Chapter two- The headline

Ava's POV

I watched our reflections rise in the elevator, me in my cheap coat with mascara probably smeared down my face and him in his perfect suit looking like he stepped out of a magazine ad.

"So." I broke the silence. "Do you do this often? Pick up random crying women in hotel lobbies?"

"No." He pressed the button for the top floor. "First time."

"Lucky me."

The doors opened to a hallway that screamed money. Thick carpet and actual paintings on the walls, not prints. He unlocked a door at the end and held it open.

The room was massive, floor-to-ceiling windows showing the whole city lit up for Christmas. A couch that probably cost more than my car and a bar cart with bottles whose name I couldn't pronounce.

He walked straight to the bar and poured two drinks. Whiskey, neat and he handed me one without asking if I wanted it.

"Thanks." I took it, drinking half in one gulp. It burned going down but I didn't care. "I'm Ava, by the way, since we're apparently doing this."

"Damian."

"Just Damian? No last name?"

"Just Damian." He loosened his tie and sat on the couch, legs spread, head tilted back. "Tell me about him."

"Who?"

"The man stupid enough to cheat on you."

I laughed "What makes you think he's stupid? Maybe I'm just not worth keeping."

He opened his eyes, fixing them intensely on me. "That's not what I said."

"Yeah, well." I downed the rest of my drink and poured another. My hands were shaking, i hated that they were shaking.

"His name's Daniel. We've been together two years and engaged for six months. I thought we were building something, you know? Thought we were going to get married and have kids and do the whole boring suburban thing."

"Sounds terrible."

"It does now." I sat on the opposite end of the couch, as far from him as possible. "But I wanted it, I wanted normal. My mom died from cancer when I was sixteen. Dad just checked out after that we stopped talking, stopped caring. I basically raised myself through high school. So yeah, I wanted stability. I wanted something that wouldn't fall apart."

"And he destroyed it."

"Him and my best friend, apparently." I laughed again. It sounded unhinged even to my own ears. "Three months, they've been doing this for three months and I had no idea. I was planning our wedding, looking at venues and picking out flowers and the whole time he was screwing her. How pathetic is that?"

"Not pathetic." Damian poured himself another drink. "Trusting."

"Same thing."

"No, it's not."

We sat there for a while. The city lights blinked below us like a million tiny lights and somewhere far away, church bells rang. Midnight, christmas Day.

"What about you?" I asked. The whiskey was making me brave."What's your terrible night?"

"Work." He said, simply.

"That's it? Just work?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Work is enough." He rolled the glass between his hands and I didn't see a wedding ring. "My company is in the middle of a major merger. Biggest one we've ever done but someone leaked confidential information that could destroy everything I've built."

"Oh, that…sucks."

"It does."

"So why aren't you there? Fixing it. Doing CEO things?"

"Because I'm here." He looked at me. "With you."

Something in his voice made my stomach flip. The way he said it like being here was a choice he'd made deliberately, like I mattered somehow.

I should've left then, thanked him for the drink and the conversation and gone home to my empty apartment and my broken life.

Instead I said, "You have any more of that whiskey?"

He poured more for me and I gulped it down. We talked about nothing important, the city, the cold. How Christmas used to feel magical when we were kids and now just felt exhausting. He barely said anything, just sat there and listened while I rambled about my job arranging flowers for people's perfect days and my tiny apartment with the leaky faucet. About how I'd been trying so hard to make everything perfect that I missed all the signs that it was already broken.

"I saw them, you know." The words came out slurred. "The signs, the late nights, the cancelled plans. The way he looked at his phone more than he looked at me. I just kept pretending everything was fine because I was too scared to admit it wasn't, too scared to be alone again."

"Fear doesn't make you stupid."

"What does it make me then?"

"Human."

I looked at him. His face was all sharp angles and shadows in the dim light but his eyes weren't cold anymore. They were dark and intense and focused entirely on me like I was the only thing in the room worth paying attention to.

"You're drunk," I said.

"So are you."

"Yeah."

I set my glass down and the room tilted a little.

"I am."

We stared at each other across the couch. The space between us felt heavy. Electric. Like if either of us moved, something would break or catch fire or change completely.

"I should go," I whispered.

"You should."

But neither of us moved.

Then Damian stood, holding out his hand. "Stay.""I don't think……"

"Just stay, sleep it off and leave in the morning."

I took his hand, let him pull me up. His grip was warm and steady and callused, like he actually did something with his hands besides sign papers and shake hands at business meetings.

I realized I was exhausted. Bone-deep tired from the worst day of my life.

He led me to the huge bedroom with white sheets that probably had a thread count higher than my rent.

"I'll take the couch," he said.

"You don't have to do that, this is your room."

"I'll take the couch."

His voice final leaving no room for argument. I was too tired to fight anyway. I kicked off my shoes and collapsed onto the bed, still fully dressed.

The sheets smelled clean and expensive. Nothing like my apartment that always smelled faintly of old takeout.

Damian stood in the doorway for a moment, just watching me, his eyes dark but unreadable.

"Thank you," I said. My voice came out small. "For tonight. For listening and for not being a complete creep about this."

His mouth curved. Almost a smile. "You're welcome, Ava."

He closed the door. I heard him move around in the other room. Heard the clink of glass, the rustle of fabric and then nothing.I fell asleep staring at the city lights, wondering what the hell I'd just done and why it felt like the first honest thing I'd done in months.

Hours passed and i woke up to sunlight seeping in through the window like it had a personal grudge.

My head pounded so hard and my mouth tasted like something had died in it. I sat up slowly, trying to piece together where I was and how I'd gotten here.

Hotel room, fancy hotel room.

Damian, right.

The clock on the nightstand said eight thirty. My shift started at nine.

"Shit. Shit shit shit."

I scrambled out of bed, looking for my shoes. My coat, my bag. Everything was foggy, I remembered the lobby, the elevator. Drinking too much, talking too much. But the details were blurry around the edges like a photograph left too long in the sun.

The living room was empty when I stumbled out. There was no sign of Damian anywhere. Just a note on the counter in sharp, precise handwriting.

*Left early, lock the door when you leave.*

That was it, no phone number, no "had a nice time." No "let's do this again." Just instructions like I was housekeeping.

"Okay then."

I grabbed my stuff and left, taking the stairs because I couldn't handle the elevator mirrors and the judgment in my own reflection right now.

****

The flower shop & event planning store was already in chaos when I arrived ten minutes late.

Jamie took one look at me and whistled low.

"Rough night?"

"You have no idea."

I tied on my apron, fingers clumsy.

"Don't ask."

"Wasn't planning to."

She handed me a box of daisies.

"Mrs. Chen needs these delivered by noon and we've got three orders that came in this morning for New Year's parties event planning."

I threw myself into work, arranging flowers. Checking orders, cutting stems, basically anything to stop thinking about last night, about Daniel and Mara tangled up in my bed and the stranger in the hotel who'd listened to me fall apart without judgment or pity.

I was halfway through a bouquet of white roses and baby's breath when Jamie's phone buzzed.She looked at the screen and her facial expression went weird.

"What?" I asked.

"Oh my God." Her voice came out high and strangled.

"What?"

"Ava." She turned her phone toward me. Her hand was shaking. "Please tell me this isn't you."

My stomach dropped.The headline screamed across the screen in bold black letters: Hawthorne Capital CEO Caught in Hotel ScandalBelow it, two photos. One of Damian, full name Damian Hawthorne, apparently, looking sharp and powerful in his suit and one of me. My face clearly visible walking into the hotel room beside him.

A third photo showed us entering the elevator together with my face turned toward him. The time stamp read 11:47 PM, Christmas Eve.My full name was right there under my photo.

Ava Marie Cole.

Along with the word "mistress" in quotation marks and a paragraph speculating about how long the affair had been going on.

"Jamie." My voice sounded far away, like it was coming from someone else's body.

"That's not, we didn't, nothing happened….."

"Ava, who is that man?" Her eyes were huge. "That's Damian Hawthorne as in Hawthorne Capital. The billionaire, one of the richest men in the state."

My phone started ringing, it was an unknown number. I declined it and it rang again, a different number this time. Then again and again.The shop phone started ringing too.Jamie stared at me like I'd grown a second head.

"Ava, what did you do?"

I looked at the screen again, at my name splashed across the internet next to a man I didn't even know and the photos that made us look like we'd been together for months instead of one terrible night where we'd just talked and drank and slept in separate rooms.

My phone buzzed this time, with a text from another unknown number.

‘We need to talk, now. - DH’

I stared at the message, at the photos, at Jamie's shocked face, and realized my life had just gotten so much worse than I ever thought possible.