I woke up to sunlight stabbing me directly in the eyeballs.
For a moment, I didn't know where I was. The ceiling was wrong—too high, too white, too expensive-looking. The bed was wrong too—too soft, too big, too much like sleeping on a cloud made of money.
And the smell.
The sheets smelled like him.
Memory crashed into me.
The bar. The drinks. The cab. His penthouse. Victoria on her knees. His hands taking off my shoes. His voice telling me to sleep.
Oh God.
Oh Gosh.
I sat up too fast and immediately regretted it. My head throbbed like something was trying to claw its way out of my skull. My mouth tasted like something had died in it. And my stomach—
I barely made it to the bathroom in time.
I don't know how long I spent hunched over his toilet ,emptying the contents of my stomach. Long enough for the worst of the nausea to pass. Long enough to realize I was still wearing last night's dress, now wrinkled beyond salvation. Long enough to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and wish I hadn't.
Mascara smeared under my eyes. Hair escaping from what had once been a style and was now just chaos. Skin pale and blotchy. Eyes red-rimmed and swollen.
This was it. This was rock bottom.
I'd broken into my former boss's apartment, interrupted him getting a blowjob from some socialite, cried all over his chest, rambled about my student loans, and passed out in his guest room.
If the ground could open up and swallow me whole, that would be great.
I splashed water on my face, tried to tame my hair into something less horrifying, and gave up on both. There was no fixing this. The only thing I could do was get out—quickly, quietly, before I had to face him.
I crept out of the bathroom and scanned the bedroom for my things. My purse was on a chair by the window. My shoes were placed neatly by the door—he must have put them there last night. There was a glass of water on the nightstand with two aspirin beside it.
Something about that made my chest hurt.
I grabbed my purse, shoved my feet into my heels, and headed for the door.
The penthouse was quiet. Morning light flooded through those massive windows, making everything look like a magazine spread. I could see the kitchen from here—marble countertops, gleaming appliances, not a single thing out of place.
And no sign of Damien.
Thank God.
I moved as quickly as my pounding head would allow, crossing the living room toward the front door. I was almost there. Ten more steps. Five more. Three—
"Leaving without saying goodbye?"
I froze.
His voice came from somewhere to my left. I turned slowly, already dreading what I'd see.
Damien was standing in the doorway of what must have been his home office. He was dressed—thank God—in a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dark slacks. His hair was slightly damp, like he'd recently showered. He looked fresh and rested and completely unbothered, which was deeply unfair given that I looked like I'd been dragged through a gutter.
"Mr. Russo." My voice came out scratchy. "I was just—I'm leaving. Obviously. I'm so sorry about last night, I don't know what I was thinking, I was drunk and I—"
"Sit down, Elena."
It wasn't a request.
I should have ignored him. Should have walked out that door and never looked back. But something in his tone—something that reminded me of all those weeks working for him, all those commands I'd obeyed without question—made my feet move toward the living room instead of the exit.
I sat on the edge of the couch. The same couch where Victoria had been kneeling last night. I tried not to think about that.
Damien walked toward me, and I hated how aware I was of every step. How my body tracked his movement even when my brain was screaming at me to run.
He sat in the armchair across from me. Not next to me. Keeping a careful distance.
"How's your head?" he asked.
"Fine."
"You're lying."
"It's none of your business."
"You broke into my apartment last night," he said. "Interrupted my evening. Cried on my floor. Told me—in great detail—about your financial situation. And then passed out in my guest room. I'd say that makes your head very much my business."
The embarrassment was so acute. I could feel my face burning.
"I'm sorry," I said again, staring at my hands. "It won't happen again. I'll return your key and your key card and you'll never have to see me again."
"Look at me."
I didn't want to. But I did.
His grey eyes were fixed on my face.
"You said you have $87,000 in student loans," he said.
I flinched. "I was drunk. I said a lot of things."
"You said your rent is due in two weeks and you can't pay it."
"Mr. Russo—"
"You said you have nothing." He leaned forward slightly, his elbows on his knees. "No family. No savings. No job. No references, since I'm certainly not giving you one."
Each word was a knife.
"Why are you doing this?" My voice cracked. "Why are you listing all the ways my life is ruined? Is this fun for you? Watching me suffer?"
"No."
"Then what? What do you want?"
He was quiet for a moment. Studying me with those cold eyes, like I was a puzzle he was trying to solve.
"I have a proposition for you," he said finally.
I blinked. "What?"
"A business arrangement. One that would solve all of your problems."
"I don't understand."
"You don't need to understand yet." He stood, and I automatically tensed. "You need to go home. Shower. Eat something. Sleep off the rest of that hangover. And then, tonight, you'll come back here and we'll discuss the details."
"I'm not coming back here."
"Yes, you are."
"You can't just—" I stood too, my legs shaky but my voice firm. "You can't just order me around anymore. You fired me, remember? I don't work for you. I don't have to do anything you say."
He moved toward me, and I stumbled back a step before I could stop myself. He noticed. Of course he noticed. A slight curve touched the corner of his mouth—not quite a smile, but close enough to make my stomach flip.
"You're right," he said. "You don't work for me anymore. Which means what I'm proposing is... something else entirely."
He was close now. I could see the flecks of darker grey in his eyes, the slight shadow of stubble on his jaw.
"I don't want anything from you," I whispered.
"Another lie."
"It's not—"
"Elena." My name in his mouth was a weapon. It always had been. "You came here last night. Drunk, yes. Irrational, certainly. But you came here.To me.Why?"
I didn't have an answer. Or rather, I had one, but I couldn't say it out loud. Couldn't admit that even after everything, some stupid part of me had wanted to see him.
No. Stop.
"I don't know," I said.
"I think you do."
"I think you're arrogant."
"I think you're deflecting."
I shook my head, stepping back, putting distance between us. "I'm leaving. Whatever this... proposition is, I'm not interested."
"You don't even know what it is."
"I don't care."
"$87,000." He said the number like it was nothing. Like it wasn't the weight that had been crushing me for years. "Plus rent. Plus living expenses. Plus whatever else you need to survive. All of it, gone. Taken care of."
I stopped. I didn't want to stop. But my feet wouldn't move.
"What are you talking about?"
"Come back tonight. Seven o'clock. I'll explain everything."
"And if I don't come?"
He shrugged, a casual gesture that looked anything but casual on him. "Then you don't. You walk out that door, you struggle to find a job, you get evicted, you drown in debt. That's your choice."
"That's not a choice. That's a threat."
"It's reality." His voice was cold again. The Damien I knew. "I'm not threatening you, Elena. I'm offering you an opportunity. Whether you take it is up to you."
I stared at him, trying to read something—anything—in that impassive face. But he gave me nothing.
"Why?" I asked. "Why would you help me? You hate me."
"I don't hate you," he said.
And then he turned and walked back toward his office, leaving me standing in the middle of his living room, hungover and confused and more lost than I'd ever been in my life.
"Seven o'clock," he called over his shoulder. "Don't be late."
I left.
I walked out of his penthouse, took the elevator down, and nodded at the doorman who was definitely judging me for my walk-of-shame appearance at 9 AM on a Wednesday.
The subway ride home was a blur. People stared at me—of course they did, I looked like a disaster—but I didn't care. I couldn't think about anything except his words.
A proposition. A business arrangement. One that would solve all of your problems.
What did that mean? What could he possibly want from me that would be worth that much money?
My mind went to dark places. The obvious places. Was he asking me to—no. No, that didn't make sense. Damien Russo could have any woman he wanted. He'd had Victoria kneeling for him last night, for God's sake. He didn't need to pay for that.
So what, then?
I was still turning it over in my head when I got home.
Mira was awake—barely. She was sitting at our tiny kitchen table in her robe, a cup of coffee in her hands, her phone propped up in front of her. She looked up when I walked in, and her eyes went wide.
"Oh my GOD." She jumped up, nearly spilling her coffee. "Elena! Where the hell were you? I've been texting you all night!"
"My phone died," I lied. Or maybe it hadn't. I didn't actually know.
"I was worried sick! One minute you were at the bar, the next you just—" She stopped, taking in my appearance. The wrinkled dress. The smeared makeup. The general aura of shame and regret. "Oh my God. Did you... did you go home with someone?"
"No. Not like that."
"Then like what?"
I sank onto the couch, too tired to stand anymore. "I went to Damien's apartment."
Mira's jaw dropped. "You WHAT?"
"I was drunk. I wasn't thinking. I still had his key and I just... I went there."
"And?"
"And nothing happened." I rubbed my face, trying to wipe away the exhaustion. "I walked in on him with some woman, had a breakdown, and passed out in his guest room. It was humiliating."
Mira sat down next to me, her expression shifting from shock to concern. "Elena... babe..."
"I know. I know, okay? It was stupid. The stupidest thing I've ever done."
"What did he do?"
"He took care of me." The words felt strange in my mouth. Wrong, somehow. "Let me sleep. And this morning, he..."
"He what?"
I looked at my best friend, at her worried face and her messy hair and her chipped nail polish, and I didn't know how to explain what had happened.
"He wants me to come back tonight," I said. "He has some kind of... proposition. Something about money. About solving all my problems."
Mira's eyes narrowed. "That sounds shady as hell."
"I know."
"You're not going."
"I know."
But even as I said it, I wasn't sure. Because $87,000 was a lot of money. And rent was due in two weeks. And I had nothing—no job, no prospects, no future.
What was I going to do?
What could I do?
Mira was saying something about a shower, about food, about rest. I nodded along without really hearing her. My mind was back in that penthouse.
And what the hell was I going to do about it?