Page 8 of Babies for the Big Shot

Nick adjusts his jacket as if this is just another Tuesday.

I want to die.

The guard clears his throat. “Everything… alright in there?”

“Perfectly,” Nick replies, calm as a freaking cucumber martini.

I grab my clutch. My hair’s a rat’s nest. My dress is up around my ribs. I can’t feel my knees.

But somehow, I step out of that elevator with my chin high.

Wrecked. Lit up. Not sorry.

Not yet.

Nick watches me walk ahead, hands in his pockets, clearly a man with no regrets.

I don’t look back.

Not at him. Not at the elevator. Not at the poor security guard who now probably needs hazard pay and therapy.

My heels wobble as I stride down the hallway. I’ve just defiled a mirrored surface with a man whose name I barely know. My heart thunders, my thighs tremble, and my underwear is still halfway down my thighs.

But I keep walking.

Because if I stop, even for a second, the weight of what just happened will crash into me. A freight train of terrible life choices.

I find the bathroom and slam the door, gripping the edge of the marble sink to anchor myself back to reality. I stare into the mirror. My lipstick is smeared, my hair looks as if it lost a fight with a leaf blower, and my pupils are blown wide, raw proof I just discovered the secrets of the universe through orgasm.

Holy shit.

I just had elevator sex.

With a stranger.

A hot, arrogant, stupidly rich stranger.

Who is absolutely the kind of man who ruins lives and never calls.

I cover my face with both hands and groan.What the hell did I just do?

This was supposed to be one drink. One free canapé. One polite giggle at a man named Chad’s startup pitch before disappearing back into the night with Laura and my dignity intact.

Instead, I went up in flames in a penthouse-bound elevator with a man who smells of sweat, musk, and expensive whiskey.

Okay. Breathe.

No one knows. No one saw. And he doesn’t even have my last name. I don’t have his number. There’s no trail. No receipts. Just heat and memory and the very real possibility that my entire pelvic floor just ascended to the next plane of existence.

I fix my hair. Sort of. Reapply my lipstick with trembling hands. Smooth my dress and pretend I’m not freshly ruined from the inside out.

Then I march out of the bathroom and into the glittering chaos of the rooftop lounge, scanning the crowd for Laura.

My chest’s tight, my pulse ragged. I need to find her. I need something, anything, to keep from splintering apart right here on this polished marble floor.

At least one thing is for certain, I willneverhave to see that man again.

Thankfully.