CHAPTER 3 The Obvious Trap

ADRIAN’S POV

The first thing I registered was the ache behind my eyes.

I opened my eyes to a ceiling I didn’t recognize, then to the room around me. 

It was a 4-star at best, and the light filtering in felt almost offensive given the hangover I was experiencing. 

My jaw tightened as fragments of last night crowded in—heat, blurred edges, the sensation of soft skin under my hands. A broken little sound in my ear. Eyes looking up at me, wide and unfocused.

Damn it.

I pushed myself upright, muscles protesting. 

I never woke up like this. I didn’t drink enough to get drunk, and I didn’t take substances that I didn’t control myself. 

Yet my head was foggy. Someone had slipped something into my drink, I was sure. The welcome dinner, the toasts, and the insistent way Jason kept topping up my drink… in hindsight, it was obvious. 

I swung my legs off the bed, rubbing a hand over my face. My body told me exactly what had happened with the woman from last night, even if my brain couldn’t replay every second clearly.

One-night stand. Or at least, that’s what it would look like on paper.

Had she been part of their plan? Or had she been as much a pawn as I was?

Either way, she was gone now.

My hand went to my chest on instinct—then froze.

Cold air met my fingers where metal should have been.

The chain I always wore, the ring threaded onto it, was gone.

My mother’s ring.

I stared down at the empty skin, every trace of grogginess burning off in a single surge of anger. 

I scanned the sheets, the floor, the bedside tables. Nothing. I checked under the bed, in the bathroom, in the pockets of last night’s suit.

Gone.

“Brilliant,” I muttered.

I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and hit speed dial. My assistant picked up on the second ring.

“Morning, sir.”

“Luca. I’m at the Regency Hotel. Pull the security footage from every camera on my floor and the lobby. Timeframe from last night to right now.” 

A brief pause. “Anything specific we’re looking for, sir?” 

“There was a woman in my room,” I said. “Find her. And get me a doctor that can discreetly run a tox screen on my blood. I was drugged.”

Luca’s voice went sharper. “Drugged? Are you all right?”

“I’m awake,” I said curtly. “That’ll do for now. I’ll be at the office in an hour. Bring everything there.”

“Yes, sir.”

I hung up and went for a shower, stopping to look at myself in the mirror. Her nails had left their marks, alright. Thin, long, barely noticeable but definitely there. 

Memories from last night came rushing back… her hot breath against my neck, her soft, sweet voice, begging me to go slower as I—

I shook myself out of it. 

A shower. I needed a cold, freezing shower. 

I had spent most of my life overseas building my tech company, Cognio. I started with practically nothing and turned it into the single biggest online backbone for how companies got paid and got work done.

But one call from the doctor about my father’s heart, and I was on a plane back home.

My father went from working as a receptionist at a motel to owning his own chain across America. From there, he built hotels and resorts around the world. When he first created the company, he called it Shepard, after our last name, and later changed it to Ambrosia… meaning the divine fruit of immortality. 

I didn’t want anything to do with hospitality. Tech excited me, and I wanted to be far away from my father’s name so I could build on my own merit. 

But that didn’t mean I would allow his hard work to fall into the hands of predators. 

As soon as word got out that I’d flown back to America, my dear brother Kline and his incompetent son Jason pounced. 

Last night’s welcome dinner at the hotel had been a performance—fake smiles, sweet champagne, and Kline’s wife hovering around me like a vulture, although that probably didn’t have anything to do with the business.  

Then the dizziness. 

The way the room had tilted, voices blurring. Someone suggesting I get a room in the hotel to relax. 

I remembered stumbling in. 

Green.

Vanilla.

A soft voice.

I finished my shower and dried myself briskly. 

***

An hour later, I was in my office, flipping through the accounting books that were practically a work of fiction. Kline and Jason had been very busy moving as much money as they could into their own accounts. 

Impatient, sloppy people. 

But there was an upside… because desperate people always made mistakes. 

My door opened after a brief knock. 

Luca stepped in, tablet in hand, dark suit immaculate despite the early hour. Next to him, a doctor walked in with a kit. 

“Sir,” he said. “I’ve got the footage, and he’ll be taking your blood for the tox screen.” 

I rolled up my sleeve and let the doctor get to work while Luca went on. 

“Did you find the girl?” I asked.

Luca tapped the tablet and turned it so I could see. Grainy black-and-white footage of a hotel corridor appeared, timestamped just after midnight. A man stepped into frame, carrying a limp female figure in his arms. Her head lolled against his shoulder, hair hiding most of her face. Green dress. Bare feet.

“Zoom in,” I said.

Luca did his best, but the quality only allowed so much. Her features were mostly obscured, but her shape, her hair… it was definitely her I felt against me last night. 

I also saw… she wasn’t walking. She hadn’t been part of their scheme. She’d been manipulated, just like me. 

The man carrying her stopped outside my suite, then used a keycard to let himself in.

“Who is he?” I asked quietly.

“Brad Smith,” Luca replied. “Driver for Andrew Montero.”

I frowned. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”

Luca opened a file and placed a white-and-sage-green envelope on my desk. 

“You will soon,” Luca said. “Andrew Montero runs Montero Construction. Small fish, but he’s been sniffing around Ambrosia for years, trying to get closer. He has a daughter called Chloe, and she’s getting engaged to your nephew in 2 days.” 

A second-rate construction company trying to build ties with a hotel business. It was so desperately obvious, I wanted to laugh. 

The doctor finished and stood up. 

“I will send the results in 2 hours,” he said before leaving. 

The door clicked shut. 

“Smart timing,” I told Luca. “Announce the engagement right after I arrive. Get my father’s blessing while he’s weak.” 

Luca stayed silent. He’d been with me long enough to know when I was just talking things through.

“And at the same time, they arrange for an unconscious woman to be delivered to my room. I’ll bet they have pictures of us they can blackmail me with.” 

Still, Luca stayed silent. 

“Any footage of her leaving?” I asked him. 

“Around 6 a.m,” he said, swiping to another clip. 

There.

She appeared in the corner of the frame, head down, denim jacket pulled tightly around her. Her dark hair hid her face, and her shoulders were hunched as if she expected someone to shout after her.

Something twisted in my chest unexpectedly.

She looked… scared. Not like a woman who’d gotten what she wanted.

“Do we know her name?” I asked.

“Not yet. I’m working on it.”

My fingers went, again, to the empty place on my chest. “Just find her.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

I picked up the invitation again.

“And call Jason,” I said. “RSVP for me.”

Luca’s eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Are you sure, sir?”

“Of course,” I said. “I want to see exactly what kind of surprise my dear nephew and his future in-laws have prepared.”