Chapter 2 Two: The Morning After

I woke slowly, wrapped in sheets that felt like expensive silk against my bare skin. For a moment, I floated in that soft space between sleep and waking, surrounded by quiet luxury that didn't belong to me. The bed was enormous,three times the size of my narrow dorm mattress,its pillows so soft they cradled my head like clouds.

Then memory rushed in like a cold wave.

Alex.

The balcony.

The way his hands had tangled in my hair as he kissed me like I was something precious he'd been waiting his whole life to find. The intensity of his eyes when I told him about Mom, how they had filled with understanding instead of pity. The way he had traced patterns on my skin while we whispered secrets until dawn.

I turned, expecting to see him there beside me, maybe still sleeping, maybe smiling that half-smile that made the world fall away. But the other side of the bed was empty, the sheets rumpled, the pillow indented where his head had been. Cold. He'd been gone a while.

A folded note lay waiting on the nightstand, written on thick hotel stationery in elegant handwriting. My hands shook as I opened it.

Maya

Had to leave early for family obligations.

Thank you for the most honest conversation of my life.

Last night was extraordinary.

"Alex"

My heart clenched around the words. Thank you? As if I'd been a service. And "family obligations"? That sounded like code for a life I wasn't part of.

I sat up, my body reminding me exactly how thoroughly we had explored each other. Every muscle ached with the sweet soreness of discovery. My thighs were tender, my lips swollen, my skin marked in places where his mouth had lingered too long.

The suite around me looked like something from a glossy magazine. Floor to ceiling windows spilled light over the city below, morning traffic crawling like ants. An empty champagne bottle sat on the table beside two crystal glasses. My underwear was draped carelessly over a chair that probably cost more than a semester's worth of textbooks.

This wasn't my world. Wrapped in his arms last night, it had almost felt like it could be. But daylight made the truth too clear.

I pulled on Zoe's borrowed black dress, still scented faintly with his cologne dark, expensive, dangerous. In the marble bathroom, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and froze. My hair was wild, my makeup smudged, dark marks blooming across my collarbone. But behind the mess was something else. A glow. A softness in my eyes I'd never seen before, like some hidden part of me had been woken up.

The elevator ride down was endless. I stared at the glowing numbers, my stomach twisting. My mind replayed everything: his trembling hands unzipping my dress, the reverence in his touch, the way he'd held me afterward while I cried about Dad. He had listened. He had shared his own pain. He had felt real.

But the note on the nightstand told a different story.

The Uber back to campus blurred past in colors and noise. By the time I stepped into my dorm room, my emotions were fraying at the edges.

"HOLY SHIT, Maya!" Zoe screamed , springing up from her desk. "You actually did it , you slept with Mystery Balcony Guy!"

My face burned. "How do you

"Because you look like a woman who's been thoroughly satisfied for the first time in her life. Also..." She pointed at my neck. "...you've got a hickey the size of Rhode Island."

I rushed to the mirror, tugging my hair forward. Heat shot through me at the memory of how he'd found that spot, how I'd arched against him. My knees went weak just thinking about it.

"Was it good?" Zoe's tone softened.

I swallowed. Good didn't even begin to cover it. I thought about how he'd touched me like I mattered, how he'd kissed me until I forgot my own name, how he'd made me feel beautiful in a way I never had before.

"Yeah," I whispered. "It was incredible."

"Then why do you look like you're about to cry?"

"Because it's over. He left me a note like I was just..." My throat closed. "...just an experience. And I let myself believe it meant something."

Zoe sat beside me on the bed, rubbing my back. "Maya, maybe it did mean something."

"Right. Because billionaire heirs fall for broke scholarship girls all the time."

Her head snapped toward me. "Wait. Billionaire heir? Maya... who exactly did you sleep with?"

"I don't know his last name. Just Alex. Tall, dark hair, perfect suit, haunted eyes, definitely rich."

Her face paled. "Describe him more."

I closed my eyes, his image sharp in my mind. "Sharp jaw, like he was carved out of stone. Dark eyes that see too much. This smile that makes you forget to breathe."

Zoe froze. Then she shot up, fumbling for her laptop. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.

"Maya..." she said, voice trembling. "Show me the hickey."

Confused, I pulled my hair back.

Her face went white. "Oh my God."

"What?" My chest tightened.

She spun the laptop toward me. "Maya, I think you slept with Alexander Stone."

The name meant nothing-until I saw the photo. A tall, devastatingly handsome man in a tuxedo, his arm looped around a blonde woman who looked like she'd stepped straight out of a glossy magazine. His face, though-those dark eyes, that perfect jaw, the smile I'd memorized-it was him.

The caption made my blood run cold: Alexander Stone III and fiancée Victoria Blackwell at the Children's Hospital Benefit.

"Fiancée?" The word scraped from my throat like broken glass.

Zoe's hand covered her mouth. "Maya... you slept with a Stone. And not just a Stone-the heir. He's engaged. To her."

I stared at the photo, unable to look away from the flawless woman on his arm. Victoria Blackwell was everything I wasn't-sophisticated, beautiful, born into the same world Alex belonged to.

The room spun. My stomach twisted. Last night hadn't been a fairy tale. It had been a mistake. A catastrophic one.

But as I shut the laptop with shaking hands, one thought whispered through the chaos, colder and sharper than the rest:

If Alex Stone was engaged to someone like Victoria Blackwell... then why had he chosen me?