One Night Stand With Mr Billionaire

The interview

Emerald

The sunlight was a betrayal.

It crept through the gaps in the curtains like a thief, stealing the darkness that had sheltered me, illuminating everything I'd been too drunk and too desperate to see clearly. I woke slowly, my head pounding in rhythm with my heartbeat, my mouth dry as cotton, every muscle in my body aching with a pleasant, unfamiliar soreness.

For a moment, I didn't know where I was. The ceiling was too high, the bed too soft, the sheets too luxurious against my skin. Then memory crashed over me in a wave that made my stomach lurch—the rooftop, the kisses, the way he'd looked at me like I was the center of his universe.

I sat up too fast, the room spinning, and clutched the sheet to my chest.

The bed beside me was empty.

Cold.

He was gone.

The disappointment that lanced through me was so sharp it felt like a physical wound. Of course he was gone. That's how these things worked, wasn't it? The mysterious stranger, the drunken night, the dawn escape. I'd been stupid to believe his promises, stupid to think that a man like that—a man who wore wealth like a second skin, who kissed like he was devouring my soul—would actually stay.

I pressed my fingers to my lips, still swollen from his kisses, and tasted salt. Tears. When had I started crying?

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my bare feet hitting the cold marble floor, and that's when I saw it.

A note. Folded neatly on the pillow beside mine, my name written across the front in bold, masculine handwriting that I recognized from somewhere I couldn't place.

With trembling hands, I picked it up and unfolded the thick cream paper.

Emerald,

I had to leave. Not because I wanted to—God, not because I wanted to. But if I'd stayed, if I'd watched you wake up and seen regret in your eyes, I don't think I would have survived it. Last night was... you are... there are no words. I know you don't remember everything. I know the whiskey blurred the edges. But I need you to know that what I said was true. All of it.

There's something I have to do this morning. Something I should have done years ago. But I will find you. I promise you, Emerald, I will find you, and when I do, I'm going to spend the rest of my life proving that what happened between us was real.

Until then, keep the strawberry lip gloss. I'm already addicted.

- D.

I read it three times, my heart hammering against my ribs with a mixture of relief and confusion and something that felt dangerously like hope. He hadn't abandoned me. He'd left because he was afraid. The Ice King—because that's what he was, I realized now, remembering the tabloid covers I'd seen in passing, the ruthless billionaire with the gray eyes—was afraid of me.

I was about to read it again when a sound from the living room made me freeze.

Footsteps. Heavy. Purposeful. Multiple sets.

Not Derek. The gait was wrong, too hurried, too many.

My blood turned to ice. I clutched the sheet tighter, my mind racing through scenarios—hotel security, his enemies, my own imagination running wild in the harsh light of morning. The door to the bedroom was slightly ajar, and through the gap, I could see shadows moving in the suite beyond.

"Check the bedroom," a voice said, low and commanding. "Mr. Ashford said she might still be here. Make sure she's decent before you bring her out."

Mr. Ashford. The name hit me like a physical blow, unlocking a floodgate of memories I hadn't known I possessed. Derek Ashford. The billionaire. The recluse. The man who'd built an empire on ruthlessness and ice, who'd been photographed with supermodels and princesses and who'd never, not once, been linked to anyone for longer than a dinner party.

And I'd spent the night in his bed.

The door pushed open, and a man in a dark suit stepped through. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with the watchful eyes of someone who was paid to be suspicious. He took in my disheveled state, the sheet clutched to my chest, the note still trembling in my hand, and his expression didn't change.

"Miss... Emerald, is it?" he said, his voice carefully neutral. "My name is Marcus. I'm Mr. Ashford's head of security. He asked me to escort you downstairs when you woke up. There's a car waiting."

"A car?" My voice came out as a croak, my throat dry and rough. "Where is he? Where's Derek?"

Something flickered in Marcus's eyes—pity? Concern?—but his face remained impassive. "Mr. Ashford had an urgent matter to attend to this morning. He left specific instructions for your care. The car will take you anywhere you wish to go. Your clothes have been pressed and are waiting in the bathroom."

He stepped aside, gesturing toward the en-suite, and I saw two more security personnel in the living room beyond, their faces carefully blank as they pretended not to notice the woman emerging from their boss's bed.

Humiliation burned hot and bright in my chest. This wasn't romantic. This wasn't the continuation of some grand love story. This was damage control. The billionaire's team sweeping up his one-night stand, packaging her off with a car ride and pressed clothes, ensuring that the great Derek Ashford's reputation remained spotless.

The note in my hand suddenly felt like a lie. A cruel joke written by a man who was probably already laughing about the drunk bridesmaid he'd seduced.

"Tell Mr. Ashford," I said, my voice shaking but my chin lifting, some last shred of dignity surfacing through the hangover and the hurt, "that he can keep his car. And his note. And whatever game he's playing."

I stood, wrapping the sheet around me like armor, and marched toward the bathroom with as much dignity as I could muster. Marcus didn't try to stop me, but I felt his eyes on my back, heavy with something I couldn't identify.

The bathroom was a cathedral of marble and gold, my dress hanging neatly on the back of the door, my shoes polished to a shine beneath it. I dressed quickly, not looking in the mirror, not wanting to see the evidence of my stupidity reflected in my own eyes. The emerald dress that had felt so bold last night now felt like a costume, a pathetic attempt at confidence by a woman who'd been played by a master.

I found my clutch on the vanity, my phone dead inside it. Of course. No way to call for help, no way to escape except through the gauntlet of security in the living room.

I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and stepped out.

Marcus was waiting by the door, holding it open. "The car, Miss—"

"I said no," I snapped, brushing past him, my heels clicking a rapid staccato against the marble as I headed for the elevator. "I'm perfectly capable of getting myself home."

"Miss, please. Mr. Ashford was very specific—"

"I don't care what Mr. Ashford was!" I whirled on him, my voice cracking, tears threatening to spill over despite my best efforts. "I don't care about his instructions or his car or his... his whatever this is. Just leave me alone!"

Marcus held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, his expression finally softening into something approaching sympathy. "At least let me call you a cab. The lobby is... there are reporters downstairs. Wedding guests. It would be better if you didn't walk out alone."

Reporters. Of course. Because nothing said "discreet morning after" like a squad of paparazzi camped in the lobby.

I closed my eyes, the reality of my situation crashing down around me. I was hungover, heartbroken, and about to become tabloid fodder for the amusement of people who bought coffee and gossip at the bodega. The sensible, careful Emerald—the one who'd existed before last night—would never have let this happen.

But she was gone. Burned away by whiskey and storm-gray eyes and the taste of strawberry.

"Fine," I whispered, the fight draining out of me. "A cab. Please."

Marcus nodded, speaking quietly into his earpiece. Within minutes, I was being escorted through a service entrance I'd never noticed, into a back alley that smelled of garbage and rain, where a yellow cab was idling with its light off.

I didn't look back at the hotel. Didn't let myself wonder which window had been his, if he was watching me leave, if any of it had meant anything at all.

I slid into the cab, gave the driver my address, and pressed my forehead against the cool glass as the city blurred past. The tears came then, hot and silent, tracking down my cheeks as I clutched the crumpled note in my fist.

I will find you, he'd written.

But as the cab carried me away from the glittering tower and the man who'd kissed me like I was his salvation, I knew with a certainty that settled heavy in my chest that I would never see Derek Ashford again.

The man was a billionaire. A ghost. A story I'd tell my best friend someday, laughing through the pain, pretending it hadn't been the most real thing I'd ever felt.

I was wrong, of course.

But I wouldn't learn how wrong until three weeks later, when I walked into the conference room of Ashford Industries for the biggest job interview of my career, and came face to face with the man who'd ruined me for anyone else.

He was sitting at the head of the table, his gray eyes widening with shock as they locked onto mine, his hand frozen mid-air above a contract worth more than my life.

"Emerald," he breathed, and the room fell silent.

But that... that is a story for tomorrow.

Emerald

Three weeks.

Twenty-one days. Five hundred and four hours. Thirty thousand two hundred and forty minutes.

I knew the math because I'd done it obsessively, lying awake in my Brooklyn apartment at 3 AM, staring at the water-stained ceiling and wondering if I'd imagined the entire night. The rooftop. The kisses. The way he'd looked at me like I was the only star in his sky. The note crumpled in my fist as I fled through the service entrance like a criminal.

I'd thrown the note away two days later, standing over my kitchen trash can with tears streaming down my face, hating myself for the way my fingers had hesitated before releasing it. Hating him for making me believe, even for a moment, that what happened between us was real.

The first week had been the hardest. I'd called in sick to work—something I never did—claiming a stomach bug while I lay in bed replaying every second of that night like a masochist with a favorite movie. The taste of strawberry lip gloss. The storm-gray eyes. The way his voice had cracked when he said my name. I'd deleted his number from my phone before I'd even sobered up—assuming I'd ever had it; the details were frustratingly fuzzy—and then spent three days trying to remember if I'd given him mine.

I hadn't.

Which meant he had no way to find me. Which meant his promise—I will find you—was just another line from a man who probably had a Rolodex of them.

The second week, I'd thrown myself into work with a vengeance that worried my assistant, Mia. I'd taken on three new clients simultaneously, redesigned a Tribeca loft in forty-eight hours, and developed a caffeine addiction that had my hands shaking during client meetings. I'd told my best friend, Sarah—the bride whose wedding I'd ruined by disappearing—that I'd met someone and it hadn't worked out. She'd hugged me and told me I was better off, that wedding hookups were cursed, that the universe had probably saved me from a serial killer.

If only she knew.

By the third week, I'd convinced myself that Derek Ashford was a fever dream. A beautiful, terrible hallucination brought on by too much champagne and a broken heart. I'd stopped checking my phone every five minutes. Stopped walking past the Ashford Tower on my way to client meetings, craning my neck to see if I could spot him through the tinted glass. Stopped wearing the emerald dress, which hung in my closet like a ghost.

And then, this morning, the email had arrived.

Subject: Interview Request – Lead Designer Position

Dear Miss Sinclair,

Ashford Industries is seeking a lead interior designer for the renovation of our flagship corporate headquarters. Your portfolio has been reviewed by our selection committee, and we would like to invite you to interview for this position on Monday at 10:00 AM...

I'd read it seven times. Ashford Industries. The same company owned by the same man who'd kissed me until I forgot my own name. The same man who'd had his security team bundle me into a cab like yesterday's trash.

My first instinct had been to delete it. To pretend I'd never seen it, to go back to my safe little life of Brooklyn walk-ups and modest design contracts and men who didn't look at me like they wanted to consume me whole.

But then I'd looked at my bank account. At the stack of unpaid invoices from clients who were "getting around to it." At the eviction notice taped to my door last month—the one I'd hidden from Sarah, from everyone—giving me thirty days to come up with three months of back rent.

And I'd realized I didn't have a choice.

So here I was, standing in the gleaming lobby of Ashford Tower, forty-seven stories of steel and glass that seemed to touch the clouds, wearing the only suit I owned—a navy pencil skirt and matching blazer I'd bought on clearance two years ago—and trying not to hyperventilate.

The lobby was a cathedral of wealth. Marble floors so polished they reflected the crystal chandeliers overhead. A reception desk that looked like it had been carved from a single block of black granite. Security guards who looked like they'd been recruited from a special forces unit, their eyes sharp and assessing as they watched me approach.

"Emerald Sinclair," I said to the receptionist, my voice steadier than I felt. "I have an interview at ten."

The woman—blonde, beautiful, wearing a headset that probably cost more than my rent—typed something into her computer and smiled with professional warmth. "Of course, Miss Sinclair. Mr. Ashford's office is on the forty-seventh floor. Please take the executive elevator to your right. Someone will meet you when you arrive."

Mr. Ashford's office.

Not HR. Not a design committee. Mr. Ashford's office.

The floor seemed to tilt beneath my heels. I hadn't known—how could I have known?—that he would be conducting the interview himself. I'd assumed this was some corporate formality, a mid-level manager ticking boxes while I presented my portfolio. The idea of sitting across a desk from Derek Ashford, of looking into those storm-gray eyes while trying to explain why I was the best candidate for a job I desperately needed, made my stomach twist into knots.

"Thank you," I managed, and somehow my feet carried me to the elevator bank.

The executive elevator was different from the others. No buttons, just a biometric scanner and a single floor indicator. A security guard nodded at me as I stepped inside, and the doors slid shut with a soft hiss that sounded expensive.

The ascent was smooth and silent. I caught my reflection in the mirrored walls and barely recognized myself. My dark hair was pulled back in a severe bun that made my cheekbones look sharper than usual. Minimal makeup—just enough to hide the circles under my eyes from another sleepless night. The navy suit was professional, respectable, the opposite of the wild woman who'd let a stranger kiss her senseless on a rooftop.

I looked like someone who had her life together.

I looked like a liar.

The elevator chimed softly, and the doors slid open.

And there he was.

Not sitting behind a desk, not waiting in a conference room. Standing directly outside the elevator, his back to me, speaking in low tones to a man in a suit I recognized with a jolt of humiliation—Marcus, the head of security who'd watched me flee through the service entrance three weeks ago.

Derek Ashford turned around.

Time stopped.

He looked different in the harsh light of morning. Less like a dream, more like a weapon. The charcoal suit he wore was tailored to perfection, emphasizing the broad shoulders and narrow waist I'd felt beneath my hands that night. His dark hair was swept back, not falling across his forehead in that boyish way I remembered. And his eyes—those extraordinary storm-gray eyes, shot through with gold—locked onto mine with an intensity that made the air leave my lungs.

"Emerald," he breathed.

My name on his lips was exactly as I remembered. A prayer and a curse wrapped in velvet. The sound of it sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the air conditioning and everything to do with the memory of his mouth on mine, his hands in my hair, his voice whispering promises in the darkness.

I opened my mouth to say something—hello or you bastard or I can't breathe when you look at me like that—but nothing came out. We stared at each other across the threshold of the elevator, the silence stretching between us like a live wire, and I realized with a sinking feeling that I was in far more danger than I'd imagined.

Because three weeks of telling myself he was a mistake, a hallucination, a moment of weakness brought on by alcohol, hadn't changed a single thing.

I still wanted him.

Desperately. Dangerously. Irrevocably.

"Mr. Ashford," I finally managed, my voice barely above a whisper. "I... I'm here for the interview."

Something flickered in his eyes—surprise? Pain?—and then his expression shifted, smoothed into a mask of professional detachment that was somehow more terrifying than his intensity.

"Of course," he said, his voice cool and controlled, the voice of a man who negotiated billion-dollar deals before breakfast. "Follow me, Miss Sinclair."

He turned and walked down the corridor without looking back, and I had no choice but to follow.

---

Derek

She was here.

Emerald Sinclair was standing in my office, her hands clasped in front of her like a schoolgirl called to the principal, and I was fairly certain I was having a heart attack.

My heart was hammering against my ribs with a violence that would have concerned me if I could think straight. Three weeks. Twenty-one days of hell. I'd torn this city apart looking for her—hired private investigators, pulled security footage from the hotel, traced the cab she'd taken through every traffic camera in Manhattan. I'd known her first name, her face, and the fact that she tasted like strawberry, and it hadn't been enough.

And then, this morning, Marcus had slid a file across my desk with the photo of a dark-haired woman in a navy suit, and the world had tilted on its axis.

"Miss Sinclair," I'd said, my voice sounding like it was coming from very far away. "Emerald Sinclair. She's interviewing for the designer position."

"Yes, sir. This morning at ten."

I'd spent the hour before her arrival pacing my office like a caged animal, rehearsing what I would say. I'm sorry I left. I had to attend to something urgent. I tried to find you. I never stopped looking for you. I'd planned to be calm. Professional. To ease into the conversation, to give her space, to not scare her away with the intensity of everything I was feeling.

And then the elevator doors had opened, and she'd stepped out, and every coherent thought had evaporated from my brain like mist in the sun.

She looked different. The wild curls were tamed into a severe bun that made her neck look impossibly elegant. The emerald dress was gone, replaced by a navy suit that was professional and modest and somehow more devastating because I knew what was underneath. But her eyes were the same—storm-colored, wary, beautiful—and when they'd met mine, I'd felt the same electric jolt that had hit me on the rooftop three weeks ago.

Emerald.

I'd said her name without thinking, and the sound of it in this sterile corporate hallway had felt like a desecration. This wasn't how I'd imagined our reunion. Not in my office, surrounded by glass and steel and the weight of an empire. Not with her looking at me like I was a stranger, like that night had meant nothing, like I hadn't spent three weeks drowning in the memory of her.

Now she was sitting across from my desk, her portfolio clutched in her lap like a shield, and I was supposed to be conducting an interview. Asking about her design philosophy and her experience with commercial spaces and whether she could handle a renovation budget in the seven figures.

Instead, I was staring at her lips and remembering how they tasted.

"Miss Sinclair," I said, my voice rougher than I intended. I cleared my throat, forcing myself to focus. "Thank you for coming in. Your portfolio is... impressive."

It was. I'd spent the last hour poring over it, marveling at the way she transformed spaces—how she took cold, empty rooms and made them breathe. There was a warmth to her work, an intimacy that made you want to sink into the furniture and stay forever. She was talented. Brilliant, even. And I was about to offer her a job she was woefully underqualified for because I couldn't bear the thought of her walking out of this building and disappearing again.

"Thank you," she said, her voice steady but her fingers tight around the leather portfolio. "I've been following Ashford Industries' expansion into sustainable architecture. The new headquarters in Dubai, particularly. I think my approach would align well with your company's vision."

She was good. Professional, articulate, every inch the competent designer she was pretending to be. But I could see the pulse fluttering in her throat, the way her knee bounced slightly under the desk, the faint flush spreading across her cheekbones. She was nervous. No—she was terrified.

And she should be.

Because I was barely holding myself together. Every instinct I possessed was screaming at me to cross this desk, to pull her into my arms, to kiss her until she remembered who I was. Who we were together. The man who'd held her while she slept, who'd traced patterns against her palm in the elevator, who'd promised to find her and had failed.

"I'm sure it would," I said, leaning back in my chair, my eyes never leaving hers. "But I'm not interested in your design philosophy, Miss Sinclair. Not really."

Her eyes widened, and I saw the flash of hurt there before she could hide it. She thought I was dismissing her. Rejecting her. The same way she'd been rejected three weeks ago when she'd woken up alone.

"Mr. Ashford, I assure you—"

"I'm interested in why you ran," I interrupted, my voice dropping to a lower register. The professional mask slipped, just for a moment, and I saw her breath catch. "I'm interested in why you wouldn't take the car I sent. Why you threw away my note. Why you've been avoiding this building for three weeks even though you live twenty minutes away."

The color drained from her face, then flooded back in a rush that made her look feverish. "You... you had me followed?"

"I had you found," I corrected, my voice tight with the effort of staying in my chair. "There's a difference. I needed to know you were safe. That you were real. That I hadn't imagined the entire night."

"You left," she whispered, and the pain in her voice was like a knife to my chest. "You left me alone in that suite with your security team and your note and your... your promises. And then you had the audacity to have me tracked?"

"I had an emergency," I said, the words tasting like ash. It was true—I'd received a call at 5 AM about a hostile takeover attempt that threatened to destroy everything I'd built—but it sounded like an excuse even to my own ears. "My company was under attack. I had to be in London by noon. I left the note because I couldn't bear to wake you, to see the regret in your eyes before I had to go. I thought... I thought I'd be back before you woke up. I thought I'd have time to explain."

"Well, you didn't," she said, her voice shaking but her chin lifting in that way I remembered—that defiant, proud gesture that had made me fall for her in the first place. "You didn't come back. And your security team treated me like a problem to be solved, not a person. So forgive me if I don't fall at your feet with gratitude for having me tracked like a lost pet."

She was magnificent. Angry and hurt and so beautiful it made my chest ache. I stood up before I could stop myself, rounding the desk in three long strides, and she was on her feet too, backing away until her shoulders hit the floor-to-ceiling window behind her.

"Emerald," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I stopped a foot away from her, close enough to smell her perfume—vanilla and something darker, something that was uniquely her. Close enough to see the flecks of gold in her storm-gray eyes, the way her lower lip trembled before she caught it between her teeth. "I looked for you. Every day. Every night. I hired investigators, pulled strings, called in favors. I was starting to think I'd invented you. That the whiskey had conjured the most perfect woman I'd ever met, only to erase her from existence."

"Stop," she breathed, but she didn't move away. Her hands were pressed flat against the glass behind her, her chest rising and falling with rapid, shallow breaths. "You can't just... you can't say things like that. We're in your office. This is a job interview. I'm supposed to be professional, and you're supposed to be—"

"Supposed to be what?" I took another step closer, until I could feel the heat radiating from her body, until the space between us hummed with electricity. "Cold? Distant? The Ice King?" I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "That man doesn't exist when you're in the room. He never did. You melted him the second you looked at me across that bar."

Her eyes searched mine, looking for the lie, finding none. "Derek," she whispered, and my name on her lips was a surrender and a challenge all at once. "I can't do this. I need this job. I need... I need to not feel like I'm losing my mind every time you're near me."

"You have the job," I said immediately. "You had the job the moment you stepped off that elevator. I don't care about your qualifications, Emerald. I care about you. I care about the way you look at me like I'm not a monster. I care about the way you kissed me like I was the air you needed to breathe. I care—"

I didn't get to finish.

She grabbed my tie and pulled my mouth down to hers.

The kiss was violent. Desperate. Three weeks of longing and confusion and sleepless nights crashing together in a collision that made my knees weak. Her fingers tangled in my hair, pulling hard enough to sting, and I groaned against her lips, my hands finding her waist and lifting her onto the edge of my desk, scattering papers and pens and the carefully constructed illusion of control.

She tasted exactly as I remembered. Like strawberry lip gloss and sin and every impossible thing I'd convinced myself I'd imagined. Her legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer, and I was lost—drowning in her, in the heat of her mouth, the softness of her body, the way she whimpered when I bit her lower lip and soothed the sting with my tongue.

"Derek," she gasped when I finally let her breathe, my mouth trailing down her jaw, her throat, the hollow of her collarbone where her pulse hammered frantically against my lips. "We can't. Someone could walk in. Your assistant. Marcus. Anyone—"

"Let them," I growled against her skin, my hands sliding beneath her blazer, finding the silk blouse underneath, tracing the curve of her waist with a hunger that had been building for twenty-one days. "I don't care who sees. I don't care about anything except you. God, Emerald, do you have any idea what you do to me?"

I kissed her again, deeper this time, my tongue sweeping past her lips with a possessiveness that bordered on madness. She arched against me...