CHAPTER 2
1053 Words
The hotel sheets were tangled around her legs, and the warmth from his body was already gone. The only proof that last night had happened was the ache between her thighs and the ghost of his touch still lingering on her skin. The pillows beside her were cold, untouched, as if he’d never been there at all.
She sat up slowly, head pounding and mouth dry. Shame wrapped itself around her ribs like a vice.
What the hell did I do?
The digital clock on the nightstand blinked mockingly—7:42 AM.
Her shift started at seven.
“s**t,” Isla groaned, bolting upright. Her limbs protested, sore and stiff, her heart already racing. She dressed in a frenzy, pulling on yesterday’s jeans and wrinkled blouse. Her bra was inside out. Her underwear had vanished somewhere in the sheets. She didn’t care.
She avoided the mirror as she passed it. She couldn’t bear to see herself—her flushed cheeks, the mess of her hair, the guilt smeared across her features like mascara.
You didn’t even ask his name.
He didn’t ask for yours.
She slammed the door behind her and half-ran down the hotel’s narrow hallway, ignoring the sting in her thighs, the wobble in her knees. Outside, the cold morning air hit her like a slap, sobering and brutal. It hadn’t snowed yet, but the wind carried that edge—sharp and biting, like everything else in her life lately.
She walked three blocks before she could catch a bus. It was late. So was she.
The moment she stepped through the automatic doors of Mercy Hill Medical Center, the sterile air and fluorescent lighting seemed to suck the life out of her. The scent of antiseptic, plastic gloves, and tired desperation hit her like a wave.
At the nurses’ station, Marla stood waiting. Arms crossed. Lips thin. Not yelling. Worse.
Disappointed.
“You’re late,” she said, her voice clipped.
“I know, I’m sorry,” Isla panted, brushing her wind-tangled hair from her face. “There was an emergency—”
“We’re always in an emergency, Isla,” Marla snapped, her tone low and tight. “That’s what this job is. You don’t get to disappear and show up looking like you spent the night in a bar fight.”
Isla flinched. Her mascara was definitely smudged. Her blouse was rumpled. The perfume that clung to her skin wasn’t hers. And the faint red marks on her neck told more stories than she could afford.
“Just get to the trauma unit,” Marla said, finally. “And Isla—pull yourself together. I don’t want to have this conversation again.”
Isla nodded, cheeks burning with embarrassment. “Yes, ma’am.”
She fled down the hallway without another word, her heart hammering in her chest.
The rest of the morning passed in a surreal blur.
Vitals. IVs. Medication charts. Discharge papers.
But Isla wasn’t really there. Her hands moved on instinct—steady, trained—but her mind kept drifting back to the night before. To the feel of his lips on her neck. The way he’d whispered into her skin. The sound of his voice in the dark.
The way she had let herself fall—so completely, so carelessly.
What if she saw him again?
Would she even recognize him in the light of day?
Would he remember her name, if she’d given it?
But the worst part—the part that gnawed at her gut—was that for the first time in a long time, she hadn’t felt invisible. She’d felt wanted. Desired. Held.
Even if it was a lie.
She was halfway through updating a patient’s file when the noise in the break room shifted.
Low murmurs. Whispers. Urgent.
“Did you hear?”
“God, the car’s totaled—how did he even survive that crash?”
“He’s still in surgery.”
“Do you think it was a suicide attempt?”
Isla looked up from her clipboard, heart thudding with sudden unease. The nurses had gathered around the small TV mounted in the corner of the break room. She drifted toward the group, her fingers still holding the chart.
The voice of the news anchor filtered through the static:
“…Alexander Wolfe, billionaire CEO of WolfeTech, was rushed to Mercy Hill Medical Center early this morning following a high-speed crash on Route 5. Wolfe’s black Aston Martin collided with a concrete median, flipping several times before bursting into flames. Emergency responders arrived on the scene within minutes, extracting Wolfe from the wreckage. He was reported conscious but severely injured. Sources close to the Wolfe family say he was alone in the vehicle…”
Isla’s pen slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor.
Alexander Wolfe?
Her pulse stuttered.
The camera cut to a grainy photo taken at some gala—sharp suit, dark hair, impossibly strong jawline, piercing blue eyes.
Him.
It was him.
The man from the bar.
The stranger she’d let into her bed.
The one she couldn’t stop thinking about.
The man she had trusted, without a name, without a future.
And now he was sprawled in some trauma center, possibly dying, his face plastered on every screen in the country.
Her stomach twisted violently.
The anchor kept talking, but the words were distant. Something about spinal injuries. Internal bleeding. Investors worried about WolfeTech’s stability. Paparazzi crowding the hospital steps.
It didn’t matter.
None of that mattered.
Because last night, she hadn’t slept with just anyone.
She’d slept with Alexander Wolfe—a man who lived in the headlines, a man worth billions, a man whose downfall could make or break cities.
And she was a nurse who couldn’t afford to pay the power bill.
She leaned against the wall, dizzy, her vision tunneling.
You’re just a one-night mistake.
You were never meant to know who he was.
And now you do.
Her hand drifted to her abdomen, to the faint ache there—a remnant of last night’s reckless passion.
The weight of it all settled over her shoulders like a collapsing sky.
If anyone found out…
If the press ever knew…
If he remembered her at all…
It wasn’t just a mistake anymore.
It was a ticking bomb.
And it could destroy everything.
- Writer
