2. Gone Without a Trace

The first thing Elena registered was the pounding in her head as she stirred from sleep. A dull, insistent throb pulsed behind her temples, each beat sending a fresh wave of nausea through her. She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut tighter, as if that could somehow block out the sunlight filtering through the heavy curtains.

Her body felt heavy, limbs tangled in something warm. Then she registered the unfamiliar scent — masculine, musky, intoxicating. The next was the cool silk sheets beneath her, far too luxurious to belong to anyone she knew. She groaned and lifted her hand to her temple, trying to remember where she was, how she got here.

Memories crashed into her like a freight train.

The club. The whiskey. Him. Ryan.

She turned her head slowly, heart hammering, and there he was asleep. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, dark lashes casting shadows over his sharp cheekbones. The sheets pooled low on his hips, revealing a torso sculpted like a damn Greek god.

Her breath hitched.

Flashes of last night flickered behind her eyelids, flashes of heat, kisses that burned down her spine, fingers that knew too much, the way she straddled him, how his lips explored her skin like a map he needed to memorize, how her own hands had wandered without restraint, how she’d pressed her mouth to his and felt something awaken that she’d never felt before, the way he’d growled "Private room. Now."

She remembered the way his tongue had traced her skin, the way he’d tasted like whiskey and sin. She remembered the way her body had ached for him, the way she’d moaned his name. The next memory snapped was her lie.

"I'm twenty-seven."

The guilt burned through her faster than the bourbon had last night. She hadn’t told him the truth. Not even close. She had lied. She had flirted with a man too old for her, thrown herself into his arms, kissed him like her life depended on it, and now here she was, in his bed, wearing nothing but a stranger’s scent.

She needed to get out. As soon as possible.

Carefully, she lifted his arm, holding her breath as she slid out from under him. Ryan stirred but didn’t wake, his fingers flexing against empty sheets. Her legs trembled as they touched the cold floor. Her body still hummed from the night before.

She spotted her dress pooled on the floor and quickly snatched it up, slipping into it while avoiding looking at him again. She found her heels near the foot of the bed and grabbed her clutch and phone from the nightstand. Her hands trembled as she shoved her things inside.

She paused, hand on the doorknob, and glanced back.

Ryan hadn’t moved. The morning light painted his skin gold, highlighting the sharp cut of his jaw, the curve of his lower lip. His dark hair was tousled, falling slightly over his brow, his lips parted in sleep.

Elena knew she shouldn’t be staring. But she couldn’t help it. She would never see him again. The thought sent an unexpected pang through her chest.

There was something about him, even asleep, he looked powerful, commanding like the world would bend to his will the second he opened his eyes. She should’ve hated him for making her feel things she wasn’t supposed to, but instead, all she felt was sadness. She didn’t even know his last name. He didn’t know hers either, not her reality. 

He was never meant to stay. Still, as she turned toward the door, she paused again, taking one last look at his face, trying to capture every detail, like she was pressing him into memory. Then she slipped out the door, closing it softly behind her.

. . . . . . . . . .

Ryan’s phone wouldn’t stop ringing. He groaned, rolling onto his back, one arm slung over his eyes. His head throbbed, mouth dry, body heavy with the kind of exhaustion that came from too much whiskey and not enough sleep.

His phone kept ringing. He reached blindly for it, knocking over an empty glass in the process and answering with a gruff, “What?”

“Where the hell are you?” Jade’s voice blasted through the line.

Ryan winced. “Morning to you too. Sleeping. Or I was.”

“It’s ten-thirty, Ryan. You were supposed to be on the conference call with the Madrid clients at nine-thirty. You bailed.”

“Fuck!” Ryan scrubbed a hand over his face.

Jade sighed. “You okay?”

He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Yeah. I just got distracted.”

Memories flickered, neon lights, the taste of bourbon, her. Elena.

The girl with the pink lips and the too innocent eyes. Those wide brown eyes watching him like he was a storm she wanted to run into. The way she moved against him, reckless and needy. His gaze drifted to the empty side of the bed.

She was gone.

The sheets beside him were rumpled but cold. No note. No trace of her except the faint scent of lavender lingering on his skin.

He frowned. He wasn’t the kind of man who chased girls the morning after. They usually chased him. They stayed until he was done. But something about Elena, the way she’d looked at him, the way she’d kissed him, itched under his skin.

Jade’s voice crackled through the phone. “Ryan? You there?”

“Yeah.” He dragged a hand down his face. “I’m here.”

Jade sighed, clearly giving up on prying. “I have postponed the meeting after lunch. Please be on time.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” He grabbed his discarded pants, fishing out his wallet. “I’ll be there.”

He hung up, tossing the phone onto the bed. 

“Just a girl,” he muttered. “Just one night.” He chuckled darkly, shaking his head.

He headed for the shower, turning the water as cold as it would go, letting the cold water chase away the sleep and the hangover.

Later the entire day, no matter how many emails he checked, no matter how many calls he took that morning, her face kept flickering in his mind. She was the distraction he didn’t need.

He had meetings lined up back to back, two contracts on the verge of collapse, and a dozen more people waiting to get a piece of his time. Still, for the first time in years, he couldn’t shake the ghost of a stranger who had disappeared before sunrise.

That afternoon, Elena met up with her friends at a café downtown, the sunlight too bright for her aching head.

“Elena!” Paris’s voice pierced the buzz of the café as she spotted her friend slipping into a seat at their usual booth. “Where the hell did you disappear last night?”

“You’re alive,” James said dramatically, sliding into the seat beside her. “We thought you died. Or got kidnapped. Or ran off with a cartel lord.”

“Or got married in Vegas,” Sofia chimed in with a smirk. “Honestly, I would’ve respected that.”

Elena, now wearing an oversized hoodie to hide the marks on her neck and down to her body, pulled her sunglasses down lower on her nose and groaned. “Can we not do this today?”

“No way,” Sofia chimed in, sipping her latte.

Paris leaned forward, arms crossed. “Where the hell did you go, El? We checked the whole club before we left. But you were nowhere. Vanished.”

“Yeah,” Killian added. “Thought you left with that hot guy at the bar?”

Elena flinched. “I didn’t leave with anyone.”

David snorted. “That’s not what it looked like. One second you were sulking at the bar, the next second…. BOOM! you were lip-locked with the sexiest man in the room.”

Her face turned crimson. “I had a headache. I called my driver and left.”

Paris narrowed her eyes. “That’s it?”

Sofia squinted at her. “Is that so?”

They almost shouted at the same time. 

Elena nodded, keeping her face neutral, lifting her coffee cup to her lips to hide the heat in her cheeks.

David leaned in with a smirk. “Then why are you blushing like you committed a felony?”

Sofia narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, you look like someone who’s hiding a very hot secret.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she snapped, far too quickly.

“Right,” Paris said slowly, then added with a wicked grin, “Nothing at all. Totally believable.”

Killian grinned. “She’s lying. That blush? Dead giveaway.”

“I am not blushing.”

“You are. And it’s adorable,” James teased. “Now spill.”

“I’m not spilling anything because there’s nothing to spill!” Elena snapped.

Sofia giggled. “Was he good?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Elena muttered.

They teased her for another ten minutes before the conversation shifted toward other gossip, but Elena barely heard a word of it. She stared down at her coffee, her fingers tracing circles around the rim of the cup.

Her mind was far, far away. Back in that room. Back with him.

She’d only known him for a few hours. A stranger. A dangerous, gorgeous stranger. She had no idea who he really was. No name, no number. Nothing but a memory.

She had crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed and no matter how badly she wanted to see him again, just one more glance, one more touch, she knew it had to end before it began. She would carry the memory in silence and he would forget her name before the day ended.

At least, that’s what she told herself.

But fate?

Fate had a funny way of not being done with you. Even when you thought you’d slipped away.