ONE NIGHT, ONE CONTRACT

CHAPTER THREE – One Night, One Lie

It was all blurry. The hospital walls were cold. Machines made a hiss. Sienna felt pain in her chest. That night was coming and there was nothing that could stop it.

Six years ago. Manhattan. The Grand Hall of the Hotel Astoria was bathed in gold and champagne light.

Sienna had taken a seat next to the marble bar. She was carrying a tray of glasses, none of which had been filled. Her black uniform was neat. Her feet were sore from twelve hours of labor. There was a lot of laughter, perfume, and the quiet boasting of wealthy people. Every smile was a deal.

Then he walked in.

Damian Holt was young and perfect and everyone was talking about him. He was twenty-eight, a billionaire, a philanthropist. He had not even opened his mouth when women in the room were aware of his presence.

Until that night he was a magazine image. For instance, in real life he felt that he was a magnet. He was dressed in an impeccable black suit that cut through noise. He smiled rarely. It was not friendly. It was control.

He was not part of the party. The party turned around him.

Sienna wasn't supposed to pay him more than a moment's attention. But she did.

And he noticed her.

She was reaching for a half empty glass when a deep voice said behind her, "You look like you'd just as soon be anywhere else."

She made a sharp corner and almost collided into him. “I—uh—I’m just doing my job.”

His lips curled. "Your job involves frowning at guests?"

She flushed. “My job is surviving them.”

He laughed softly. The sound made her pulse jump. It was not nasty, but smooth and practiced.

Surviving is given too much importance, Damian said. “Try living.”

She rolled her eyes. “Easy for you to say, Mr. Holt.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you know who I am?”

Sienna smirked. “Everyone in this room does. The billionaire that donates to children's hospitals and fires board members the same week.

He grinned, slow and sharp. “So you read the papers.”

“Sometimes. When I can afford them.”

That let her focus. “What’s your name?”

“Sienna.”

He repeated it like a secret. “Pretty name.”

And then she ceased to be invisible.

Later that evening after the charity auction, the crowd tapered off. Sienna remained to assist in clearing out the ballroom. Damian was at the bar once again, tie undone, drinking what appeared to be his third whiskey.

He watched the way she took stray napkins. “You’re still here.”

“Still surviving.”

He stooped and grabbed a seat next to him. “Sit.”

“I can’t. I’m staff.”

He leaned in, voice low. “You’re human first.”

She paused then sat, telling herself one minute was all it was.

"What do you do when you're not preventing rich people from death by thirst?" he asked.

She smiled faintly. “I study. Communications major. Second year.”

“Smart and ambitious.” He lifted his glass. “Dangerous combination.”

"You sound like someone scaring himself," she taunted.

He didn’t deny it. He looked at her steadily until she turned away.

"Through the door, Damian, why are you here," she whispered. “Really here. Giving a donation need not mean being present.

He breathed out slowly. Because my father has laid this foundation. And every year I must lie better than he did.

His bitterness sent a chill in her chest. “You don’t get along?”

He smiled without humor. "He has taught me everything about betrayal."

Silence hung, thick. Then, Damian focused on her eyes. Why do you feel that I am able to understand that?

Sienna paused. “Maybe because I do.”

One drink became two. Two became laughter.

Between small talk and confessing to the air changed. It was nearly deserted in the ballroom and there were the faint sounds of the piano coming from down the hall.

Damian’s voice dropped, husky. “Come with me.”

Sienna’s breath hitched. “Where?”

He smirked. “Away from all this.”

She wanted to say no. But his dark fated lonely eyes told him that he wasn't asking for company. He wanted escape.

And she understood.

So they exited through an elevator at the side to the private suite floor. Ding of the door bell, cologne, silence between them.

In the suite, he made her a drink that she never drank. The night melted around them - his hand in her hair, her laughter against his chest, the spark growing to a wildfire.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t planned. It was real.

One racy evening she was no longer the hard-up girl working the bar. She was his.

But morning came.

Reality followed.

Sheer curtains bathed the room in sunlight. The sheets were empty. The bed beside her was cold.

On the pillow was a note, carefully and quickly written,

You will kick yourself for kicking me

No explanation. No goodbye.

Sienna kept it for an hour, despising herself for believing that he meant something by the warmth in his eyes.

She heard from a colleague in the middle of the day that Damian went to London to do a desperate deal. And that was it.

Her heart did not break dramatically, it just went quiet, like a house after a storm.

Weeks later, she was told that she was pregnant.

The memory drifted away in the sterile white of the hospital corridor.

Sienna stood outside of Ethan's ward with the same ache in her heart. Damian had a hand in his pockets, and an unreadable look in his eyes, from across the room.

Six years didn't change the way he looked at her, only made it more lifeless.

He stepped forward. For I do not think that I forget that night?

Her breath caught.

“Every second,” he said softly. “Every word. Every lie.”

She swallowed hard. “You left.”

“I had to.”

"Don't tell me like it makes sense."

He shook his head and looked away, jaw tightening. “It was complicated.”

“Then now,” she whispered.

Damian's eyes locked back with hers again: hard, probing. He asked at home, "Was he born before I left or after I left?"

Sienna froze. “Don’t.”

“I deserve to know.”

She crossed her arms, attempting to keep herself together. “You already do.”

His appearance did not change, but it was something behind his eyes. Truth was between them like broken glass - there, visible, dangerous.

Damian made a sound close to a laugh, but not quite. “One night, Sienna. One night, and you took him away from me.

"Before you even knew we existed, you passed on from both of us."

He moved closer, voice low. "It's not like that, not like what you think."

Her eyes burned. “Then tell me what it meant.”

He hesitated. "It meant I tried to not destroy you."

She glanced at her, puzzled and angry. “By vanishing?”

"not interacting with the one person that ever made me want to stop existing"

The words hit her hard.

For a very long time she did not speak.

Then Damian said in a soft voice: "But perhaps walking away was my greatest error."

Sienna’s breath trembled. “You think?”

He smiled a little - bitter, regretful. “I don’t think. I know.”

Before she could answer his phone buzzed. He looked at it, eyes narrowed.

"There is security waiting downstairs," he said. "Something I need to check."

Her husband put the phone away, but continued to stare at her. “This isn’t over, Sienna. Not until I know everything.”

And just like that he turned and walked down the hall; leaving her alone again like he had six years ago.

Only this time she knew he would come back.

Because in this case, Damian Holt wanted the truth.

And Damian Holt would always get what he wanted.

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