Chapter Seven

Aria Pov 

Morning light slipped through the heavy curtains in thin gold lines across the bed.

I woke slowly, body heavy, limbs tangled in expensive sheets that smelled of sex and the faint remaining scent of his skin. For a few seconds I simply lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember where I was. The suite was quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioning. My mouth felt dry. My throat was faintly sore. Then the deep, insistent ache between my legs and the dull throb in my inner thighs brought everything back in a rush—the hotel key mix-up, the stranger stepping out of the bathroom in nothing but a white towel, the way I had begged him not to stop, the way I had taken him into my mouth until he came down my throat in thick, hot pulses.

I turned my head.

He was already dressed.

The man from last night stood near the window, fastening the last button of a crisp black shirt with precise, unhurried movements. His suit jacket hung neatly over the back of a chair. The trousers sat perfectly on his hips. He looked completely composed, as if the hours we had spent tangled and desperate had never touched him. Only his hair, still slightly damp and not yet perfected, hinted that he had been anything less than controlled. The morning light caught the sharp line of his jaw and the clean cut of his shoulders beneath the expensive fabric.

Shame hit me first—hot and immediate. Then anger, sharp enough to cut through the lingering haze of sleep and sex.

I sat up, pulling the sheet tight against my bare chest. The movement sent a fresh twinge through my thighs and a deeper, fuller ache higher up. I ignored both.

“You molested me.”

The words came out sharper than I intended, rough from sleep and from the way I had used my voice the night before. He paused, one hand still on his cufflink, and looked at me. His expression did not change. There was no guilt, no surprise, no softening. Only that same cool, assessing calm he had worn even while he was buried inside me.

“I didn’t,” he said evenly. “You asked for it. More than once.”

“I was drunk. I was upset. You took advantage.”

He finished with the cufflink and reached for his jacket, sliding one arm into the sleeve with the same controlled grace. “You were coherent enough to tell me your name. Coherent enough to beg me to fuck you. Coherent enough to swallow every drop I gave you.”

Heat flooded my face and neck. I hated that he was right. I hated even more that my body still remembered the exact stretch of him, the exact weight of his hand in my hair, the exact sound he made when he came. The sheet suddenly felt too thin. I clutched it tighter and refused to look away from his face.

Before I could form another accusation, a soft knock sounded at the main door of the suite. The man called for the person to enter without raising his voice. A middle-aged man in a neat dark suit stepped inside carrying a thin leather folder. He kept his eyes respectfully lowered. He did not look at me. He did not acknowledge the fact that I was clearly naked beneath a hotel sheet, hair tangled, mouth still faintly swollen. He simply waited a few steps inside the room, professional and invisible.

Alexander took a chequebook from the folder, signed one cheque with a swift, elegant stroke of the pen, and handed both the signed cheque and a second blank one to the secretary along with a fountain pen.

“Give this to her,” he said. “Tell her she can write whatever amount she wants. I’ll cover it.”

The secretary crossed the room in measured steps and held the blank cheque and pen out to me without a word. The paper was thick, expensive, the kind that never belonged in the world I had woken up in yesterday morning. I stared at the empty line where the amount should go. The implication was clear and ugly. Payment. Silence. A clean transaction to close the night and erase any claim I might think I had.

My hand shook as I took the pen. Pride screamed at me to throw it back in his face, to tell him I wanted nothing from him except the door and the chance to forget. But need—raw, practical need after Ethan’s betrayal and the sudden absence of the future I had planned—made me press the tip to the paper. The ink flowed smooth and dark. I wrote the number carefully, each zero deliberate, the commas neat.

One hundred thousand dollars.

I handed the cheque and pen back to the secretary. He glanced at the figure once, showed no reaction whatsoever, and returned to Alexander’s side. Alexander did not look at the amount. He simply gave a single, curt nod, as if the matter had been settled to his satisfaction.

“We’re done here,” he told the secretary.

They left together. The door clicked shut with soft finality, the sound small and absolute in the large suite. The scent of his cologne lingered a moment longer, then began to fade.

As they left she quickly went to change to bath and dress up still feeling a slight pain in her legs.