you talking about? I'm not in a relationship with anyone," Sidoreli interrupted her. What were those words he was hearing? "Who has told you the opposite?"
 
    No one had told her in words, actually. She had simply convinced herself immediately, from Suela's guess that day, that Arbeta had really been complaining to her boyfriend about her, and that person was Sidoreli. He had protected Arbeta against her and made it possible for her to be expelled from training.
 
    "I saw you very well talking to each other while going down the stairs, and then you entered the hall together."
 
    "Yes, she had come there with a friend of hers and asked me if I had seen the organiser somewhere, because she wanted to ask him about the training, if they were going to hold another one soon, because a relative of hers wanted to be present, or if she should have told her to come that day. I said yes and took her to him."
 
    "Did you hear her when she asked him?"
 
    "No, I had to make a phone call, and I distanced myself. Then, when I was coming into the hall, we met at the stairs and entered together. That's it. I never talked to her again."
 
    Anila wanted to believe him, and his eyes were on her side, to help her with their calmness, that he was telling the truth. She hadn't seen him with Arbeta at all that evening, in fact. Arbeta had stayed with a few other women, while he had stayed with his colleagues.
 
    "I thought you got mad at me because I said something to her that made her angry, and that's why I wanted to talk. To tell you that she deserved it and not to mess with me anymore."
 
    "You said something that made her angry?" He repeated. "Why, what did she tell you?" He instantly came to her defence and was ready to argue with Arbeta for her.
 
    Anila hit him below his right shoulder.
 
    "Why do you make me feel toxic?" she demanded angrily. "It's like you treat me very well, but it's my fault that I don't know your worth."
 
    "Because you are toxic," Sidoreli said bluntly.
 
    Anila let out an indignant sigh and then chuckled.
 
    "How perfect you must be feeling right now, because you're not toxic at all." She further narrowed the distance between them, and under the pretext of mockery, she looked more closely into his eyes. "And extremely happy, I believe... because it's a great pride to find out that you have made a toxic person fall head over heels in love with you." She realised that she had thrown herself into fire with her hands, and her heart was engulfed in flames by her conveyed feelings.
 
    He mistook his oxygen for the rush of euphoria at the realisation of her words. She really loved him.
 
    "Only when you love that person back, it's happiness. Otherwise, you don't care." He also confirmed that he was still in love with her, and he kissed her.
 
    He expressed all the impatience of those days in the invisible form of the centuries away from her with the way he conquered her lips, and Anila drank from the elixir of desire, longing to be touched by him again.
 
    Her hands found his face to deepen the kiss, and her body moved closer to Sidoreli, as if crawling to him. He traversed her back, and his outstretched fingers traced towards the bottom of her back.
 
    "Wait!" Anila suddenly pushed him away, taking from him all the momentum of his feelings from the warmth of her body. "You haven't done any tattoos, have you?" She threatened, with a look, that she would end that moment if he affirmed it.
 
    "No." Sidoreli kissed her again, and this time longing was replaced by passion, the wave of which wasn't enough with his body; it wanted to subdue hers as well.
 
    Anila moaned into his lips and held on with her arms tied around Sidoreli's neck while he guided her legs around his waist, and they approached the bed.
 
    She fell on the light sand-coloured cover, as if her body were made of glass, and it wasn't breaking only because she had his touches on her. If he stopped, she would be torn to pieces.
 
    She leaned her head back to let his lips kiss her neck; she smiled excitedly at the caressing bite on that part of the skin, and Sidoreli tried to remove her shirt first.
 
    This was what he had always wanted; Anila's eyes were opened by that hypothesis; as a reward for behaving well with her and having respected her, he had waited for them to sleep together; he would use her for one night, mostly two, and maybe one more time, to finally get rid of his desire, to vent all his uncontrollable lust in her already used body, as if it were all his right; she was the remains of Sidoreli's war with her traumas, and therefore Anila had to accept whenever he wanted and do without complaining about anything, whatever she was ordered to do by him.
 
    She didn't understand what prompted her to accept. He deserved that reward, and she had to give it to him. Since they had gone to that point, Sidoreli had the right to complain that he had been used by her, just so that she could break away from the past for a while by having fun with him, and if she didn't agree to sleep with him, he would say that he had wasted his time and would seek retribution in another way if Anila didn't agree to get into his bed.
 
    All the passion in her body for him got replaced by embarrassment and submission to his touch, which she wanted to stop but couldn't say anything to him because of fear.
 
    Sidoreli stepped back, sensing her reluctance, he read her pretence to look as if everything was fine, and he could continue, regardless of how bad Anila was feeling at that moment. He closed his eyes, enervated, and with the wish turned into an agonising weakness, which was plunging him further into darkness.
 
    Sidoreli got up from the bed first, and then she did so with a feeling of guilt while avoiding her eyes from him.
 
    "If only one of us changed, and that person wasn't me, Anila." He looked at her sadly as she picked up the shirt on the ground and quickly put it on. "This is how you have made up your mind—to continue the rest of your life?" He didn't want her to leave, as if nothing had happened, like she didn't even bother to find a way to heal herself because she was hurting others around her too.
 
    "That's none of your business," Anila replied bitterly, and she headed for the exit.
 
    "Of course. You're the traumatised one here, not me!" The anger that she could turn her back so easily obscured his logic to attack her without thinking of the consequences that would be caused.
 
    "You remind me of all the trauma!" Anila attacked back with the same amount of power. "And that is why I hate you with all my soul!" She also used her eyes, not blinking for a second, to express her feelings with those words.
 
    "Why?" Sidoreli demanded an account, exasperated. "Why? Because I truly love you? Because I would rather choose to throw myself into the fire than touch you without your desire, like he did..."
 
    "Enough!" Anila stepped back with her hands on her ears. "Enough," she asked, traumatised, so that her state wouldn't get worse.
 
    "I'm sorry," Sidoreli stretched out his hands to calm her down.
 
    She hastily headed for the door, as if seeking escape from a monster.
 
    "Anila." Sidoreli wanted to stop her, but he was stopped by the closing of the door to his face, and he remained alone in the room.
 
    He ran his hands through his hair, regretting that he hadn't been able to control himself, and recalled the traumas of the past.
 
    What a labyrinth they were in!
 
    Sleep left him in the same labyrinth of lightless tunnels of thoughts around her for quite some time before it lazily took him and saved him from overthinking a solution, but he didn't know what else to do. She didn't trust him to come to his aid, and that tied his hands.
 
    He didn't want to give up on her, either, but fighting didn't seem like the right solution anymore. Maybe if he left her alone and they talked after a few days, he would find a way to convince Anila to believe that she could leave the past behind with the help of their relationship.
 
••••
    He found the excuse to talk the next day when he saw Arbeta in the lobby of the hotel, wearing a white half-shirt, light beige slacks, and white trainers, while talking on the phone with someone.
 
    She would bring Anila to him.
 
    But before that, he used a couple of seconds of his life to recall how he had fallen in love with her and had been convinced to make her a part of his life.
 
    They had met for the first time during their freshman year at university, and he had been attracted by her playful and provocative side. Arbeta had warned him with her physical appearance that she was also a trap towards the unknown and disarming darkness, but, however, the seduction from her aura had been stronger than that threatening danger.
 
    In the present, his mind instantly erased the fact that he had once been in love with her and reminded him of the sun at the centre of his life, who had put herself in that position just by being herself.
 
    Anila was so light that it didn't even ring a bell to him that there had once been someone else in his life before her. All that really mattered to him was her, and he didn't want to waste a single second by not devoting himself romantically only to her.
 
    "Arbeta." He drew her attention as soon as the latter turned off the phone and smiled friendly at him. "Did you tell the organiser to take Anila out of the event a few days ago?"
 
    Her lips formed a straight line from the demanding account of his rigorous face.
 
    "She complained to you?!" Arbeta asked mockingly.
 
    "She didn't tell me anything. I found out myself."
 
    "That's between me and her, then. It has nothing to do with you."
 
    "I get to decide if there is or not," corrected Sidoreli emphatically. "From now on, you will stay away from Anila. You won't even think about existing near her."
 
    "Or?" Arbeta raised her left eyebrow defiantly.
 
    "You will truly risk not existing at all."
 
    Her face paled from his devotion and his blind loyalty to Anila.
 
    She had once had his devotion only for herself, and from the way he had treated her, it had seemed as if Sidoreli would never forget her. When she broke up with him, Arbeta had no doubt that she had made the right decision. She hadn't felt that much for him—to think about asking him to go with her or to give up on the opportunity to start a new life abroad—because she didn't want to lose him.
 
    Now she wasn't sure if she felt jealous of Anila because she had been able to completely remove her from Sidoreli's life with her existence, and Arbeta no longer had the same importance and authority over him, or because realising that she had taken Sidoreli for granted in her life was urging her to think about asking for another chance from him because she was starting to love him.
 
    "Do you have any idea, what you're saying?" She gave him the opportunity to take back the threat he had just made. "Sidorel, you haven't been like this."
 
    "What makes you think that you have known exactly what kind of person I have been?"
 
    He left her with those doubts to go to the restaurant, where some of his work colleagues were waiting for him, and two others would join later.
 
    The plan for Anila seemed like a light at the end of the tunnel, until he saw her eating breakfast alone with a man he didn't know nearly the same age as him, dressed in a white shirt, black trousers, and shoes, at a table near the end of the bar, and that light disappeared, plunging him back into darkness.
 
    He didn't believe that she was trying to make him jealous because Anila hated such dishonest games, so she probably decided to get to know someone else and give up on him completely.
 
    Maybe he really reminded her of the traumas of the past because of the efforts she had made to heal them, but she hadn't been able to. Sidoreli was proof of her failures, and she couldn't look at him without remembering them. Yesterday, Anila had failed completely by surrendering to the toxicity of her past and had thought of opening a new page with someone else.
 
    "We were just about to call you," Ilirjana went to him with three other colleagues. "We thought about having breakfast somewhere else. Not to eat in the same place, since how long are we staying here? Let's explore."
 
    "Okay," he agreed without any interest in anything else, and he looked at Anila once more to give her the impression that he had caught her off guard and to make her feel guilty, and he got exactly that reaction from her.
 
    Anila followed him with a pleading look, to wait for her to explain the situation to him, but her knees called that fight a lost one, and she couldn't get up to go after him. Suela hurried into the restaurant and sat next to Martino.
 
    "Enjoy your meal," she addressed both of them in joy from the energy received from a new day, and they both thanked her.
 
    Anila ate quickly and left for her room.
 
    She saw Arbeta sitting on one of the armchairs in the lobby, and she looked like she was waiting for her. Anila had to pass by her to go to the elevator.
 
    "I had a little hope that I would be wrong, but with what Sidoreli told me a while ago, I was completely disappointed by you."
 
    Anila looked at her in a judging way, that she had probably gone mad, and that's why she was talking incoherently, and continued on her way to the elevators.
 
    "Quit that arrogance, girl. I've been there and done that long before you," Arbeta said, annoyed, and Anila changed direction.
 
    She fixed her shifting gaze on her and, with a look of sharp intelligence on her face, approached her.
 
    "You are nobody for me to be interested in what you've done," Anila replied harshly.
 
    Arbeta didn't ruin her blood from that assail but silently admitted that she felt a little inferior to the intensive strength expressed by Anila.
 
    "I may have had many wishes in my life," she said. "But never for the whole world to be interested in me. I have always supported the principle of being a heroine for myself first and then for whomever life brings me. It is as valuable to be the world for one person as to be known to the whole world."
 
    "Why are you talking to me?" Anila asked monotonously.
 
    "This was what you wanted, wasn't it? That's why you told Sidoreli that you were kicked out of the event by me a few days ago, to get my attention."
 
    "That's not true." Anila protested. "He talked to you?"
 
    "Yes." Arbeta didn't believe her. "You did wrong when you interrupted me that day, and you didn't let me finish the sentence."
 
    "That sentence was finished. You're saying that now because you want to win the argument."
 
    "Attack if you don't want me to win."
 
    "To attack means to think that the opponent is worth as much as to have my presence in front of them. You're not worth it," Anila said plainly, and she left for the elevator.
 
    She took a deep breath of relief only after she entered the cabin, and its doors closed.
 
    This is what Sidoreli had forced her to experience. She vented grudgingly about his reckless action to hold Arbeta accountable for her.
 
    She would have demanded an account from Sidoreli that day if he hadn't left for Tirana and didn't participate in the party that evening, so she was forced to go to his office at the company's headquarters a day later.
 
    "What is your problem?" Anila opened the debate with him as soon as she entered his office without permission. "Why did you argue with Arbeta for me?"
 
    "I knew that you would come to criticise me, and that's why I talked to her," he explained calmly with his back resting on the work chair. "I couldn't think of anything else to convince you to meet me, but I was late when I regretted it."
 
    "Can you imagine how bad I felt? I looked like someone who couldn't protect herself."
 
    "I was too late when I saw you with that man." Sidoreli got up from the chair and approached her angrily. "If I had known that you were dating someone else, I wouldn't have bothered at all."
 
    "What are you saying?" She distorted her face, annoyed by the confusion that his words created.
 
    "Oh, so now it's your turn to play the innocent," Sidoreli sneered with light relief.
 
    "He was just a colleague," she realised who it was about. "And we were not alone. Suela was also with us, a colleague as well, but she had forgotten her phone in her room and had left to get it."
 
    Sidoreli calmed down after that explanation.
 
    "What's the matter?" she asked. "You don't think you're perfect anymore?"
 
    "You think that you are?" he replied irately. "You can't wait for such situations to arise, and to confuse people."

    "True, I can't," Anila mocked him. "I mean, every time I wake up in the morning, the first thing that comes to mind is how to create trouble. Not you, and if you still love me, to get back together. There is not a chance that I ever think about you," she implied the truth, and he shook his head with his eyes tightly closed at her manipulation.
 
    "I should hate you with all my soul."
 
    Anila was shattered by his desire to achieve something like that.
 
    "Hate me!" She raised her voice out of anger so that it wouldn't appear that she was hurt. "I don't care at all!"
 
    "Do you think I care about you?" He adjusted his bitter tone, and Anila wrinkled her lips a little as a sign of the pre-formation of tears.
 
    "You don't need to talk about me to others!' Anila yelled out of the blue. "I can protect myself. I'm not left to ask for help from you."
 
    "Anila," he felt like he took a punch in the face from her tears, and he realised what was happening between them. "I shouldn't talk to you like that." He put his hands on her face. "I love you."
 
    She moved her lips, stirred by his remorse, and aware, too, of how wrongly they were communicating.
 
    "I'm sorry," she lowered her tearful gaze. "I fell very badly, and I couldn't get up."
 
    "You don't have to apologize. I understand you very well." Sidoreli kissed her on the forehead and gave her a hug.
 
    Anila longingly joined her hands behind his back and squeezed him tightly.
 
    "I kept a little distance because you asked to break up, but I never completely gave up on you." Sidoreli broke away and wiped her tears. "I waited for you to get up and come back to me again."
 
    "I don't deserve this chance," Anila admitted.
 
    "But you want it, right?" He looked at her flirtatiously, and she smiled.
 
    "Yes," she tried to lower her head from shyness, but his lips on hers didn't let her, and Anila immediately returned the kiss to him.
 
    "The important thing is to want, at first," he said humorously. "The rest can be thought of later."