The walk to his table felt like a mile-long pilgrimage under a microscope. Each deliberate click of my heels on the cold, polished marble echoed with the finality of a death knell in the vast, silent cathedral of the restaurant. I was acutely, painfully aware of the weight of his gaze—a tangible force tracing the swing of my arms, the tentative placement of my feet, the way the burgundy silk shifted against my thighs with every step. It was an appraisal that left me feeling both exposed and hyper-visible. As I finally reached the oasis of his table, he stood, the motion fluid and effortlessly powerful, and held out a chair for me.
The gesture was surprisingly, disarmingly chivalrous—a stark, almost jarring contrast to the intimidating, power-drenched environment he had so meticulously orchestrated.
My eyes instantly dropped to the floor, a hot wave of self-consciousness washing over me so completely I felt dizzy. I couldn't look at him. Not yet. If I met those ice-blue eyes, I'd either fall into their depths or trip over the ghost of my own humiliation, and I refused to embarrass myself in front of him again. Not in this dress. Not in this room he owned for the night.
I murmured a quiet, strangled "Thank you" and slid into the plush velvet chair he was holding. His hands, strong and sure, with neatly trimmed nails and the faint, tantalizing scent of sandalwood and soap, gently adjusted the chair, pushing me forward towards the table with a quiet, unnerving finality. I was now irrevocably in place.
"Are you comfortable?" he asked, his voice a low, intimate rumble that seemed to vibrate right through the chair and into my bones.
"Yes," I managed, my voice betraying me by pitching a little too high. I busied myself by meticulously adjusting the placement of my clutch on the table, then admiring my own red manicure as if the precise shade of OPI's 'Big Apple Red' was the most fascinating mystery in the world. The silence stretched, thick and heavy as velvet drapery. I felt wildly out of my depth, a sparrow who'd flown into a gilded cage. My chest began to tighten, not with asthma, but with the familiar, suffocating grip of social anxiety. My breath hitched, my palms growing damp. I felt a tremble start in my knees, a subtle vibration I prayed wouldn't travel up through the rest of my body.
"Hannah."
My name rolled off his tongue, smooth and deliberate, each syllable given its due weight. It wasn't just a name; it was a command, a key turning in a lock. My head snapped up, my eyes locking with his as if pulled by an invisible, unbreakable string. A stupid, knowing smirk played on his lips, and it was so unbearably, unfairly attractive that it short-circuited my nervous system. I immediately broke the gaze, my eyes darting down to the safe, inanimate black leather of my purse as if it were a holy text.
He was too much. Too handsome, too controlled, too palpably powerful. The energy he radiated was a physical force in the room. Was this his standard procedure? Buy out a Michelin-starred restaurant, reduce a woman to a nervous, trembling wreck with a single look, and then… what? He definitely didn't seem like the kind of man who had to ask for anything twice, or even once.
"You wouldn't even look at me," Carlos observed, his tone a mix of clinical amusement and genuine curiosity.
My mind raced, a frantic hamster on a wheel of regret. Why didn't I tell Maya to do a proper background check? Why am I so recklessly impulsive? I was on a date with a complete enigma, a man who operated on a level of influence I could barely comprehend. I kept my eyes glued to my purse, shaking my head slightly, a silent, pathetic admission of my own overwhelm.
I saw his hand—he wasn't wearing his gloves today—reach slowly across the table. I flinched, ever so slightly, a involuntary recoil born of sheer nerves, but he didn't touch me. Instead, his long, elegant fingers came to rest a mere inch from my clutch, tapping the pristine tablecloth softly twice. Tap. Tap. It was a gentle, yet undeniable, demand for my attention.
"Look at me," he said, his voice softer now, losing some of its teasing edge, gaining a layer of something that sounded almost like patience. "Please."
The "please" did me in. It was a crack in his flawless, powerful facade, a glimpse of a man beneath the billionaire. It was the most dangerous thing he could have said. Taking a shaky breath I hadn't realized I was holding, I forced my eyes to travel from my purse, up the elegant length of his forearm, over the crisp white cuff of his shirt, across the impossibly broad shoulders that filled out his suit jacket to perfection, and finally, meeting his gaze.
The smirk was gone, replaced by an expression of intense, genuine focus. The ice in his eyes had melted into something warmer, more curious, like the sun on a glacial lake.
"There you are," he said, almost to himself, a quiet note of satisfaction in his voice.
A waiter appeared soundlessly at his side, as if materializing from the very air, presenting a bottle of champagne with a label I didn't recognize but knew instinctively cost more than my monthly rent. Carlos gave a barely perceptible nod, never breaking eye contact with me. The pop of the cork was a muted, sophisticated sigh.
"I thought we could start over," he said, as the pale gold liquid fizzed into our flutes. "Without any… misplaced fingers."
The direct reference to our balcony encounter—to his finger on my lips, to the most humiliating moment of my recent life—sent a fresh wave of heat to my cheeks. But instead of cringing away, for the first time since I sat down, the ghost of a real, defiant smile touched my lips.
"Starting over sounds good," I said, my voice finding a little of its natural strength, laced with a hint of challenge. "But just so we're clear… my breath is minty fresh tonight. No shrimp cocktails were harmed in the making of this date."
A real, full-bodied laugh escaped him, a rich, unexpected sound that seemed to roll through the entire empty restaurant, shattering the last of the tense, sacred silence. It was a glorious sound. The spell, for a moment, was broken.
"You look beautiful," he said, his voice dropping an octave, the laughter fading but the warmth remaining in his eyes. He locked his gaze with mine in a way that felt both intensely intimate and utterly paralyzing.
A hot flush crept up my neck, painting my cheeks with a tell-tale blush. All I wanted to do was hide my face in my hands like a flustered schoolgirl, while simultaneously wanting to scream with giddy excitement into the nearest pillow. This man, this entire situation, felt surreal—like a beautifully written dream I was terrified of waking up from.
Gathering every ounce of courage I had left, I met his gaze, the champagne giving me a much-needed spike of bravery. "You always look too good," I countered, the words coming out in a soft, slightly breathy rush. "It's honestly a little unfair. It feels like cheating."
He gave me a smile then—a real, devastatingly genuine one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made my heart perform a full-on, Olympic-level gymnastics routine in my chest. If I hadn't already been seated, I was certain my knees would have buckled, sending me in an ungainly heap to the polished marble floor.
And then, like a master of self-sabotage, a champion of ruining perfect moments, I completely shattered the delicate bubble we were in.
"How did you know where I live?" I blurted out, my voice a touch too loud in the hushed room. The words tumbled out, fueled by a cocktail of champagne and lingering fear. "How do you have my phone number? Are you… are you stalking me or something?"
The questions hung in the air between us, sounding absurdly dramatic and paranoid even to my own ears. I braced for offense, for a cold withdrawal, for him to retreat behind the impenetrable walls of his billionaire shell and summon his bodyguard to escort the hysterical woman out.
But he didn't. Instead, a slow, appreciative smile spread across his face, and I caught a glimpse of his perfect, white dentition. He seemed… profoundly amused, as if I'd just said something delightfully clever.
"You piqued my interest," he said simply, as if that single sentence explained everything. As if that was a perfectly normal, reasonable justification for having a person's private contact information and home address.
I blushed, looking down at my hands folded tightly in my lap, my courage evaporating as quickly as it had come. "You don't mean that, do you?" I mumbled, my confidence faltering, feeling foolish.
"I do," he stated, his tone leaving no room for doubt, absolute and final.
Fueled by the last of the liquid courage and a desperate, clawing need for real answers, I looked up, a little pout I didn't even mean to make forming on my glossed lips. "Then why did you reject me?"
Carlos threw his head back and laughed, a rich, uninhibited sound that echoed wonderfully in the empty space, a sound that was becoming addictive. "I thought we were meant to be starting over," he chided, his eyes twinkling with mirth. He leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper meant only for me, the table a small island of intimacy in the vast room. "I was trying to be a gentleman. For you."
The words hit me with the force of a physical blow. For you.
My breath caught in my throat, all the air seeming to leave the room. "What… what does that mean?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper, a thread of sound.
He held my gaze, his expression turning serious, though the ghost of that devastating smile still lingered at the corners of his mouth. "It means," he began, reaching out slowly to gently trace the rim of his champagne flute, his eyes never leaving mine, "that I don't take advantage of a woman who's had one too many champagne cocktails and is perhaps not entirely in her right mind. It means I wanted you to be sober. I wanted you to be sure." He paused, letting the immense weight of his words settle between us, rewriting the entire narrative of our first meeting. "And judging by the fact that you're here, in that breathtaking dress, looking at me like you want to both strangle and kiss me… I'd say it was the right call."
He leaned back, picking up his glass and taking a slow, deliberate sip, his eyes smiling at me over the rim. The air crackled, the entire conversation, the entire history between us, shifting on its axis. He hadn't been rejecting me. He'd been respecting a version of me he'd somehow already seen, protecting a possibility he wasn't willing to spoil. And in doing so, he had made everything infinitely more complicated, and infinitely more dangerous.