The thought lodged in me like a second skin as I threaded my way through the sea of glittering gowns and polished shoes, gripping the tray tightly enough that my knuckles ached. The Grand Metropolitan Hotel was a palace of wealth, where people like me were meant only to serve, not to be seen.
And I had to remain unseen.
The dress they'd issued me for this waitressing job seemed like a second punishment too tight, too short, made to make us look appealing rather than professional. Pulling at the hem, balancing those champagne flutes, and offering a polite, rehearsed smile. One night. Just one night. Then I'd take my paltry paycheck and return to scraping by.
The men in wearing expensive suits hardly looked at me, muttering in low, conspiratorial voices. The women gave each other practiced smiles, their diamonds glittering beneath the chandeliers. This had been a smothering world of power plays and secret agendas. And I didn't belong here.
Until I committed the biggest mistake in my life.
It happened quickly too quickly to cut off. I turned, serving tray in hand, and bumped into something solid. No, someone. A sharp gasp escaped my lips as champagne flutes toppled and an unrelenting cascade of golden liquid drenched the front of an exquisitely tailored black suit.
The noise around me didn't break. It shifted. The ripple of silence spread outward, eyes turning toward the disaster I had just wrought.
My stomach plummeted.
Damian Blackwood.
And even if I didn't recognize his face, I would have known. He was the kind of guy who demanded attention tall, broad-shouldered, everything about him screaming control. His dark eyes focused on me, inscrutable, as if judging whether I was quality enough to be destroyed.
A vice grew around my throat. I opened my mouth, my brain racing for something to say, but my voice hardly functioned. "I, I'm so sorry"
Before I could back away, his fingers closed around my wrist. Not painful, but firm. Controlling.
The breath froze in my lungs.
His suit was ruined. I was ruined.
"Do you have any idea," he whispered, voice like silk over steel, "what you just did?"
"I, I'll get napkins," I said abruptly. My voice sounded too thin, too weak.
His grip slackened, just enough to send my pulse racing. "Don't bother."
I swallowed hard. He had that kind of intensity in his gaze. This man was danger stuck with a beautiful barista, the kind of man who could shatter a soul at will with a brush of his wrist.
And yet, I didn't move.
"I could have you fired," he added, almost thoughtfully. "Humiliated. Or even blacklisted from working here again."
A wave of panic crashed coldly over me. "Please, I"
"What's your name?"
It wasn't a question. It was a demand.
"Elena," I managed, pulse pounding.
His mouth lifted just at one end, but nothing close to kindness far too dark. Calculating. "Elena." He let my name brush his tongue, so to speak, testing it, tasting it. "Interesting."
I struggled to inhale, struggling to breathe fine enough the air too thick as it closed on me. I stood, teetering on the edge of a cliff, one misstep away from plummeting into a world I didn't know.
"I have an offer for you."
Those words gave me chills all over.
I should have walked away. I should have said sorry again and ran.
But Damian Blackwood was still gripping my wrist. And the way he kept looking at me made it clear running was never an option.
"A proposition?" My voice came out weaker than I intended, I repeated.
Damian Blackwood hadn't released my wrist yet. His fingers were warm, firm possessive in a manner that made my pulse skitter like a polygraph needle. The champagne I had poured atop his head was forgotten, but I wasn't so naïve as to believe he hadn't written down my name.
People like him did not forget things.
Between us, the air thickened, crackled, with unuttered things. I should have backed up, should have looked away, but there was something in his gaze that gripped me.
"You interest me, Elena," he said at last.
I swallowed. "That's not necessarily a positive thing, is it?"
His lips quirked up a smirk, but a humorless one. More like a predator playing with its prey. "That depends."
I loathed the way my body responded to him that knot in my stomach, the tingling of skin under his hand. Damian Blackwood was the type of man women loved or loathed. And I hadn't figured out what category I was in yet.
"What … what do you even want from me?" I asked cautiously.
His fingers relaxed around my wrist but didn't release. I wobbled my head and his head tilted to an angle, as if he was analyzing me at a different angle. "Well, let's just say … I like things that are entertaining." And at this moment, you are incredibly entertaining."
I frowned. "I'm not here to entertain you.
A dark chuckle escaped him, sending chills up my spine. "Oh, but you already have."
I felt a surge of anger and clenched my jaw. This was a game to him. A powerful billionaire, torturing a girl with no escape. To him I was nothing — an interesting blip in an accidental encounter.
And yet…
"You didn't answer my question," I said, putting steel into my voice.
His fingers stroked the inside of my wrist, a mere ghost of a touch, and I felt it everywhere. My breath hitched. He noticed.
Damian angled in slightly as he lowered his voice into something only I could hear. "I want to find out how much you want to risk."
I felt an eruption of goosebumps along my arms. "For what?"
"For me."
The way he said it so definitive, so menacing made my stomach churn.
That hit me, full force, then.
Damian Blackwood was not just flirting. He was testing me.
I was a waitress, nobody. And still, there he was, holding my wrist like he already owned a piece of me. Offering something I wasn't able to understand yet.
I was on the verge of telling him off, of pulling my arm free and walking away, when a hard voice sliced through us.
"There you are, Damian."
I jumped when a breathtaking woman sauntered toward me, long tendrils of ice-blue silk lapped under the glimmering lights. Blonde hair elegantly coiffed, she had sharp cheekbones and cold, appraising eyes. She gave me a look like I was the stink on the bottom of her designer heels.
Damian's face remained unchanged, but the atmosphere around us did. He didn't let go of my wrist, but I could sense the shift in his energy as if he was waiting to see how I would respond.
"Who's this?" the woman said, glancing between us.
"Elena," Damian said smoothly. "She's… interesting."
My stomach twisted.
The woman arched an eyebrow. "A waitress?" The way she said it bristled my skin with embarrassment.
I pulled my arm back, heat flushing my cheeks. "Sorry," I said, retreating a step.
I needed to leave. Now.
I whirled away, disregarding the way my heartbeat in my ribs. My pulse thudded in my ears as I walked, winding through the haze of rich strangers, needing to put distance between me and the touch of Damian Blackwood.
But as soon as I entered the back hall, a warm breath ghosted across my ear.
"Running already?"
My entire body stiffened.
Damian.
He had followed me.
I whirled around, but he was too near, his hulking form filling up the dim hallway. Here, the music from the ballroom was muffled and the air felt heavy with tension.
"I'm not running," I said, but my voice did not have my back.
Something unreadable flickered in his dark eyes. "You should be."
I swallowed. "Why?"
Damian leaned closer, his fingers grazing my waist so lightly I could hardly feel it — but my body could.
"And now that I'm aware of you, Elena," he said, his lips hovering above mine, "I don't think I'll be a
ble to stop."
My breath hitched.
The worst part?
I didn't want him to.