I should not have been there.
Not because it was dangerous, but because it was so normal, and normal is where you loosen your grip without realising you have done it. The hotel had offered a complimentary upgrade with the kind of polished smile that tells you not to ask questions, and I did not. I took the key card, thanked them, and told myself it was just a bed, just a shower, just one night where I am fully capable of thriving without anyone attempting to diminish me for their own ease.
My phone buzzed again.
Unknown number.
The message glowed on the screen, a silent challenge that dared me to look away. I lingered on it, feeling the familiar stir of defiance bubbling up inside me, that well-worn urge to turn away from anything that might disturb my peace. I let the notification fade, but almost immediately, another message slipped into view, as if it had been poised in the shadows, waiting for its moment.
I’m downstairs. Five minutes. If you want to say no, say it now.
No name. No explanation. Just that clean, unreasonable confidence that made my first instinct irritation and my second something far more inconvenient, a flare under my ribs that wanted to pretend it was anger when it was actually curiosity.
I typed back.
Who is this?
The reply came instantly, almost as if he had been holding the phone, watching, counting the seconds I would take to answer.
The man you nearly hit with your suitcase.
Memory sharpened into focus with an annoying clarity. The lobby. My suitcase wheel catching on the edge of a rug. The collision avoided by a hand on the handle and a body that moved too fast to be casual, a man who steadied my bag without theatrics and met my eyes as if he meant it when he said, You’re fine.
I stared at the screen, thumb hovering, my mind giving me the sensible instruction to say no because strangers do not get access to you just because they want it.
But he had not asked for access.
Five minutes. Say no now.
Consent does not always arrive as a whispered yes. Sometimes it arrives as a door held open, a pause long enough for you to walk away if you choose. I should have taken the exit he had offered me.
Instead, I wrote, I’m not coming downstairs.
A typing bubble appeared, disappeared, then returned, as if he was choosing his words with care rather than speed.
Then I’ll come up. Only if you want. Tell me to leave and I will.
My pulse betrayed me immediately, quick and bright, like my body had already made a decision my mind was still arguing with. I should have blocked the number. I should have put the phone face down and climbed into the bath and forgotten this. Instead, I walked to the door and looked through the peephole like I was twenty-three and reckless, not thirty and careful.
A man stood in the corridor as if he belonged to it. Not in the entitled way men sometimes do when they think the world is built to move for them, but in a composed, controlled way that made the space around him feel quieter. He was dressed in expensive understatement, hair slightly damp like he had come in from rain, hands empty, posture relaxed. No flowers. No wine. No charm deployed like a weapon. He did not knock.
He waited.
That, absurdly, was what slid under my skin the most, because waiting can be power when it is used to pressure you, but it is respect when it is used to protect your right to choose.
I opened the door a fraction with the chain still on, keeping my voice cool even as the air shifted.
“Yes?”
His eyes lifted to mine. Dark, steady, too direct. The kind of gaze that makes you feel seen without feeling swallowed.
“Thank you,” he said, as if answering him was a gift I had chosen to give. “I won’t take long.”
“I didn’t invite you.”
“I know.” A small pause, then, “I’m Luca.”
The name landed like velvet, soft and dangerous, and I hated the immediate, irrational attention my body gave it. I did not offer mine, because names are how men turn women into stories, and I was tired of being cast into narratives I had not written.
He did not push.
“Your suitcase nearly took me out,” he said. “It would have been a spectacular way to die. Beaten by luggage in a five-star lobby.”
I almost smiled. Almost.
“Why are you here, Luca?”
He exhaled slowly, controlled, as if he had rehearsed honesty and decided to use it without dressing it up.
“"Because you seemed ready to run away," he said. "And I knew that expression."
“You don’t know me.”
“No.” His gaze flicked once to the chain, an acknowledgement of the boundary, then returned to my face. “But I know what it’s like to have people decide what you are before you speak.”
My throat tightened, irritation shifting into something else, because it was too accurate, and I hated that he had found the soft part of the truth without even touching it.
“Are you one of those men who thinks he can fix strangers?” I asked, keeping my voice level.
His mouth curved slightly, not with amusement, but with restraint.
“No,” he said. “I don’t fix anything that doesn’t ask to be fixed. I’m not here to rescue you.”
“Then what?”
He held my gaze like it cost him something.
“I’m here because I want you,” he said, calm and unapologetic, “and because you look like the type of woman who would rather swallow glass than be chased.”
Heat flashed through me, sharp and immediate.
“And you’re the type of man who says that to someone he’s known for thirty seconds?”
“I’m the type of man who doesn’t waste time lying.” His voice softened, just a shade, and it made it worse. “And I’m the type of man who asks first.”
I felt the shift in my own breathing, the way my body leaned forward without my permission and then stopped, caught between caution and curiosity.
“Asks what?” I heard myself say.
He looked at the chain again, as if speaking to it was the most respectful way to speak to me.
“May I come in for two minutes,” he said, “to explain why I’m here. If you say no, I’ll go. If you say yes, I still won’t touch you unless you ask for it.”
I should have closed the door, locked it, laughed at myself for even entertaining this. Instead, I slid the chain off, and the click sounded too loud in the corridor, as if the building itself had heard the decision.
He stepped inside like he had been taught how to enter a room without taking it over. He stopped a careful distance away, hands still empty, posture loose, and when he looked at me again it was with patience, not entitlement, with hunger kept on a leash.
“Two minutes,” I reminded him.
“Two,” he agreed.
He did not start with compliments, did not start with a job title, did not try to impress me. He started with an observation that was too precise to be comfortable.
“I saw the way the concierge spoke to you,” he said, “like you were a complication. Like he was deciding where to put you.”
“It’s his job,” I said, though my voice sharpened.
“It’s his job to offer service, not ownership.” His tone stayed even. “And I saw the way you looked at the elevator like you were calculating exits.”
I did not answer, because silence was safer than confirming he was right.
He took a breath, then said quietly, “I’m in the penthouse. I’m here for meetings tomorrow. People are expecting me to be… available. Photographs. Smiles. A story. I can do it. I always do.”
Something in his confidence cracked just enough to show what was underneath it.
“But tonight I don’t want to.”
I watched him, wary, because men who admit weakness often use it as a hook. Luca did not. He simply stood there and let the truth sit between us.
“And why come to my door?” I asked.
“Because you weren’t impressed,” he said. “You didn’t look curious about who I am. You looked like you were trying to stay invisible, and I… I wanted to make you feel seen, on your terms.”
My pulse climbed into my throat.
The two minutes had passed. More than that, probably. I could have ended it right there, could have told him to leave and watched him do it, but my mouth made its own decision before my mind could tighten the reins.
“What happens if I say yes?”
His eyes darkened, not predatory, not triumphant, simply controlled, hungry, and careful with it.
“Then I sit there,” he said, nodding to the chair by the window, “and we talk. You tell me your name, or you don’t. If you want me to leave, I leave. If you want me to stay…”
He let the silence finish the sentence, and I hated how my body filled it with possibilities.
“And if I want you to stay,” I said, voice lower, “what do you want?”
His gaze dropped to my mouth for the briefest moment, then returned to my eyes as if he was reminding himself where consent lives.
“I want to learn what you sound like when you stop pretending you don’t want things,” he said.
The room felt suddenly too warm.
He took one step closer and stopped, leaving the last space untouched, offered rather than taken.
“Tell me no,” he murmured. “And I’ll go. Tell me yes…”
His voice softened into something that felt like a hand around my wrist, firm but careful.
“And I’ll be very, very good for you.”
The quiet between us tightened, not empty, not gentle, but charged with restraint. I might have spoken then. I might have made a choice that would have felt like stepping off a ledge, except my phone buzzed on the bedside table, loud and rude in the stillness.
A new message.
From the same unknown number.
You should not be alone with him.
My skin went cold.
Luca’s gaze flicked to the phone, then back to me, and something in his expression shifted, not into fear but into recognition, as if he knew exactly who was sending it, as if he had been waiting for this moment and hoping it would not arrive.
I did not move. I did not speak.
I watched him.
And then he said my name.
The one I had not given him.
“Don’t panic,” he said softly. “But we need to talk about why they’re watching you.”
And in that second I understood something that made my stomach drop.
I had come here to hide.
Luca was not the danger.
He was the warning.
To be continued.
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Seraphine Ashe 💋