I'm moving before my brain fully catches up with my body.
Off the bed. Sheet wrapped around me like the world's most expensive toga. Scanning the floor for my clothes, which are scattered across this hotel room like evidence of a crime I didn't know I was committing.
My dress. Where's my dress?
There—crumpled near the window. My underwear somewhere by the nightstand. One shoe under a chair, the other God knows where.
"I have to go." The words tumble out of me, high and panicked. "I have to—this was a mistake. I didn't mean—"
"Stop."
One word. That's all it takes to freeze me in place.
I don't want to obey him. I don't want this stranger to have any power over me. But something in his voice—that combination of command and control—makes my body respond before my mind can protest.
I turn to look at him.
Big mistake.
Because in the bathroom light, I can really see him now. And he's not just handsome. Handsome is too small a word for what this man is. He's devastating. The kind of beautiful that makes you understand why ancient people built temples and wrote epic poems. Dark hair that's messy from my fingers. A face that's all sharp angles and masculine perfection. Wearing only dark pants that hang low on his hips, showing a body that clearly belongs to someone who takes control very seriously.
But it's his eyes that trap me.
Storm-gray. Like winter clouds before snow. And they're looking at me with an intensity that makes me feel like he's memorizing every detail, cataloging me, claiming me somehow even though we're strangers and this whole thing is a disaster.
"I asked you a question." His voice is calmer than it should be. Too calm. Like he's used to situations spiraling out of control and has practice keeping his head while everyone else loses theirs. "Who sent you here?"
"No one sent me." I clutch the sheet tighter, wishing I could disappear into it. "I told you—it was a mistake. I mixed up the room numbers. I was supposed to meet my boyfriend and I—"
"Your boyfriend." He says it like he's testing the word, finding it distasteful. "The one who texted you a room number and told you to come."
"Yes." My voice is barely a whisper.
He takes a step toward me. Just one. But the room suddenly feels much smaller.
"What's his name?"
"Todd. Todd Morrison. He's—we've been together for two years and tonight was supposed to be—" I can't finish. Can't explain that I was saving myself for someone who apparently sent me to the wrong room. Or maybe the right room. I don't even know anymore.
The stranger—God, I don't even know his name—tilts his head slightly, studying me. "Show me the text."
"What?"
"Your phone. Show me the message."
I shouldn't. I should grab my clothes and run. But something about the way he's looking at me makes me want to prove I'm telling the truth. That I'm not whatever he thinks I am.
I unlock my phone with shaking fingers and hold it up.
He crosses the space between us in two strides, and suddenly he's close enough that I can smell him again—that cedar and darkness that made me lose my mind in the first place. He takes the phone from my hand, his fingers brushing mine, and I hate that even now, even terrified and humiliated, I feel that touch everywhere.
His eyes scan the screen. Todd's message telling me room 2417. His subsequent messages asking where I am, saying he's in 2714.
I watch his jaw tighten.
"You really didn't know." It's not a question. More like he's realizing something that changes the equation.
"Of course I didn't know!" The words come out sharper than I intended, and I'm glad. I need anger right now. Anger is better than the crushing shame threatening to swallow me whole. "You think I wanted this? You think I go around sleeping with random men in hotel rooms?"
Something flashes across his face. "First time?"
I feel my cheeks burn. "That's none of your business."
"It became my business the moment you walked through that door." He hands my phone back. "Get dressed."
Relief floods through me. He's letting me go. Thank God, he's letting me—
"We need to talk," he continues, already moving toward the desk where his own phone is charging. "And you're going to tell me everything about this boyfriend of yours. What he does, who he knows, why he sent you to the wrong room."
"It was an accident." But even as I say it, something cold is forming in my stomach. Because Todd's always been careful about details. He triple-checks reservation times, confirms addresses twice, never mixes up numbers.
So why tonight?
The stranger—I need to stop calling him that, need to ask his name—pulls on a shirt, and I try not to watch the way fabric slides over muscle. He's built like someone who could break things without trying. Including me.
"Start with your clothes," he says without looking at me. "Then we'll—"
His phone rings.
He glances at the screen, and something in his expression shifts. Hardens. He answers without saying hello.
"Speak."
I can't hear what the person on the other end is saying, but I watch his face change. Watch storm clouds gather in those gray eyes.
"Say that again." His voice could cut glass. "What transaction?"
My hands stop moving. I was reaching for my dress, but now I'm frozen, listening.
"Room 2417. Yes, that's my floor. No, I don't know anything about—" He stops. Listens. Then his eyes cut to me, sharp and assessing. "Describe her."
Oh God.
"Dark auburn hair. Small. Pretty." A pause. "Yes, she's here."
The world tilts sideways.
"Who was supposed to receive her?" Another pause, longer this time. When he speaks again, his voice is deadly quiet. "Veil. Marcus Veil."
I don't know that name. But the way he says it—like it tastes poisonous—tells me everything I need to know.
"Cancel it. The transaction, the arrangement, all of it. And find out who authorized this. I want a name in the next hour." He ends the call without saying goodbye.
The silence that follows is suffocating.
"I don't understand." My voice sounds very small. "What transaction? Who's Marcus Veil?"
He sets his phone down carefully. Too carefully. Like he's controlling himself, keeping something violent locked down deep.
"Apparently," he says, each word precise and cold, "someone arranged for a woman matching your description to be delivered to room 2417 tonight. For Marcus Veil's entertainment. He's a business associate. The kind who collects people like other men collect art."
The room spins.
"But that's—that's impossible. Todd wouldn't—"
"Wouldn't he?"
Two words that crack my world open.
Because suddenly I'm remembering things. The way Todd's been stressed lately. Distracted. The phone calls he takes in another room. How he's been asking me about taking our relationship "to the next level" for weeks now, pushing in a way that didn't feel romantic, felt almost... desperate.
"He texted me the room number," I whisper. "He told me to come here."
"Wrong room number. Right floor." The stranger—God, I need his name—is watching me piece it together. "You were supposed to go to 2714. Where your boyfriend was waiting. But you went to 2417 instead. Where I was."
"And this Marcus person—"
"Was expecting someone exactly like you." He crosses his arms, and I notice his hands are clenched into fists. "Tell me, Sloane. Does your boyfriend have money problems?"
How does he know my name?
Then I remember—it was in Todd's text. He saw it on my phone.
"I don't know. Maybe? He's been weird about money lately. Vague." My mind is racing, trying to make sense of pieces that don't want to fit together. "But he wouldn't—he loves me. We've been together for two years."
The look he gives me is almost pitying. Almost.
"Men like Veil don't do transactions for free. Someone offered him something. Someone needed him satisfied." He pauses, letting that sink in. "Your boyfriend sent you to this floor. To a specific room. On a night when a woman matching your description was expected. That's not a coincidence."
No. No no no.
"You're wrong." But my voice cracks on the words. "Todd wouldn't sell me. He wouldn't—"
"Maybe he didn't see it that way. Maybe he told himself it was just one night. Just one favor owed. Just a way out of whatever hole he'd dug himself into."
I'm going to be sick.
My knees give out, and suddenly I'm sitting on the edge of the bed, the sheet still wrapped around me, trying to breathe through the realization that the man I trusted—the man I was going to give everything to tonight—set me up.
Delivered me like a package.
To someone who "collects people."
"I need to leave." I stand up too fast, and the room tilts. "I need to go home and figure out what's happening and—"
"No."
I freeze. Look at him. Really look at him.
And for the first time, I see past the beautiful face and the expensive clothes and the calm control. I see something possessive burning in those winter-storm eyes. Something that decided I belonged to him the moment I walked through that door.
"You can't keep me here." I try to sound brave. Fail. "I don't even know your name."
"Caspian." He takes a step toward me. "Caspian Thorne."
The name hits me like a punch. Because even I—living in my tiny studio apartment, working at a small gallery, existing in a completely different world—have heard that name.
Thorne Ventures. Billionaire. Power broker. The man who can make or break companies with a single decision.
"And you're not going anywhere," he continues, voice soft and absolute, "until I find out who's playing games with me."
His eyes hold mine, and I see the truth there—the danger and the determination and something else. Something that makes my breath catch despite everything.
"And with you."