I should have said no. I should have blocked Mia's number, thrown my phone into the ocean, and moved into a monastery where the only men I'd ever see again were carved out of stone. Instead, here I am standing in the marble lobby of the Corinthian Hotel, wearing a dress I definitely cannot afford, waiting to escort a seventy-eight-year-old millionaire to dinner because my best friend's mother slipped in the bathtub and fractured her hip. Reality has a cruel sense of humor, and my bank account is its favorite punchline.
Three hours ago, Mia sounded like she was trying to talk down a bomb. Her voice had that frantic brightness she uses when she is terrified but refuses to admit it. "Please, Lena," she begged. "He's harmless. He just wants company. He'll be asleep by ten. And he tips like he's allergic to money."
Harmless is a word people use when they want you to stop asking questions, and just say yes. Harmless is the word you whisper to yourself when rent is due, there are debtors banging at my doorstep, and the fridge is empty and pride is a luxury you can't finance. So, I said yes, because I was too broke and too exhausted from pretending my life wasn't actively on fire to refuse.
I painted my face carefully, like makeup could seal cracks in a sinking ship. I curled my hair and stepped into a dress that Mia lent me, and that probably cost two years pay, even though it barely covered my body. I stood in front of my mirror for a full minute, studying myself like I was a stranger I didn't trust, then I grabbed my purse and left before I could change my mind. The worst part was how fast I slid into it, into the performance, into the version of myself that smiles on command.
The Corinthian is the kind of hotel where the air feels filtered for people who have never heard the word "no." Everything gleams. Everything whispers. Even the lobby plants look better fed than I am. I hover near a column and rehearse my friendly face, because if I start looking like I feel, the cracks will show.
Then I step out to greet my client.
Mr. Harold Sutton is exactly what Mia promised. Bald. Cheerful. Wearing suspenders and orthopedic shoes. He looks like a retired professor who accidentally wandered into a luxury hotel and decided to make it everyone's problem. He beams at me like I'm the highlight of his evening, and I can almost relax. This is easy.
Almost.
Because the second his hand touches my arm, I feel it. An icy burn slithers down my spine, immediate and animal, like my body recognized a threat before my mind caught up. It is not sound or scent. It is presence, thick and cold and undeniable. My stomach tightens so hard it feels bruised.
I turn.
Adrian Vale is standing in the lobby.
Eight years older. Infinitely richer. Unfairly hotter in that infuriating way men get when life rewards them for being ruthless. He looks at me like I just crawled out of a sewer and tracked filth across his Italian leather shoes. My heart leaps into my throat so fast I nearly choke on it, and for one humiliating second my knees feel weak.
No. Not him. Not now. Not while I'm doing this. Not while I'm playing the role of pleasant female dinner companion, because he is the last person alive I ever wanted witnessing this chapter of my life.
I try to pretend I don't see him, but Adrian has always been impossible to ignore. Even back in college, he commanded rooms like he was born with a private spotlight. He was brilliant and infuriating, the kind of boy who made professors stutter because he asked questions they couldn't dodge. Now he stands in the center of the lobby like a lion blocking the only exit, posture relaxed but predatory, eyes cutting straight through me the second Mr. Sutton's hand remains on my arm.
"Lena?" Mr. Sutton beams. "You look lovely tonight!" His voice is warm and oblivious, as if we are in a harmless universe where nothing has teeth.
I force a bright smile that feels glued on. "Thank you, sir." I keep my shoulders back and my chin level because if I let my body show panic, I will collapse into it.
Adrian's face goes razor-flat. Then, because fate enjoys stabbing me in the ribs, Mr. Sutton lifts my hand and presses a polite kiss to my knuckles. It is old-fashioned, gentle, almost sweet. But the look on Adrian's face darkens instantly, sharp and lethal, as if he's watching someone desecrate something that belongs to him.
I part my lips to explain, or lie, preferably with dignity. His voice slices through the lobby before I can get a single syllable out.
"I didn't know you were still working your way through wealthy men."
My stomach drops so fast it feels like freefall. "Excuse me?" I whisper, because anything louder might shatter whatever control I have left.
He steps closer, slow and controlled, hands in his pockets like he owns the oxygen in the room. "You left me for money in college," he says calmly. "I see nothing's changed."
My blood goes cold. I left him for money? The accusation hits like a punch because it's so wrong and so confident, and because it tells me he has been living inside a lie for eight years and feeding it until it became fact. He never asked what really happened. He never wanted to. He swallowed whatever poisonous story someone whispered in his ear and turned his back on me like I was an inconvenience he'd finally outgrown.
I swallow hard, forcing air into my lungs, because the urge to scream is useless. "Move, Adrian. I'm working." The words come out tight, but they come out, and that matters.
"Oh, I can see that." His eyes drag over Mr. Sutton, sweet and confused and unaware he's being used as a blade. "Expanding your clientele?"
Eight years. Eight years and he still believes the lie. Eight years of silence, no closure, no explanation, just that one devastating winter night that cracked me open like glass and left him walking away with the good version of the story.
I open my mouth to finally say everything I've held back, but Mr. Sutton pats my hand again, smiling like nothing is wrong. Oblivious to the crippling tension that was building. "Dinner, dear?" he asks, cheerful, trusting.
Focus. Survive. Get paid. Leave. "Yes. Dinner." I slip my arm through his and guide him toward the restaurant, forcing my feet to move like I'm not walking through a minefield.
Adrian steps into our path. Right into it, like he's testing whether I'll flinch. My heart stutters.
"Move," I say quietly. I keep my voice low because I refuse to make a scene in a lobby full of wealthy strangers who would love a scandal they aren't part of.
He doesn't budge. His gaze drags, slow and cutting, from Mr. Sutton's hand on my arm to the glittery dress Mia forced me into. He looks at me the way someone looks at fruit that has just begun to rot, with mild disgust, mild pity, mostly disappointment in the universe.
Before he can spit something worse, a security guard approaches. "Mr. Vale, your penthouse suite is prepared. Would you like to go up?"
Adrian doesn't look at him. He doesn't look away from me. "No," he says. "I want to eat first."
He's staying. To watch. To judge. To confirm whatever filthy theory he's written in his mind about why I'm here with a seventy-eight-year-old man. He wants the spectacle, the proof, the final stamp of righteousness on his bitterness.
Dinner begins like a normal event, which somehow makes it worse. Mr. Sutton is talkative, delighted by his own stories, and he eats like he's had nothing to fear for decades. By the time we're halfway through starters and soup, he's describing a yacht explosion with wild enthusiasm. I nod politely and spoon broth I can't taste, hyperaware of Adrian's presence across the room like a wolf pacing behind glass.
I do not look at him. I refuse to. But my body registers him anyway. Every time I laugh at Mr. Sutton's jokes, a pulse of shame follows. Every time I take a sip of water, my throat feels too tight. My skin feels exposed, as if Adrian's stare has turned the air into something sharp.
Then a shadow glides across our table.
"Miss Hale," the maître d' says smoothly, presenting a small gold-plated platter. A cream envelope rests on it, sealed and elegant. "This is for you."
"For me?" I blink confused. The agency already took its dinner date fee. Any money would be considered as tips, and come at the end. Nothing about this makes sense.
"Yes, miss."
I slide the envelope closer, pulse quickening. The weight is light but stiff. I open it beneath the tablecloth and freeze so hard my fingers go numb.
A check.
Fifteen thousand dollars.
Signed in Adrian Vale's distinctive, arrogant handwriting.
Heat flashes up my neck. Cold spreads through my chest. Across the room, I don't need to look to know he's watching. When I finally do, just for a second, I see him sitting perfectly still. His steak is untouched. His wine glass is full. His jaw is clenched so hard it looks painful.
Think.
My blood burns. He thinks I'm the kind of desperate idiot who would tuck his check into my purse with a grateful smile and call it fate. He thinks I'll accept humiliation as long as it's printed in clean ink with enough zeroes to feel like salvation.
I start to shake my head, ready to refuse, ready to push the envelope back like it's poison. Then Adrian lifts his hand.
Two fingers.
Twenty.
Twenty thousand dollars.
A price. A valuation. A number so large it stops being money and becomes a weapon. My father's debt flashes through my mind, half a million dollars circling like vultures waiting for the body to fall still. My hand trembles, and I press it to my chest to steady myself, as if I can hold my heart in place with my palm. It did not solve my problem, but it did help me take a step towards it.
Adrian leans back in his chair, crosses his arms, and tilts his head with bored precision.
Go on. Take it. Prove me right.
Something in me snaps upright. Not because I'm proud. Because I'm furious. Rage burning the last shred of shame. Because I refuse to let him be the only one in control of the story unfolding here. I pick up the envelope and slip it into my purse, slow, deliberate, controlled, like I'm the one making the decision and not the debt.
Across the room, Adrian's expression doesn't twist in disgust. It settles, like a switch flipping behind his eyes.
So, I lift my hand, raise two fingers, and smile.
His gaze hardens. Sharpens. Finalizes. He picks up his steak knife, rotates it once between his fingers, then sets it down with surgical calm. He doesn't need to say a word for me to understand exactly what he believes.
In that moment, the truth slices straight through me.
He isn't judging me.
He's pricing me.