Then his arm wraps around my waist, pulling me back against his chest. The gesture is unexpectedly tender after the rough intensity of earlier.
"Sleep," he murmurs against my hair.
And despite everything—despite the fact that I don't know his last name, despite the fact that this was supposed to be just sex, despite the fact that I'm lying in a stranger's bed—I feel safe.
I fall asleep within minutes.
I wake to sunlight streaming inside.
It takes a second to remember where I am. Then it all comes crashing back. The gala. The humiliation. Adrian. The window. The things we did.
Oh God.
I turn my head. Adrian is still asleep beside me, one arm thrown over his head, his face relaxed in a way it wasn't last night. He looks younger like this. Less dangerous.
I need to leave.
Carefully, slowly, I slip out of bed. My dress is still in the living room. I tiptoe out, finding it exactly where I left it. I pull it on, struggling with the zipper, finally managing to get it up mostof the way.
My shoes are by the elevator. My purse is by the door, right where I dropped it.
I should leave a note. That's what people do, right?
But what would I say?Thanks for the mind-blowing sex, stranger whose last name I don't know.
No. Better to just go.
I press the elevator button. The doors open immediately. Apparently, you don't need a keycard to leave, only to enter.
As the elevator descends, I catch my reflection in the mirrored walls. My hair is a mess. My makeup is smudged. I'm wearing a borrowed dress with the zipper halfway undone and shoes that gave me blisters.
I look exactly like someone who spent the night with a stranger.
The lobby is quiet at this hour. A few people in business attire heading to early meetings. A doorman who doesn't even glance my way. No one seems to care about the girl in the rumpled dress doing the walk of shame through a luxury hotel.
Outside, the morning air is crisp and clean. Manhattan is just waking up—delivery trucks rumbling past, early commuters clutching coffee, the smell of fresh bread from a nearby bakery mixing with exhaust fumes and possibility.
I walk to the subway and disappear into the crowd.
Last night was an escape. A fantasy. One perfect night where I got to be someone else, someone who belonged in penthouses and said yes to dangerous strangers and forgot about everything that was waiting for her in the real world.
But now it's morning, and I have to go back to being Seraphina Romano. The girl who works in a bookshop. The girl whose brother owes fifty thousand dollars to dangerous people. The girl who has less than a week to figure out how to save his life.
Last night was beautiful.
But it's over now.
CHAPTER 4
Adrian
I wake to the sound of the elevator doors closing.
For three seconds, I don't move. Just lie there processing what that sound means.
Someone left.
Someone left me.
