Alan's POV
The night should've ended hours ago.
But my head was still there — back in that suite, with her.
The woman with the black lace mask and the kind of mouth that ruins a man's composure.
I told myself it was just a mistake.
A beautiful, reckless, alcohol-laced mistake.
Except it didn't feel that way.
I could still taste her when I woke up — faintly sweet, dangerously addictive. The bedsheets were a mess, the air heavy, and she was gone. No note. No goodbye. Nothing except a single cufflink missing from my wrist and her scent lingering like a secret I wasn't supposed to keep.
A.J.
She'd seen the initials, I was sure of it.
I dragged a hand through my hair, still half-dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed like an idiot trying to remember every second before she slipped away.
The way she trembled when I kissed her. The way she said "no names" like she'd meant don't ever find me.
And maybe I wouldn't have — if my sister hadn't decided to storm into my suite uninvited.
"Alan."
Her voice. Sharp. Familiar. The kind that could cut through any hangover, or in my case, post-sin confusion.
"Jesus, Leah," I muttered, yanking the sheet up over my chest. "Do you knock?"
"I did." She crossed her arms, arching one perfect eyebrow. "You just didn't answer. Again."
Leah Jean — five minutes younger, five times nosier, and the only person alive who could read me like a bad novel.
She looked around the room — the crumpled suit jacket, the half-empty champagne bottle, the tangled bedsheets — and her eyes narrowed.
"Well," she said slowly, "someone had fun last night."
I stood up, reaching for my shirt. "It's not what it looks like."
She snorted. "You're shirtless, your room smells like sin, and there's lipstick on your neck. Want to try that again?"
I sighed, buttoning my cuffs — well, cuff. The other one was still missing.
"Leah, drop it."
But she didn't. She never did.
"Was it someone from the gala?" she asked, following me to the minibar. "Please tell me you didn't sleep with one of those reporters again. Dad nearly had a stroke the last time."
I ignored her, pouring whiskey instead of answering.
"You did," she gasped, her tone turning gleeful. "You actually did."
"Leah."
She perched on the table, swinging her legs like a cat who'd just cornered a mouse. "What's her name?"
"No names," I muttered before I could stop myself.
Her grin widened. "She told you that, didn't she?"
I froze. She saw it instantly.
"Oh my God," Leah said, eyes sparkling with disbelief. "You actually liked her."
"I didn't—"
"You did. You so did."
I turned away, staring at the empty space on the bed where she'd been. "She was… different."
Leah softened, just a little. "Different how?"
I didn't have an answer. Not one that made sense.
Everything about that woman had been contradiction — her voice calm but her hands shaking, her kiss desperate but careful, her eyes unreadable beneath that mask.
For the first time in my life, I didn't feel like Alan Jean — son of a mogul, name worth headlines, billionaire in training.
I'd just been a man. And she'd looked at me like that was enough.
Leah was watching me too closely. "Alan," she said slowly, "promise me you used protection."
I shot her a look. "Leah."
"I'm serious. You have a terrible record with choices you make when drunk and sentimental."
"I wasn't drunk."
That silenced her. "Then what's your excuse?"
"Maybe I didn't want one."
She tilted her head. "So what, now you're falling for a stranger?"
"I'm not falling," I muttered. "I'm… curious."
"Curious?"
"About why I can't stop thinking about her."
Leah rolled her eyes, but there was a flicker of concern there. "You really are hopeless."
"Thanks, sis."
"I mean it. You get attached to people who disappear on you. It's like a pattern."
I leaned against the counter, smirking faintly. "You psychoanalyzing me again?"
"Someone has to. Mom says therapy didn't stick."
That earned a short laugh from me — the first one since sunrise. "Remind me why I keep you around."
"Because without me," she said sweetly, "you'd have burned down your reputation by now."
"Assuming I have one left."
"You do. Barely."
I turned the glass in my hand, the amber liquid catching the light. "She didn't even look back, you know? Most people do. They hesitate. She just… left."
Leah frowned. "Maybe that's what you liked."
"Maybe."
For a second, everything went still again. My mind replayed the sound of her voice — soft, unsure, but trying so hard to sound brave.
I'd met hundreds of women. None of them had felt like that.
Leah finally sighed. "Fine. Keep your mystery woman. But if Dad hears about this, I was never here."
"Deal."
She started toward the door, then paused, glancing at the lone cufflink still gleaming on the table. "You're missing one."
"I noticed."
She raised a brow. "Planning to find it?"
"Planning to forget it."
"Right." Her smirk said she didn't believe that for a second.
After she left, the room fell quiet again — the kind of quiet that forces you to feel everything you're trying to avoid.
I stared at the cufflink for a long time.
Then I laughed under my breath — low, humorless.
She could keep it.
Whoever she was.
But something deep down told me the story wasn't finished.
Because no matter how hard I tried, every time I blinked, I saw her.
The mystery. The mask. The way her breath caught when I touched her.
And I didn't know her name.
But I had a feeling I wouldn't need it to find her again.