Mallory
“Welcome to The Ellis Astoria. How may I help you?”
The words are automatic, a smooth, polished script I’ve recited a thousand times from behind this marble concierge desk. For two days, I have clung to this script. It’s my armor. My shield against the whispers I can feel rippling through the staff, against the pitying looks from guests who read the society pages.
“Well, look at you. The dutiful daughter, right back at her post.”
The voice is Seraphina’s. Of course it is. I look up from my computer screen, and my practiced smile freezes on my face. She and Julian are standing on the other side of the desk, a united front of smug satisfaction.
Seraphina is wearing a white cashmere coat that probably costs more than my car. Julian has his hand resting proprietorially on the small of her back. They look like an advertisement for entitled bliss.
“I work here, Seraphina,” I say, my voice clipped. “It’s Tuesday.”
“We know,” Julian says, his eyes sweeping over the grand lobby, a space he was once supposed to co-manage with me. “Just surprised to see you. We thought you might need a few… personal days.”
The insinuation is clear. We thought you’d be at home, crying. Pathetic.
“I’m perfectly fine,” I say, straightening a stack of brochures that are already perfectly straight. “Is there something I can help you with? A dinner reservation? Theater tickets?”
“Actually, yes,” Seraphina chirps, leaning forward and lowering her voice into a conspiratorial whisper that carries across the lobby. “We were worried about you, Mallory. After you ran off the other night.”
My knuckles turn white where I’m gripping the edge of the desk. “I didn’t run off. I left.”
“With a complete stranger,” Julian adds, his tone dripping with disapproval. “It was reckless. Not like you at all. We were just concerned that you might have put yourself in a… compromising position.”
“My positions are no longer any of your concern,” I bite back.
Seraphina places a hand over her heart. “Don’t be like that. We care about you. In fact, we were so worried about the kind of man you’d pick up at a party, I had my father’s security team do a little digging.”
Ice floods my veins. “You did what?”
“It wasn’t hard,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Just a quick look at the hotel’s security footage from the entrance. We got his license plate. It was surprisingly easy to find him after that.”
My stomach twists into a painful knot. This is a nightmare. A public, meticulously orchestrated nightmare.
“You had no right,” I whisper, the words barely audible.
“We had every right to make sure you were safe,” Julian says, his voice booming with false magnanimity. “To make sure he wasn’t taking advantage of you in your… emotional state.”
“And?” I challenge, lifting my chin. “What did your high-priced investigators find? That he’s a serial killer?”
Seraphina’s smile is pure poison. “Oh, nothing quite so interesting. Just that he lives in a fifth-floor walk-up in the worst part of town and drives a ten-year-old car. Not exactly your usual type, is he?”
She’s enjoying this, every second of my public evisceration. The lobby is starting to fill with the afternoon check-in crowd. People are beginning to stare.
“In fact,” Seraphina continues, her eyes flicking towards the revolving glass doors. “Since we were so concerned, we thought we should talk to him. Man to man, so to speak. So I invited him to stop by.”
I follow her gaze. My heart stops.
Walking through the doors of my family’s five-star hotel is Victor.
He looks utterly, completely out of place. He’s wearing worn blue jeans, a simple grey t-shirt, and a faded denim jacket. He hasn’t shaved. His dark hair is a little messy, as if he just ran his hands through it. In this cathedral of wealth and opulence, he looks like a stray who wandered in from the street.
He stops just inside the entrance, his eyes scanning the lobby until they find me. His expression is unreadable, but there’s a flicker of something in his gaze. He sees Seraphina and Julian standing at my desk. He understands the setup instantly.
“There he is now,” Julian says loudly, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. He raises his voice, beckoning Victor over as if he were summoning a valet. “Over here!”
Victor walks toward us, his stride unhurried, his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t look intimidated or ashamed. If anything, he looks… amused. The crowd in the lobby parts for him, their expressions a mixture of confusion and disdain.
He stops next to the desk, not beside me, but a few feet away, creating a clear line in the sand. Us and him.
“You must be Victor,” Julian says, looking him up and down with an expression of profound disgust. “I’m Julian Croft. This is my fiancée, Seraphina.”
Victor just nods, his eyes still on me. “Mallory.”
He says my name, and it feels like a lifeline in a churning sea of humiliation.
“We’re glad you could make it,” Seraphina says, her voice oozing fake sincerity. “We just wanted to clear the air. Mallory… she wasn’t herself the other night. She can be a little impulsive when she’s been drinking.”
“She seemed to know exactly what she wanted,” Victor replies, his voice a low, calm rumble that cuts through their saccharine tones.
Julian’s smirk tightens. “Look, let’s cut the crap. I know what this is. You saw a vulnerable woman from a wealthy family and you saw an opportunity. I get it. I can respect the hustle.”
He reaches into the inner pocket of his tailored suit jacket and pulls out a checkbook and a gold pen. The gesture is so theatrical, so deliberately insulting, that I feel the air leave my lungs.
He can’t be.
Oh, but he is.
Julian scribbles something on the check, his movements sharp and angry. He tears it from the book with a vicious rip. He slides it across the marble countertop toward Victor.
“Here,” Julian sneers, his voice loud enough for half the lobby to hear. “Ten thousand dollars. That should be more than enough for a man in your… position. Take it, and stay the hell away from her. She’s been through enough without a bottom-feeder like you latching on.”
Silence descends on our corner of the lobby. The air crackles with tension. I can feel dozens of eyes on us. My manager is hovering by his office door, his face pale. This is it. The ultimate humiliation. My ex-fiancé, paying off my one-night stand in the lobby of my own family’s hotel.
I want the marble floor to swallow me whole. I want to disappear.
But then I look at Victor. He hasn’t flinched. He hasn’t even glanced at the check. His gaze is fixed on Julian, and the amusement in his eyes has been replaced by something colder. Something still and dangerous.
“You think she’s worth ten thousand dollars?” Victor asks, his voice quiet.
Julian scoffs. “I think that’s a generous price for your silence. Take it or leave it.”
I finally find my voice, a ragged, furious thing. “Julian, stop it. You have no right.”
“I’m protecting you, Mallory,” he snaps, not looking at me. “Something I should have done from the start.”
Victor slowly reaches out, but he doesn’t pick up the check. He taps a single finger on the amount Julian wrote.
“You’re undervaluing your asset,” Victor says calmly. “For a man in business, that’s a fatal mistake.”
He then picks up the check. My heart plummets. He’s going to take it. He’s exactly the man they think he is.
He folds it. Once. Twice. His movements are precise, deliberate. He doesn’t put it in his pocket. Instead, he holds it between his thumb and forefinger and extends his hand back toward Julian.
“No, thank you,” Victor says, his voice still unnervingly level. “I’m not for sale. And you’re going to find out, very soon, that neither is she.”
He drops the folded check onto the floor between them. It lands silently on the plush oriental rug, a small white square of pure contempt.
Julian stares at the check, then back at Victor, his face turning a blotchy, furious red. He’s been challenged. He’s been refused. And in public.
“You’ll regret this,” Julian hisses, his voice low and venomous.
“I doubt it,” Victor says.
Seraphina, seeing she’s lost control of the situation, grabs Julian’s arm. “Julian, let’s go. He’s not worth it. We’ve made our point.”
Julian allows himself to be pulled away, but not before shooting me a look of pure hatred. “I see you’ve found your level, Mallory. I hope you’re happy in the gutter.”
They turn and stride toward the exit, a king and queen abandoning their court. The whispers in the lobby swell behind them.
I’m left standing in the wreckage, trembling not from humiliation anymore, but from a white-hot, unfamiliar rage. And standing a few feet away is the stranger who just defended me in a way no one ever has.
He finally looks at me, his dark eyes searching my face.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I can’t form words. I just shake my head.
He takes a step closer. “He’s wrong, you know.”
“About what?” my voice is a croak.
“About you,” Victor says. “And about the gutter.” He glances down at the folded check on the floor. “Some people just don’t know value when they see it.”
