Emily stared at the black invitation card until her vision blurred. She flipped it over, then back again, like maybe there'd be fine print hidden somewhere — an escape clause, a joke, anything to make it less real. But no. The silver lettering just sat there, elegant and smug: Your presence is requested.
Requested. Like she had a choice.
She hadn't slept, not really. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Alexander's smile — sharp, deliberate, patient in a way that said he never lost. She heard him telling her she couldn't run, that he'd always find what he wanted. By the time dawn crawled through the one narrow window of her studio, her body felt wrung out, heavy, like she'd been trampled.
The rational thing would be easy: rip the card, delete his number, vanish into her tiny life again. People did that all the time. Hide from monsters. Pretend they didn't exist. She could keep working at the community center, pull late shifts at the diner, stretch her paychecks into math problems no one should have to solve.
But when she looked at the clock on her phone — 6:21, the minutes bleeding toward 6:30 — the card was still whole in her hand. She hadn't torn it. Couldn't.
Part of it was curiosity, sure. She'd never seen a private jet except in magazines, never been inside that level of wealth. Another part — the one she hated admitting — was that damn contract offer, the zeroes still stamped on her brain like neon.
But the ugliest truth was this: she wanted to see him again.
It was insane. It was reckless. It made her skin crawl even as her pulse jumped. But she couldn't shake the pull. The way he'd looked at her in the ballroom, the charged silence between them, the fact that every insult and threat from him had landed but still, still, she wanted to answer back.
At 6:15, she stood up. Decision made. Jeans, sweater, sneakers. Wallet and phone.
She wasn't going because she'd agreed. She was going to hand his stupid invitation back to him. To his face. She wasn't going to cower in her apartment while he smirked somewhere, thinking he'd won.
The cab ride to Teterboro cost more than groceries for a week, and every bump in the road made her regret it. But it was too late by the time the glass-and-steel terminal came into view. Polished, quiet, unreal. The kind of place billionaires used to keep the rest of the world far away.
She expected to hand the card to some assistant, maybe a driver, deliver her firm refusal, and walk away with her pride intact. What she hadn't pictured was Alexander Drake himself, waiting beside the most ridiculous plane she'd ever seen.
The jet gleamed under the early sun, white with silver edges, shaped like it had been designed just to make people jealous. And leaning against it, casual as if he were waiting for a coffee order, was Alexander. Jeans, black sweater, expensive without even trying. His phone in hand, his expression calm, like he owned not only the jet but the airfield itself. Which, knowing him, wasn't impossible.
When he looked up and saw her, his smile cut across his face slow and deliberate. Predatory.
"Emily," he called, voice carrying over the tarmac. "Early. I like that in an employee."
"I'm not your employee." Her fingers curled around the invitation in her pocket. She pulled it out, held it like evidence. "I came to give this back. That's all."
He pushed off the jet with that panther-like grace she hated noticing, coming closer. "Did you? How disappointing."
"I mean it, Alexander. Whatever this game is, I'm not interested."
"Game?" His brow arched. "I'm offering you something most people would kill for. A weekend away, a chance to see what your life could look like if you stopped clinging to scraps. And you'd rather… what? Go pour coffee for your after-school program?"
Her anger flared hot. "Those kids matter more than whatever fantasy you're selling."
"Do they?" He stepped closer, enough that she caught the scent of his cologne — expensive, sharp. "How many kids have you lifted out of poverty with your paycheck? How many families are better off because of your noble effort?"
She opened her mouth, closed it. The words wouldn't come. Because she did help — but not like she wanted to, not like she dreamed she could.
Alexander saw it, of course. He always did. His voice softened, silk over steel. "Exactly. You want real change, Emily? This is how."
He gestured toward the jet, and her eyes betrayed her. The wide windows revealed leather, wood, soft lighting — comfort that didn't even look real.
"One weekend," he murmured. "Napa Valley. Luxury, freedom, resources at your fingertips. Or go back to your apartment and scrape by. Your choice."
"My life is fine the way it is."
"Fine?" He almost laughed. "Tell me when you last bought something without triple-checking your balance. Tell me when you took a vacation that didn't involve someone's floor. Tell me, Emily, when you had enough money to help anyone the way you dream about."
Each question landed like a punch because she couldn't lie. She couldn't stop imagining what it would be like to actually have power. To write checks, not beg for them.
"With me," Alexander said softly, "you'd walk into that community center with more than good intentions. You'd have the kind of resources that scare people into listening."
"Blood money," she whispered.
"Practical money," he corrected, too quickly. "It spends the same."
She stared at him, hating that she couldn't untangle her disgust from her curiosity. Hating that he made a dangerous kind of sense.
"If I get on that plane," she asked, voice tight, "what happens?"
"You find out what you're capable of." His smile cut sharper.
"And if I don't?"
"You go back to your shoebox apartment and wonder forever." His hand brushed her chin, tilting it up. "Some chances don't repeat. This is one of them."
Her breath hitched. She didn't know what answer she was about to give — and then the world exploded in white light.
Flash.
She spun. Photographers. At least half a dozen, spilling out from behind trucks, from nowhere, cameras firing in bursts. More appearing every second, shouting over each other.
"Alexander! Who's the girl?"
"Is this your new girlfriend?"
"Name, sweetheart! What's your name?"
Emily froze, blinded, her body jerking back instinctively. The noise was deafening, the light worse. She'd never been in front of cameras before, never known how brutal it was.
Alexander didn't flinch. He slid smoothly to her side, one hand firm at her lower back, the other raised slightly like he was in control of the chaos.
"Gentlemen," he called coolly, "you're trespassing."
"Just a statement, Alexander!"
"Come on, one photo—"
"Is she with Drake Industries?"
The hand at her back pressed, guiding her toward the plane. She dug her heels in, but she couldn't move — not away, not toward. The flashes kept coming.
"Emily," Alexander's voice slipped under the noise, just for her. "Ten seconds. Either you get on the jet, or tomorrow you're the mystery woman plastered all over the tabloids. Your anonymity is gone either way. Decide."
Her chest tightened. She saw Daniel's face, her parents, the gossip at the community center. All of them seeing her next to Alexander Drake.
And then she saw the jet, gleaming like temptation itself.
She knew one thing: wha
tever she chose now, her old life was gone.
The question was — did she walk away, or cross the line?