Miss Invisible: The billionaire’s lying influencer

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The familiar sound of my own name hits me harder than the rain. Impossible too kind for a moment like this.

At the mention of my name I turn slowly, as if the world is underwater and squinting.

A tall man, dark hair plastered to his forehead from the rain. A sharp, familiar jaw. Eyes wide with shock. Eyes I know, eyes I’ve dreamed about. Eyes that used to linger on me when he thought I wasn’t looking.

I know that face, I could never forget it.

Jake Elverson.

My college crush. The one man who made my heart race without even trying.

And he’s looking at me like he’s seen a ghost.

For a heartbeat, neither of us speaks. Rain drips from my lashes, my coat, the ends of my hair. I must look like a half-drowned cat, a pathetic one.

“Jake…?” I slur.

He steps closer, hands hovering near my elbows like he’s afraid I’ll fall over which is fair, considering I’m listing sideways.

“What the hell are you doing walking into traffic?” he says, voice low and tense.

“I wasn’t walking,” I protest. “I was… floating.”

He blinks. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” I say proudly. “I’m… hydrating.”

“Are you hurt?” His voice is low, steady, and far too concerned for someone who hasn’t seen me in years.

I swallow, trying to find words. “I… no. I’m fine. Sorry. I didn’t see…” My voice cracks. My whole body is trembling, whether from the rain or everything else collapsing around me, I can’t tell.

A soft, disbelieving laugh escapes him. Then his expression folds into something gentler. “You’re freezing.”

He shrugs off his coat, an expensive one and drapes it over my shoulders.

I melt into the warmth instantly.

“Jake,” I whisper dramatically, “you’re an angel. Don’t tell anybody.”

He exhales, long and slow. “Come on. You can’t stay out here.”

I shake my head. “Nuh-uh. I’m not going home. Home sucks. Home is where the account doesn’t exist anymore.”

He studies me for a long second, rain dripping from his hair. Then he nods once.

“Okay. You’re coming with me.”

My eyes widen. “Whaaat? Jake ‘Too-Handsome-to-Look-At’ Elverson wants me? In his car? This is a movie.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, but he’s smiling just a little. “Let’s just get you somewhere warm.”

I don’t resist when he guides me to his sleek black car. I don’t resist when he buckles my seatbelt. And I definitely don’t resist when he drives us not to my flat but to a five-star hotel towering over the city.

For a moment, I stare at the dashboard, trying not to fall apart. Trying not to remember twenty-year-old me sitting three rows behind him in lecture halls, staring at the back of his head like a lovesick i***t.

I gawk at the sparkling lobby lights through the window. “Jake… where are we?”

“Someplace safe,” he says.

The last thing I remember is him lifting me, actually lifting me like I weigh nothing.

And then darkness, warm sheets and a scent that smells like cedar and something quietly expensive.

Jake’s voice, low and close.

“Amy… I’ve got you.”

The world fades. I let it.

For once, disappearing doesn’t feel so painful.

Warmth moves over me before I’m even conscious again soft sheets, a steady heartbeat somewhere near my ear, a hand brushing lightly against my shoulder like it’s afraid to wake me.

I’m not fully awake, not fully asleep, just floating somewhere in between.

Somewhere in the haze, I hear him whisper my name.

“Amy…”

His voice is low, thick, like he’s been fighting something inside himself for hours. My body reacts before my mind does, leaning toward the warmth, toward him.

His hand hesitates near my cheek. Then he exhales and lets his fingers trace gently along my jaw.

A soft sound slips from me a tiny, breathy moan I can’t swallow down. Jake stills, like the sound reaches a part of him he’s been trying to ignore.

“Amy…” he whispers again, pained and tender. “Tell me to stop.”

But I don’t. I can’t bring myself to stop him, not when I’ve been craving comfort, warmth, someone who actually sees me… and right now, he does. I can’t pull away, even though maybe I should. Every part of me wants this too much.

The loneliness, the heartbreak, the ache of everything I lost it all pours out of me in one soft, trembling whisper:

“Don’t stop.”

That’s all it takes.

He leans in, his lips brushing mine in a kiss that’s slow so slow it steals the breath from my lungs. His hand slides into my hair, not demanding, not forceful, just holding me like he can’t believe I’m real.

I kiss him back, clumsy and warm from the alcohol, and he groans softly against my mouth, a quiet, restrained sound that sends heat curling low in my stomach.

He pulls me closer, his forehead pressed to mine, his breathing unsteady like I’m undoing him piece by piece.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this,” he murmurs against my lips.

The confession makes my chest tighten.

My fingers clutch his shirt, drawing him in again, and the kiss deepens slow and hungry and desperate in the softest way. My lips part, a breathy moan slipping free when his hand runs down my side.

He responds instantly, kissing me harder, like he’s been waiting years for permission.

The world fades the rain, the pain, the humiliation, all of it.

There’s only the warmth of his hands, the soft sound of my name on his lips, the way every touch feels like it’s washing something heavy off my heart.

“Amy…” he murmurs, voice shaking with restraint and longing, “if we do this… tell me you want it.”

I do.

God, I do.

“I want you,” I breathe.

He kisses me again deeper this time and the room spins in a way that has nothing to do with alcohol.

Everything after that melts into softness:

his warmth, my quiet moans against his neck, his whispered reassurances,

his lips brushing everywhere he dares,

the way he holds me like I’m something breakable and precious.

And when the moment finally blurs into darkness when I’m wrapped in his arms, breathless and warm the last thing I hear is Jake’s voice, low and ragged and full of something I’m afraid to name:

“Amy… I’ve got you. I'm not going anywhere.”

And at that moment, I believe him.

The next morning my eyes flutter open to gray morning light.

My head throbs with the kind of hangover that punishes every sin I committed last night. The first thing I feel is warmth. My memories come in flashes:

The rain, Jake’s voice, his hands, my moans, his kiss, his warmth.

It all makes my stomach twist, torn between everything I wanted and everything I shouldn’t have done.

This is wrong.

I look beside me Jake is still asleep, chest rising and falling softly, one arm outstretched toward where I was lying minutes before. His chest rises and falls steadily, his face relaxed, shadows softening the angles of his jaw. His hair is a mess, the kind of mess that says he slept hard.

He looks peaceful. And God… he looks beautiful. A lump rises in my throat.

Too beautiful for someone like me.

His lips are slightly parted; his fingers twitch as if dreaming. I stare at him longer than I should, mapping the face I used to admire from the back row of lecture halls.

I drag in a shaky breath and slip out of bed, feet touching the cold floor. The hotel room feels suddenly too big, too golden, too expensive for the girl I am.

My clothes are scattered everywhere. I grab them quickly, pulling them on with trembling hands. Each piece feels like it weighs a stone.

I catch sight of myself in the mirror, mascara smudged, hair wild, lips swollen.

I shouldn’t be here.

I shouldn’t have done this.

I shouldn’t let myself want something I can’t have.

And Jake?

He’s everything I’m not allowed to touch.

Before my heart can change its mind, I slip out of bed quietly, carefully.

His coat is on the chair. The one he wrapped around me last night. I pull it on and it smells like him so much it hurts.

My throat tightens. I can’t leave without saying something. But I also can’t wake him. I can’t face him. Not after everything I poured into his hands last night.

I fold it quickly before I change my mind and set it on the pillow he almost reached.

I force myself to look at him one last time.

I can’t stay. As much as I want to stay, I

know I shouldn't.

So I turn and walk out of the room before my courage breaks. Out of the hotel. Out of whatever last night almost became.

And just like that, I disappear.