Mr. White-Suit-Moneybags drove off with his entourage while the party was still rolling. I didn't even see him leave. One second he was there, a walking flex in polished shoes, the next—poof. Gone. Maybe that's one of the perks of being a real boss: you don't exit, you vanish.
I tried spotting him in the crowd for a few minutes before giving up. I checked my watch—ten past 'get-the-fuck-outta-here.' Just kidding. More like ten o'clock. Bedtime for mortals, but for me? Time to find a decent glass of aged disappointment a.k.a. scotch.
I slinked off the dance floor and headed for the bar, weaving through socialites and sugar daddies in bad toupees. That's when I saw her.
Zaira Noir.
She stood near the bar, backlit by soft golden light, wrapped in a black satin dress that looked painted on. Glass in hand. Lipstick red enough to start a war. And when she turned—God help me—my heart stuttered like it forgot it had a job.
"Zaira," I said, as casually as I could manage.
She didn't smile. Not really. Just tilted her head and looked at me with those eyes that always saw too much.
"Michael," she said, her voice smooth like silk over a blade. "Still allergic to humility, I see."
I grinned. "I had it removed in surgery. It was affecting my swagger."
She smirked. "Tragic. Swagger must be all that's keeping you alive lately."
We stood there in that sweet, terrible space between attraction and hatred. That space where love goes to overdose.
"You look good," I said, eyeing her like she was something expensive I already knew I couldn't afford again.
"So do you," she said. "Must be all that near-death experience glow."
I chuckled. "You know, you always had a thing for trying to kill me—with kindness, with sex, with whatever's sharpest at arm's reach."
Zaira took a sip of her drink. "Only because you always begged to be saved. Or broken."
"Ouch." I clutched my chest in mock pain. "That almost sounded like a feeling. Don't tell me you've gone soft."
"Only in the head," she said. "Forever thinking you could love anything but your own reflection."
There it was. The knife. Dipped in honey, straight to the gut.
I leaned in, just close enough to smell the danger on her perfume. "You left me, remember? And now you show up at my party like it's casual Friday? Either you're here to kill me or kiss me."
Zaira smiled, but her eyes darkened. "Why not both?"
For a moment, time slowed. The room spun without moving. I remembered the nights we used to burn—her nails on my skin, my lies in her mouth, the war between wanting and winning.
We were a match—struck too many times.
"You still think about it?" I asked.
She didn't answer.
So I leaned back and said, "Of course you do. You always liked playing with fire."
"I liked setting it," she said. "Watching you squirm in the ashes afterward? That was the best part."
"Don't flatter yourself," I said, voice cool. "You weren't fire. You were smoke. Beautiful, blinding... and impossible to hold."
She laughed. Soft. Dangerous. "And you were gasoline in human form. All charm, no substance. But explosive? Sure."
I reached for the scotch bottle, poured two glasses. Handed her one.
"To mutually assured destruction," I toasted.
She clinked it. "To mistakes that still wear designer suits."
We drank.
And just like that, the distance between us felt both too wide and too close. We couldn't stay apart, but staying close? That was where the bleeding started.
In the reflection of the glass, I saw my face—tired, smug, lonely.
And I saw hers—unforgiving, unreadable, unforgettable.
And suddenly, I didn't know if I wanted to kiss her... or confess.
SOMETHHING ABOUT HER BROUGHT BACK MEOMRIES
I REMEMBER THAT...…
We met under the Jacaranda tree.
She was the daughter of the maid and the gardener. Born behind the hedges of my mansion. Raised in silence, raised in shadow.
But that day, she was laughing. Her knees were grass-stained, her curls wild, her dress tattered. And I—eight years old, already a prince in a castle of secrets—was bored and lonely.
"Who are you?" I asked.
She looked up, hands still clutching a beetle like it was gold. "Zaira."
"I'm Michael," I said, with all the confidence of a boy who never got told no. "Wanna race?"
We became inseparable.
We played in the gardens, built forts from branches, stole cookies from the pantry, and told secrets under the stars. She was the one person I could be real with. No expectations. No legacy. Just me.
By twelve, I was smuggling her into the library. By fourteen, we were kissing in the servant quarters when no one was looking. By sixteen... I took her virginity in the wine cellar.
It was clumsy. Beautiful. Sacred. I still remember the way she looked afterward—half terrified, half glowing. And me? I felt like I had touched something divine.
But paradise was temporary.
Lord Augustine Rain found out.
He didn't scream. He didn't rage. He just summoned me to his study and looked me dead in the eye.
"You are not to see her again," he said. "She is a weed. And we do not marry weeds—we pull them out."
I defied him. Again and again. Until the threats turned into punishments. Private schools. Travel abroad. Fake scandals created to keep us apart.
Zaira left one day. No goodbye. Just silence. I searched. I begged. I threatened. But she was gone.
Now here she was.
At my party.
Dressed like sin.
Looking like regret.
And I didn't know whether to love her… or destroy her all over again
The beginning of the end came one summer morning.
I was seventeen. She was sixteen. And we had plans—leave this place, run away, start fresh. But that dream shattered like porcelain the day my father walked into the servants' quarters unannounced.
Zaira's parents— Camela and Joseph—froze in place. My father stared them down like they'd spat in his vintage scotch.
He didn't scream. He just smiled.
"You've been letting your daughter defile my bloodline?"
Joseph tried to speak. Camela trembled beside him.
"She's a child," Joseph said. "They both are."
"She's filth," Augustine growled. "And you—you've stolen enough air. You're both dismissed. Pack your filth and leave. Now."
He fired them that very hour. No severance. No references. Nothing. He blacklisted them from every estate in the city. Every friend, every contact—gone. In one phone call.
They had nothing.
I pleaded. But Augustine's wrath had no undo button.
They left that night.
I never got to say goodbye.
Zaira didn't even know. Joseph didn't want to risk her trying to stay. They left a letter. A goodbye scribbled in ink and pain.
I snapped.
I screamed at my father. I trashed his study. Called him a tyrant, a monster.
His response?
He shipped me off to a boarding school in Switzerland before dawn. Told the press I was "getting cultured."
That's when I became what you know now—a playboy, a hedonist, a man who wore chaos like cologne.
And Zaira? She disappeared. Off the grid. Rumors floated—she was in Morocco, maybe Greece. Maybe dead.
But I found out later.
She became something else entirely.
A whisper. A ghost. A thief.
Stealing from the rich. Playing dangerous men like fiddles. Seducing, robbing, vanishing. Zaira Noir—an alias, a legend in criminal circles. She'd become the nightmare of kings.
But I knew her.
I knew why.
She lost everything because of me. Because of my name. Because my father decided love was beneath our class.
She hated me for that.
And she loved me anyway.
And I—I never stopped carrying the guilt.
Joseph used to tell me bedtime stories. Camela used to sneak me cookies when I cried. They were more family to me than Augustine ever was.
Losing them? That wasn't just pain. It was betrayal with a pulse.
So when I saw her at the gala tonight, I didn't just see the woman who used to kiss my bruises.
I saw every scar I helped create.
And now?
Now I didn't know if she came back to love me... or finish what my father started.