Grandma's first warning; don't talk to strangers. Grandma's never warning; don't flirt with strangers. Rhapsody Bar is crazy this Friday night. Blasting with too loud music, too many people talking and laughing and…flirting. Too much, way too much alcohol. I'm on my fourth drink, trying to dissolve the image of Mark kissing his paralegal in our parking garage, when I feel it—a prickle on my skin, like a static shock before the storm. I look up.
Across the sea of bodies, at the very edge of the bar where the light barely reaches, a man is watching me. Not looking. Watching. Studying me like a scientist would a new organism. He's all shadow and sharp lines—a dark suit that doesn't belong here, hair as black as the booth behind him, and a gaze that cuts through the neon haze like a blade. Our eyes lock and my breath hitches. He doesn't smile. He just… holds the stare. A challenge. An acknowledgment. A silent, terrifying question. It sends heat flooding down my core. And I'm ashamed to admit, down below.
Then, the spell shatters.
"Belle!" Chloe's shout over the bass is a canon blast in my ear. She materializes, blocking my view. "we're changing location! We're going to the strip club!"
My ears are practically bleeding when she's done. "Ouch," I mutter, nestling my damaged organ. My heart is still pounding from that look. "It's"—I check my smartwatch— "almost midnight. I think I'm gonna go home."
"Are you drunk?" Chloe's eyes double their size. She puts her hands akimbo. "You're drunk!"
"Why are you happy with this realization? Wait… how do you know I'm drunk?"
Chloe rolls her eyes far to the back of her head. "Hmm, let me think, I wonder why else your cheeks are flushed and your eyes are like neon lights right now." She leans in, conspiratorial. "Or was it tall, dark, and brooding over there that did it?"
My gaze darts past her shoulder. He's still there. Still watching. A shiver dances down my spine.
I force my attention back to Chloe. "I'm leaving!"
"No!" Chloe jumps in front of me, her lean arms building a barricade over me. "We're going to the strip club."
"Wipe that smirk off your face. If I go with you guys, I'd be leaving there stripped, literally."
"I'd keep my eyes on you. Really, Belle. You need to get out there again. To hell with Mark! That ugly, stupid, fucking broke ex of yours."
"Technically, he's not my ex," The fresh, raw hurt of Mark's betrayal washes over me. I bite my lower lip, a new pain to hopefully dull the old one.
"Yes, he's an ogre. And humans don't date ogres." Chloe declares, grabbing my wrist. "Now, come on. The night is young, and you have a scorching case of eye-fucking a stranger to shake off."
As she drags me toward the door, I stumble—the heels, the crowd, the distraction of him. My clutch goes flying, spitting its contents across the sticky floor.
"Ugh, perfect," I groan, dropping to my knees.
Chloe crouches to help, but a large, male hand gets there first. Long, elegant fingers close around my lipstick, then extend it toward me. I look up the length of a tailored sleeve, over a broad shoulder, and meet the same devastating green eyes from across the bar.
Up close, he's ruinously handsome. All hard angles, that unsmiling mouth. The noise of the bar seems to mute, shrinking the world to this patch of floor.
"Thank you," I say, my voice barely a whisper. Our fingers brush as I take the lipstick. A spark.
He doesn't let go of my gaze. "Leaving so soon?" His voice is low, a dark velvet rumble that I feel in my bones.
"I… my friend…" I clear my throat and speak like the mature 25-year-old that I am. "It's late."
He glances at Chloe, who is staring with her mouth slightly open. His look is a dismissal. A command. Chloe, for once, is speechless. She gives me a wide-eyed 'oh my god' look and mouths 'I'll be outside' before melting into the crowd.
He stands, offering me his hand.
Every warning bell in my head is ringing. Stranger. Danger. Run.
But the bells are drowned out by the roar of my own blood, by the need to erase Mark's betrayal with something—someone—who feels like his direct opposite.
I place my hand in his. His grip is firm, warm, and final. He pulls me to my feet, close enough that I catch his scent—sandalwood and something colder, like night air.
"You don't belong here," he says, his eyes scanning my face.
"And you do?"
"No." A flicker of something—amusement? contempt? —in his gaze. "Which is why we're leaving. Your hotel or mine?"
The question is so blunt, so utterly devoid of games, it steals the air from my lungs. This is the cliff's edge. Grandma's never-warning screamed in my ear.
I look at him. At the intensity in his eyes, the sheer, undeniable offer of forgetting. I'm hot, everywhere!
"Yours," I hear myself say.
A single, slow nod. He doesn't smile. He just turns, my hand still in his, and cuts a path through the crowd. No one bumps into him. They part for him like he owns the very air.
I don't look back. I follow the stranger into the glittering Vegas night, leaving the girl who was cheated on, the girl who was fine, kneeling on the bar floor.
***
The car waiting outside is not a taxi. It's a sleek, black sedan with darkened windows. A driver in a cap holds the door open without a word.
He owns the driver. The thought slices through my alcohol haze. This isn't just a rich guy. He's rich rich.
He guides me into the back seat, then slides in beside me. The door shuts, sealing us in a tomb of quiet leather and that expensive, cold scent of his. The partition between us and the driver is already up.
The silence is heavier than the bass from the bar. Vegas's lights streak by the windows, painting his profile in flashes of gold and shadow.
"So," I say, the word too loud in the quiet. I'm aiming for casual, so I hope my words don't come out as nervous. "Is rescuing clumsy women from bar floors your thing?"
He turns his head slowly; his gaze is a physical weight pressing onto me. "No."
"Oh, so I'm the pioneer. Lucky me, I guess." I swallow. Suddenly, the car is too hot, too small.
"Lucky," he repeats, as if tasting the word and finding it bland. "What's your name?"
"Belle." I give it, after a bit of hesitation. "What's yours?"
He regards me for a long moment. "You can call me Luca."
Luca. The name suits him. Hard consonants. Foreign. Elegant and brutal.
"You don't sound like you're from Vegas, Luca."
"I'm not. I'm here on business." His tone shuts down that line of inquiry. He's not here to share. Apparently.
The car glides to a halt beneath the glittering portico of The Aethelstan, a hotel I know only from magazines. The kind of place where the lobby has a name like "The Gallery" and the water features are probably filled with diamonds.
He doesn't wait for the driver. He exits, offers me his hand again. It's starting to feel less like a courtesy and more like a ritual of possession.
We walk through the hushed, opulent lobby. People in thousand-dollar outfits glance our way, their eyes lingering on him with recognition or deference, then flicking to me with curiosity. I feel like a stray cat he's decided to bring inside.
The elevator is mirrored. I see our reflection: him, tall and immaculate; me, my dress suddenly feeling too short, my cheeks still flushed. He hits the button for the penthouse.
As the elevator climbs, the awkwardness returns, charged now by the sheer, impending intimacy of where we're going. My courage, fuelled by tequila and spite, is starting to fizzle.
"So," I try again, my voice echoing in the small space. "What's the plan?"
He looks at our reflection, not at me. "The plan?"
"Yeah. Up there." I nod toward the ascending numbers.
Finally, he turns. He leans one shoulder against the mirrored wall, caging me in without touching me. His green eyes are no longer just intense. They're stark, assessing.
"The plan is simple," he says, his voice dropping to a bone-deep rumble. "I want you. I've wanted you since I saw you trying to drown your sorrows in that terrible cocktail. I'm going to take you to my bed, and I'm going to fuck every thought of that other man out of your head. For tonight, you're mine."
The crude, breath-taking honesty of it knocks the air from my lungs and sends a wave of heat down to my core. This is not a proposition. It's a declaration.
"That other man? Who says I was thinking about a man?" I scoff, jutting my chin.
He shrugs, the action simple yet grand. "I don't care. You're going to forget everything anyway."
Indignation wars with a dark, thrilling pull. "I'm not a sex worker," I snap, my spine straightening. "You don't just... order me."
A ghost of something crosses his face. Not offense. Amusement. "I'm aware. If you were, this would be a transaction. It's not." He pushes off the wall, closing the last inch of space. "This is chemistry. This is two adults who want the same thing: oblivion. You want to forget your betrayal. I want to forget my world for a few hours. We are using each other. Equally."
The elevator dings, the doors sliding open directly into the penthouse foyer.
He doesn't move to exit. He waits, his eyes holding mine, issuing the final, silent challenge.
This is your last chance to run, Belle.
My head is spinning, my heart is panting and my brain is fuzzy. But I don't want to run. I want the oblivion he's offering. I want to be someone's first choice, even if it's just for a night. Even if it's just for this.
"Equally," I whisper, echoing his word. A slow nod. That's all the agreement he needs. He leads me into the suite, and the world outside ceases to exist.