Chapter Five: She Fell

The first thing Ellen observed was how still everything felt.

No humming A/C unit. No cars outside. No voices at the hallway.

Silence was all she felt

She blinked against a stream of morning light filtering through gauzy curtains. The bed beneath her was soft — too soft and fluffy . Not the lumpy mattress from The Golden Inn. Not the scratchy sheets she was used to.

Her fingers brushed satin.

Her heart faltered.

She sat up slowly, her head heavy and her mouth patched dry. Her body ached — hips, thighs, even her jaw. It wasn’t pain, exactly. Just that slow, post-storm soreness that comes after everything has passed .

Half of her clothes were mostly back on. Her bra still off. Her skirt twisted. Her shirt unbuttoned halfway. The blanket enveloped her damp skin like fog.

Something had happened.

Her breath caught in her throat.

She pulled the sheet tighter around her chest and looked around the room. It was a hotel suite — large, elegant, unfamiliar. Pale cream walls. Crystal lamps. A bottle of expensive liquor on a side table.

A luxury suite.

The Water Crest.

Her pulse spiked.

The other side of the bed was empty.

The indentation on the pillow beside her was fresh, someone lying next to her.

She scanned the room again — but it was quiet. Too quiet.

She didn’t even know who he is.

She swallowed hard, willing her memories to pull together.

Flashes came, slow and broken:

A drink.

Warmth.

A man in the shadows.

A kiss.

Hands.

His body against hers.

The sound of her own voice saying, telling her to stop, but her body betrayed her

Her skin flushed.

But she hadn’t been fully there — not really. It had all felt like a dream. A sweet, floating, hot-laced dream.

And now?

She didn’t know what was real.

Was it Hernes?, she tried figuring out, who the man lying next to her was, but she could not,due to he was facing the wall.

It felt like him. The voice. The touch. The weight of him. But she couldn’t be sure.

What if it wasn’t?

What if she’d been tricked? Used?

Her throat tightened, and nausea stirred in her gut.

She reached for her phone on the nightstand. 9:17 a.m. No missed calls. No texts.

No explanation.

She clutched the sheet, fighting the rush of emotions threatening to overtake her.

Shame.

Confusion.

Hurt.

She had said yes. But had she really known what she was saying yes to?

Had he known she wasn’t okay?

Had he cared?

The questions spiraled fast, one after another, until she couldn’t breathe.

Her eyes landed on a small object near the chair in the corner.

A button.

Black. Shiny. Expensive-looking. She picked it up. Heavy in her hand. Not hers.

His?

A clue. A question. A thread she couldn’t pull yet.

She stood slowly, every muscle in her body feeling so stiff. She quietly walked to the bathroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

Her hair was a mess. Her lips looked swollen. Her eyes were rimmed red.

She looked like someone who had lived a different life overnight. And maybe she had.

She didn’t remember how she got here.

She didn’t remember how she got undressed.

She didn’t remember if it had been Hernes — or if someone had just wanted her to think it was.

Her stomach turned again.

Nova.

Trisha .

The drink.

A whisper started crawling its way through her mind now. What if this wasn’t an accident? What if she was set up?

And if so… why?

She grabbed her bag. Slipped on her shoes. Shoved the button into her pocket as it’s her only clue to finding who the mysterious man is.She didn’t want anyone seeing her leave. She didn’t want anyone asking questions she couldn’t answer.

But first of all? She has to leave the room as fast as possible, “what if the man wakes up, paying thinking she was a sex worker” she thought.

She didn’t want anyone thinking this was normal.

Because it wasn’t.

She was not okay, her mother most have been disappointed with her , where ever she is.

And someone was going to pay for that.

Outside

The city was already alive. Cars honked, people bustled past, phones buzzed. But Ellen ’s world had gone very quiet.

She stood at the corner, waiting for the light to change, and realized her hands were still shaking.

The smell of his cologne still lingered on her skin. The memory of his touch, soft and slow and unforgettable, was burned into her nerves.

What if it was Zane Hernes … no it can’t be, just her wishful thinking.

It certainly wasn’t him…

Who the hell had been inside her body while she wasn’t fully conscious?

Her heart twisted. Her jaw clenched.

She needed answers.

She needed the truth.

And most of all, she di even have the courage— to look into his eyes and find out if he was guilty… or just another pawn in a game she didn’t understand.

She didn’t know when they’d meet again.

But they would.

She would make sure of it.

Zane

Zane Herne woke up to the weight of silence. Not the peaceful kind, but the heavy kind — the kind that presses into your skin and whispers that something is not right.

The room still smelled faintly of perfume and regret. His shirt was half unbuttoned .The bedsheets twisted around him like a storm had passed.

And maybe it had.

His has a throbbing headache. His throat was parched. He sat up slowly, palms on the bed, trying to piece together the night before.

He remembered stepping into the hotel bar.

He remembered the drink his assistant ordered.

He remembered her.

Her laugh. Her shy , watery eyes. The way her fingers trembled just slightly when he touched her.

And then—

Nothing. Just heat and shadows and a vague memory of soft skin beneath his hands.

But now she was gone.

No name. No goodbye. Not even a note.

Zane stood and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring down at the city as if the answers were buried in its concrete maze. He felt something was… off. Like someone had taken his mind and twisted it sideways.

His jaw tightened. He grabbed his phone from the lightstand, called his assistant.

“Nethan. My suite. Now.”

---

Ten minutes later, Nathan stepped in, nervousness written all over his face.

Zane didn’t waste time.

“You drugged me.”

Nethan’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again. “No sir—”

“Don’t lie.” Zane’s voice was steel. “That was not just alcohol. You handed the drink to the bartender. You watched me take it. And then I blacked out.”

A long pause. Then a quiet sigh.

“It was… your grandmother.”

Zane’s breath stilled.

“What did you say?”

Nethan looked down at his hands. “She told me to make sure the drink was spiked. Nothing dangerous — just something to make you loosen up and Lose control.”

“Why the hell would she do that?”

“She thinks you are gay.”

The words landed like a slap. Zane did not flinch — not visibly — but something in his chest cracked.

“She said you have rejected every woman she introduced. She thinks it’s suspicious. So she gave me the very instructions — get you drunk, see what happens. She said… if you sleep with a woman, it would prove you’re still ‘interested in women .’ And if you didn’t, well—then she’d have her answer.”

Zane did not speak.

He just stared out the window, silently. Then finally said, “She played me. Used me like a puppet.”

“She said it was to protect your image. From the press, the board, and the rumors.”

“And what about her?” Zane snapped. “The girl I slept with. What does my grandmother think she is? A pawn? A lab rat?”

Nethan looked away. “We don’t even know who she is. She left before anyone could see her clearly. The cameras glitched. Room service never saw her face.”

Zane exhaled, slow and sharp. The memory of her haunted him. The way she whispered something into his ear just before things went dark. The way she’d clung to him like she was trying not to fall apart.

She hadn’t felt like a setup.

She’d felt real.

Now he was starting to wonder if he was the one who had been used.

---

Ellen

Ellen sat on the floor of her small hostel room, her back pressed against the peeling wall, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. She hadn’t cried. Not yet. But it was sitting there in her chest, heavy like wet cement.

She could still feel him.

His hands. His breath. His warmth.

She hadn't known who he was — not really. All she knew was that she’d felt something she didn’t understand. Something big. Scary. Electric. Something that made her forget, for a moment, that she was just the poor girl from nowhere.

Her coworkers had set her up. She could remember Nova asking her to serve a customer, a rich stranger at the bar. Just flirt a little, they said. Nothing serious. But then they’d laughed, whispered, poured a drink behind her back — the sweet one — the one that made the room spin.

And now here she was. Fired. Shamed. Broken.

She didn’t even remember everything that happened. But she remembered how she felt.

Exposed. Small. Used.

And worst of all — guilty. Like it was her fault for being naive. For thinking the warmth in his eyes meant something. For letting herself believe, even for one night, that she could be wanted for more than just a body.

She pulled the threadbare blanket over her legs and curled tighter into herself.

She didn’t even know his name.

She hadn’t looked back when she left the hotel room. Couldn’t look back.

Because if she had, she might’ve begged him to tell her it wasn’t just a game.

And she wasn’t sure her heart could take hearing the truth.

---

Zane

He sat back down on the edge of the bed, eyes burning.

He needed to know who she was.

He needed to know if it was real.

Because something about her had made the world stop for a second — and that asn’t something he could fake.

Not even drunk.