Mia's first coherent thought is that she's going to kill Sophie.
Her second thought disappears under a wave of nausea so intense she has to press her face into the pillow and breathe through her mouth. Expensive pillow. Too soft. Nothing like the lumpy thing in her Brooklyn studio that smells faintly of paint thinner and broken dreams.
Where the hell is she?
She forces her eyes open. Sunlight stabs through floor-to-ceiling windows, cruel and unforgiving. The room swims into focus—all clean lines and modern furniture, the kind featured in magazines she can't afford. Slate gray walls. Abstract art that probably costs more than her yearly rent. A view of Manhattan that makes her stomach drop.
She's not in Brooklyn anymore.
Mia sits up too fast. The room tilts. She's wearing nothing but a man's white dress shirt, unbuttoned, the fabric so fine it feels like water against her skin. Her bridesmaid dress—Sophie's carefully chosen lavender monstrosity—is crumpled on the floor next to a designer suit that could fund her art supplies for a decade.
Oh god.
Oh god oh god oh god.
Fragments from last night flash like a broken film reel. The wedding. Open bar. Too much champagne. Sophie laughing, telling her to let loose for once, to stop being so serious. Dancing. More champagne. A man with gray eyes and a voice like smoke asking if she wanted to get some air.
Then nothing. Just blank spaces where memories should be.
Mia's hands shake as she touches her neck. No marks. She does a quick internal inventory—sore in places that confirm her worst suspicions, but not hurt. Not forced. That's something, at least. Small mercy in the disaster currently unfolding.
She needs to leave. Now. Before whoever owns this penthouse—and those gray eyes, god, she can still see those eyes—comes back and makes this exponentially more mortifying.
Mia slides out of bed, legs unsteady. Her shoes are nowhere. Her purse is MIA. Her phone—she spots it on the nightstand, screen cracked worse than before. Fantastic. She grabs it, sees seventeen missed calls from Sophie and three from her landlord. It's 11 AM. She was supposed to open the café at six.
"Shit. Shit shit shit."
She's yanking on her dress—wrinkled beyond salvation, zipper broken—when she hears it. Water running. Shower. Someone's in the bathroom.
Panic claws up her throat. She can't face him. Can't look into those eyes in the harsh light of day and see her own stupidity reflected back. Can't watch a stranger try to find a polite way to kick her out of his life.
She's still holding one shoe when she runs.
---
The elevator ride down eighty floors feels like falling in slow motion.
Mia catches her reflection in the mirrored walls and wants to cry. Smudged mascara, sex hair, yesterday's bridesmaid dress and one shoe clutched to her chest like a drunk Cinderella. The security guard in the lobby does a double-take but says nothing. His judgment is loud enough without words.
The September air hits her like a slap. Manhattan morning rush—car horns and construction noise and a million people who have their lives together, unlike her. Mia has forty-seven dollars in her checking account, no idea where she is, and a hangover that feels like divine punishment.
She makes it three blocks before she has to stop and throw up in a decorative planter outside some corporate building.
A woman in Louboutins steps carefully around her. "Rough night?"
"Something like that," Mia manages.
"Been there." The woman offers a sympathetic smile and a mint, then disappears into the crowd.
Mia's phone buzzes. Sophie, again. She answers this time.
"Oh thank god." Sophie's voice is frantic. "Where are you? I've been calling for hours. You just disappeared and that guy—Mia, do you have any idea who that was?"
"Some guy. I don't know. I don't remember." Mia leans against the building, closing her eyes against the too-bright world. "Sophie, I screwed up. I screwed up so bad."
"What? No. Did he—are you okay? Did something happen?"
"I don't know what happened. That's the problem." Her voice cracks. "I woke up in this penthouse wearing his shirt and I can't remember anything after the dancing. How much did I drink?"
"Not that much. Maybe five glasses? Six?" Sophie pauses. "Mia, you're scaring me. Where are you right now?"
"I don't know. Somewhere in Manhattan. There's a... Starbucks. And a bank." That describes approximately eight thousand locations. "I need to get home. I need to shower. I need to forget last night ever happened."
"Okay. Okay. Send me your location. I'm coming to get you."
But Mia's phone chooses that moment to die, screen going black despite her desperate pressing of buttons. Of course. Perfect ending to a perfect disaster.
She walks. It takes an hour to find a subway station, another forty minutes to Brooklyn, and a small eternity to climb the four flights to her studio apartment. Her spare key is where she always keeps it, under the loose baseboard outside her door.
Inside smells like home—turpentine and coffee and the jasmine incense she burns to cover the smell of the building's questionable plumbing. Her latest painting stares at her from the easel, half-finished. She was supposed to finish it this weekend for the gallery submission. Another deadline she's going to miss.
Mia strips off the dress and throws it in the trash. She stands under the shower until the water runs cold, scrubbing at her skin like she can wash away the whole stupid night. When she finally emerges, wrapped in her ratty terrycloth robe, Sophie is sitting on her bed.
"You look like death," Sophie says gently.
"Feel worse." Mia collapses next to her. "Tell me everything. Tell me who he was and what I did and how I can never show my face in Manhattan again."
Sophie bites her lip. "His name is Alexander Kane. And Mia... he's kind of a big deal."
"How big?"
"Like... billionaire CEO big. Kane Enterprises. They own half of Manhattan." Sophie pulls out her phone, shows her a Forbes article. "He was at the wedding because his company sponsors the venue. My wedding planner is dating his CFO. I didn't think he'd actually show up."
The photo loads. Mia's stomach drops to her feet.
Those eyes. That face. Sharp jaw, dark hair, expression like carved ice. He's wearing a suit that probably costs more than her car—if she had a car. He's beautiful in an untouchable way, like art behind museum glass.
He's so far out of her league they're playing different sports in different universes.
"Oh my god." Mia covers her face with both hands. "Oh my god, Sophie. What did I do?"
"You danced with him. You talked for like an hour. You laughed." Sophie's trying to be helpful, Mia can tell. "He seemed... interested. Really interested. He barely looked at anyone else all night."
"And then I slept with him and ran away like a coward."
"Did you... I mean, do you remember if you used...?"
Protection. Mia's blood turns to ice. She tries to pull up memories that won't come. Blank spaces. Fog and champagne and those gray eyes looking at her like she mattered.
"I don't know," she whispers. "I don't remember."
Sophie grabs her hand. "It's okay. It's going to be okay. You probably did. And even if you didn't, the chances are—"
"I know the chances." Mia's laugh is hollow. "I also know my luck."
They sit in silence. Outside, Brooklyn goes about its Sunday business—car alarms and arguments in three languages and someone's music thumping bass through thin walls. Normal life. Regular problems.
Mia's phone, plugged in and charging, suddenly buzzes to life. Notifications flood in. Missed calls. Voicemails. Texts from numbers she doesn't recognize.
And one message that makes her heart stop.
*Unknown Number: You left in a hurry. Call me. - AK*
There's a phone number. Ten digits that feel like a landmine.
"Is that him?" Sophie leans over. "Oh my god, that's him. He wants you to call him."
"Why would he want that?" Mia stares at the message like it might bite her. "People like him don't want girls like me calling them."
"Maybe he likes you."
"He doesn't know me."
"Then maybe he wants to."
Mia thinks about waking up in that penthouse, wearing his shirt. Thinks about running away without a word. Thinks about the kind of man who could have that view, that life, that much money, and still take the time to get her number and text her.
She should delete it. Block the number. Pretend last night never happened and go back to her regular life of overdue rent and unfinished paintings and dreams that never quite pan out.
She should.
But those gray eyes won't leave her head. And something in her chest—something stupid and hopeful and dangerous—whispers what if.
"I'm not calling him," Mia says firmly.
Sophie raises an eyebrow. "Okay."
"I'm not. That's insane. He's a billionaire. I can barely pay my electric bill."
"Sure."
"We're from completely different worlds. It would never work."
"Totally."
"Stop agreeing with me."
Sophie grins. "I'm not disagreeing. I'm just saying... you're staring at that message like it's the last life raft on the Titanic."
Mia tosses her phone onto the bed. "I need coffee. And carbs. And to forget this entire weekend."
"In that order?"
"In any order."
But even as they leave for the diner down the street, even as Mia orders pancakes she can't afford and coffee that tastes like burnt regret, she can feel her phone burning a hole in her pocket.
*Call me.*
Two words that shouldn't matter.
Two words from a stranger with storm-gray eyes and a penthouse view and a life so far removed from hers it might as well be fiction.
She's not going to call.
She's not.
But she doesn't delete the message either.