Chapter One

A small frown formed on Furina Dunne’s forehead as sunlight cascaded across her face through the windows. She stirred and blinked her eyes open for a split second before shutting them again. Her head felt incredibly heavy, and her whole body ached. She felt an unusual throbbing between her thighs. Though her brain was still fuzzy, she soon registered her surroundings—it was clearly not her bedroom but something resembling a hotel room.

Panic began to build inside her. Despite her body's reluctance, she managed to prop herself up on her elbows and push herself into a sitting position. A small groan from her right immediately stopped her from swinging her legs over the side of the bed. If it had been a female groan, she might have assumed the other occupant was one of her friends. But the deep, male groan terrified her.

Her mind, still foggy from the alcohol she had consumed the previous night, struggled to piece together what had happened. Most importantly, she needed to remember how she had ended up in a hotel room with a man sleeping next to her.

Blurry images started to surface in her mind and flashed in her very eyes. She remembered that for a moment after the French man she’d met at the club pushed off her jacket and peeled her tee shirt over her head, she knew a moment’s panic. She recalled her brain telling her to wake up and run. The hotel bedsheets had been cool at her back and they caused a brief spasm of sanity to chill her blood. But it hadn’t lasted long. When the man had knelt beside her and bent to take one erect nipple of hers into his mouth, she’d thought she had been in heaven. She had been half afraid she would’ve died from the pleasure his darting tongue evoked. It felt as if the time had been suspended as he’d run his hands all over her body. She had always thought she was too tall and too lean, but evidently, he didn’t agree with her. There had been genuine satisfaction in the eyes that met and mated with hers, and she’d found herself moving instinctively with him, arching her body and spreading her legs in a way that at any other time would have mortified her soul.

But oddly enough, she hadn’t felt any shame. There were no inhibitions when he’d straddled her and invited her to touch him. His shaft had been hot and hard and incredibly smooth, like steel beneath soft velvet. But, in spite of his eagerness to share his excitement with her, when her slim fingers closed around him, he had moaned aloud and called out her name in that intoxicating French accent of his. He had said other things too in French that had been way too fast for her to comprehend. And when he had finally inched his way inside of her …

Furina shook her head as if that motion alone could wash away all the memories from last night. Looking down at her own body, Furina stared at her own nudity in pure terror. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at the man beside her.

It was said that Paris was the city of love however no one told her that it could be a city of pure madness. Because that was all she could come up with as an excuse for her behavior. Evidently, she’d been careless and way more reckless that it was so out of her character. She didn’t have the bravery to take a peek under the duvet to see the evidence of her recklessness. Gosh, for one single night, she had way too many drinks and this was what had gotten her.

It was karma. She had been drinking away the fact that her own mother had abandoned her and her father in order to marry a billionaire. One single trip to Paris with her close friends to celebrate their graduation and for her to have a taste of happiness and freedom for a week before she had to go back to Ireland and the bitter reality. Last night was the second to last night of their trip, tomorrow they were supposed to go back home by train. Her friends Tiffany, Lizzy, Tomasso, and Harrod must’ve been crazy worried for her.

One more time Furina glanced around and about the hotel bedroom. From where she was sitting on the bed, she could locate her bra proudly laid on top of a standing lamp next to a sofa. Without making any sound, she inched herself off the bed and tiptoed her way to the living area. She picked up her underwear off the floor next to the bed and quickly put it on. Hugging herself as if to shield her naked body because she couldn’t grab the duvet off the bed without waking the French man, she went to fetch her bra. Walking into the living room area, she watched her top and long skirt on the entrance of the massive suite.

Once she was all dressed, she only needed to locate her purse. It must’ve been somewhere in the suite. There was no way she would so carelessly forget her purse, right? Right? Twenty freaking minutes later and she still couldn’t find her damn purse.

In both frustration and intoxication, she accidentally knocked over the glass on the end of the kitchen table. Luckily it landed on the carpeted floor in a small thud rather than shattering if it was a marbled floor instead. Unluckily, however, it made enough commotion to wake the man in the bedroom.

“Qui est-ce?” (French: who is it?)

Furina cussed inwardly. She was going to leave without waking the man up. Now that it was too late, she attempted to reply, “Sorry.”

“You should leave,” he said after a moment, and she could hear him rustling in his duvet. He was going to get up and come here.

Furina was ashamed of what she had done but it didn’t give him the right to kick her out after using her to get off last night.

“You get to fuck me and kick me out?” She responded back to him in disbelief.

There was a small huffing sound, almost as if he was stifling a laugh. “What else you want? A tip, Bitch?”

It took everything in her not to go back into the bedroom and hit him in the head. She didn’t remember every little detail from last night but she knew he certainly hadn’t been acting like a dickhead he was right now, no way she would’ve agreed to go to a hotel with him if that had been the case.

“You know what, fuck you?!”

Her eyes spotted two hotel cards carelessly tossed on the small coffee table by the door and without hesitation, she grabbed one. She noticed his wallet was also there but before she could decide whether or not to grab one banknote to get a ride home or call a friend, she heard his footsteps approaching. Before he could spot her, she was already down the hall and into an opened elevator with one hand carrying the hotel card while the other carrying her shoes.

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