ELINA POV
"You look like someone who just made a decision."
The voice came from my right, low and smooth like expensive whiskey.
I didn't look up, just kept staring at the gold band in my palm, watching how the bar lights made it shine even though it felt like the heaviest thing I'd ever held.
"Maybe I did," I said.
He slid onto the stool beside me. I could smell his cologne, something dark and woody that probably cost more than my rent.
"Good decision or bad decision?" he asked.
I finally looked at him.
My breath caught.
He was younger than I expected, maybe twenty-five, with dark hair that fell just slightly into his eyes and a face that belonged on magazine covers, not in hotel bars at midnight.
Beautiful in a way that didn't feel safe.
"Does it matter?" I said, still holding the ring.
"Not to me."
The bartender appeared, the stranger ordered scotch without looking at the menu, the kind of confidence that comes from always knowing exactly what you want.
I ordered another martini even though I'd barely touched my first.
"Rough night," he asked.
"Rough year."
He smiled at that, it was a small smile, like he understood something about rough years that most people didn't.
We sat in silence for a moment. The bar around us was almost empty, just a few business travelers nursing drinks and pretending not to be lonely.
I dropped the ring into my purse.
"I want to ask you something," I said, surprised at how steady my voice sounded.
"Go ahead."
"What would it take for you to spend the night with me?"
He didn't flinch, didn't look shocked or offended, he just studied my face like I was a painting he was trying to understand.
"That's a direct question."
"I'm tired of indirect."
"Are you propositioning me?" he asked.
"I'm propositioning a transaction," I said. "I'll pay you, we spend tonight together, and tomorrow we both forget this ever happened."
He took a slow sip of his scotch.
"How much?"
"Five hundred."
"That's insulting," he said, but there was amusement in his voice.
"A thousand then."
"I don't need your money."
"Then why are you still sitting here?" I asked.
He leaned closer, close enough that I could see gold flecks in his dark eyes.
"Because you interest me," he said. "And that doesn't happen often."
My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it.
"So is that a yes?"
"One condition," he said. "No names, no past, no future, just tonight."
I nodded.
"Deal."
He stood and held out his hand.
I took it.
The elevator ride to his room was silent, our hands still touching, electricity running between us that made my skin feel like it was on fire.
He had a suite on the twenty-third floor.
The door closed behind us.
"Last chance to change your mind," he said.
I answered by kissing him.
It was like falling and flying at the same time, his hands in my hair, my back against the wall, everything sharp and desperate and real in a way nothing had felt real in so long.
I pressed my lips against his. I kissed him with everything I had. It was a desperate, hungry kiss.
Clothes hit the floor.
His mouth on my neck, my collarbone, lower.
We moved to the bed.
His size made me scream. He was so big that he stretched me completely open, filling every inch of me. He didn't wait for me to get used to it. He started to fuck me hard and fast, his hips slamming against mine with a loud, wet slapping sound.
"Ohh yeah, Fuck! Yes, just like that!" I screamed, locking my legs around his waist to pull him in deeper. "Give it to me! Fuck me harder!"
What happened next wasn't gentle; it was raw and honest and exactly what I needed: someone who saw me as a person instead of a problem to be managed.
For the first time in a year, I felt alive.
After, we lay tangled in expensive sheets, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow.
"Thank you," I whispered.
He kissed the top of my head but didn't say anything.
I fell asleep feeling safe.
When I woke, sunlight was streaming through the windows.
He was gone.
I sat up, wrapped the sheet around myself, and looked around the empty room.
My clothes were folded neatly on a chair.
I got dressed slowly, my body aching in ways that reminded me of everything we'd done.
On the nightstand, I left one-hundred-dollar bills.
A thousand dollars for one night.
Then I walked out without looking back.
But twelve hours earlier, everything had been different.
I'd come home early from work, excited because Damien and I had been fighting for weeks, and I wanted to surprise him, maybe order his favorite takeout, and actually talk instead of just existing in the same space.
I unlocked our apartment door.
Heard sounds from the bedroom.
Not TV sounds.
Not alone sounds.
I walked down the hallway, each step feeling like moving through water.
Pushed open the bedroom door.
Damien was in our bed.
With a woman.
A beautiful woman with perfect skin and designer clothes was thrown on our floor.
They didn't even notice me at first.
When Damien finally looked up, he didn't look guilty.
He looked annoyed.
"Elina," he said, like I was the one interrupting something important. "We need to talk."
The woman sat up, completely unbothered by her nakedness or my presence.
She smiled at me.
Actually smiled.
"I'll give you two a moment," she said, reaching for her clothes.
I just stood there.
Frozen.
"I think we should see other people," Damien said, buttoning his shirt like we were discussing dinner plans.
"You're in our bed," I said.
"I know, and I should have told you sooner, but I think an open marriage could work for us; we're both young, we have needs."
The woman was dressed now, and she walked past me without a word, her perfume expensive and suffocating.
"Get out," I said to Damien.
"This is my apartment too."
"Get out or I'm calling the police."
Something in my voice must have convinced him.
He grabbed his jacket.
"You're overreacting," he said. "We can be adults about this."
The door closed behind him.
I packed a bag.
Called Sage.
Went to that hotel bar.
Met a stranger.
I made a choice.
Now, three weeks later, I stood in my tiny bathroom staring at a plastic stick.
Two pink lines.
Pregnant.
I pressed my hand to my mouth, trying not to scream or laugh or both.
The stranger's baby.
A man whose name I didn't even know.