Rule #1

—CHARLIE—

Let’s get something clear. I don’t have bad luck. I make my own luck. I built a division of my father’s company from the ground up before I was twenty-five. I close deals that older men sweat over. My life is ordered, clean, and under my control. Always.

That control doesn’t end at the office. It’s in the loft, the bar, the bedroom. I apply the same principle: identify the point of diminishing returns and exit cleanly.

In business, that’s before the competitor undercuts you. With women, it’s before the morning.

The night is for pleasure. The morning is where it all goes to shit. They get quiet. They start looking at the ceiling like they’re measuring it for curtains, imagining where their photos would go. They want to talk.

That’s why I have a simple rule: don’t let it get to morning in my bed.

By 3 AM, I’m walking them to the door, their coat in my hand, a final, genuine compliment on their lips. They leave feeling desired, not dismissed. No messy feelings. No false hopes.

Everyone wins.

Which is why the last few months have been… irritating.

Not a problem. An irritation. Like a sleek, high-performance engine developing a single, inconsistent misfire.

Take last week. Sabrina. Long legs, sharp laugh, knew her way around a wine list.

The night was... efficient. By 2:45 AM, I was walking her to the door, her coat in my hands. That’s when she saw it. Her convertible had a flat. Right rear tire. Deflated like a sad balloon.

She looked from the tire to me, a challenge in her eyes, as if saying: Now what, hotshot?

I did the gentlemanly thing. “Guest room’s made up. You’re welcome to it.”

The look she gave me could have curdled milk. “You’re putting me in the guest room?”

“My bed isn’t part of the package,” I said, my voice leaving no room for debate.

It’s a simple policy. Sleepovers lead to breakfast. Breakfast leads to expectations. I don’t do expectations.

She spent the night fuming in a room down the hall. In the morning, she called a friend, shot me a glare that promised I’d die alone, and said, “You’re a special kind of jerk, you know that?” before stomping out.

A week later, the flat tire was a mystery. The real irritation was that Sabrina had been spectacular. And now she’d rather set herself on fire than see me again.

The week before that, Amelia. Or was it Alicia? A blonde from the gallery opening. I had her pressed against my hallway wall, her dress halfway to the floor, when her phone blew up—not an alarm, but a flood of frantic texts from her roommate. Someone had called in a gas leak to her building's security, and the fire department was doing a mandatory evacuation. She spent forty minutes coordinating the rescue of her cat. The mood wasn't just dead; it was buried.

Before that, Jenna. A stunning Italian brunette who laughed like music. We ordered Thai. An hour later, she was pale and sweating, swearing it was the mildest food poisoning she’d ever had but she still needed to go home. Now.

A coincidence? Maybe. But I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe in cause and effect. And the effect was that my clean, clear exit strategy was getting… muddy.

I was pouring a bourbon, rolling the mystery around in my head, when the knock came.

Not the elevator ding. A knock. Firm. Unannounced.

Only one person knocks.

I opened the door, and there she was. Carly. My best friend. My chaos.

Her chestnut hair was a mess from the drive. She wore jeans that hugged every curve and one of her oversized sweaters that probably cost more than my watch. At her feet was a single, massive suitcase.

“Hey,” she said, and her smile was a familiar punch to the gut. Not in a bad way. In a Carly way. It meant trouble.

“Dorrington.” I leaned against the doorframe, letting my eyes rake over her. A slow, appreciative look I’d never give another woman. With anyone else, it would be a prelude. With her, it was just… looking. “To what do I owe the invasion?”

She rolled her eyes, a habit she’d had since she was ten. “Dad and I had a blowout. The merger. His ‘my way or the highway’ speech. I’m taking the highway. Indefinitely.”

She said it lightly, but I saw the real frustration in her eyes. The kind that came from loving someone you also wanted to strangle. I knew it well.

I should have said no. My space is my temple. It’s minimalist for a reason. No clutter. No sentimental junk. No permanent residents.

But this was Carly. She wasn’t clutter. She was a force of nature. And the idea of her here, filling the silence with her opinions and her coconut shampoo… it didn’t feel like an invasion.

It felt right.

I stepped back, a slow grin spreading across my face. “Well, come on in. Try not to corrupt the sanctity of my clean lines.”

She wheeled her suitcase past me, her scent cutting through the sterile air of the loft. She stopped in the middle of the living room, hands on her hips, surveying my domain. I watched her. The way her sweater dipped off one shoulder. The way her hair caught the light.

Beautiful. My best friend was fucking beautiful. It was an objective fact, like the sky being blue. It didn’t mean anything.

“I’ll try to contain my mess to one corner,” she said, but her eyes were already plotting. I could see it. She was mentally rearranging the furniture.

“You’ll try and fail,” I said, taking the suitcase from her and heading toward the guest room. “Just keep your chaos out of my room. That’s the one rule.”

“What, scared I’ll see something?” she called after me, her voice teasing.

I glanced back over my shoulder, giving her the look that made other women melt. The one that promised trouble. “Terrified, Dorrington. You can’t handle my organizational system for ties.”

She laughed, and the sound wrapped around me, warm and real. I put her bag in the guest room, the room that had never felt more empty.

Walking back out, I found her already on my sofa, feet tucked under her, scrolling through her phone as if she’d lived here for years.

And just like that, the misfire in my engine, the irritation of the flat tires and the migraines… it all faded into background noise.

Carly was here. The one woman who never played by my rules, because with her, there never needed to be any.

For the first time in months, my world felt perfectly in tune again.

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To be continued...