Julian didn't go to the restroom. He slipped out the back alley door like a thief.

Seraphina saw him through the restaurant window—a shadow darting into the alley. Something in her, the part that had spent three years reading his tells, knew exactly what he was doing. He was going to his friends. To brag. To decompress.

She settled the bill and followed him into the cool night air.

She stood in the shadows of a brownstone stoop and watched him climb into a black Cadillac Escalade. The vehicle was the antithesis of his carefully crafted "struggling student" image.

A yellow cab appeared at the corner. She flagged it down, sliding into the back seat.

"Follow that Escalade," she told the driver. "Keep a safe distance."

The cab weaved through the Manhattan traffic, trailing the luxury SUV downtown. It finally pulled up in front of an unmarked door in SoHo, guarded by a single, massive man in a black suit.

Seraphina paid the fare, pulling the collar of her trench coat up to obscure her face. She walked toward the entrance.

The bouncer put out a hand, stopping her. "Private club, ma'am."

She didn't argue. She simply pulled a slim black card from her wallet and flashed it. It was a universal membership card for the exclusive clubs owned by her maternal grandfather's Beaumont family—the one inheritance her stepmother hadn't managed to claw away.

The bouncer's expression shifted instantly from dismissive to deferential. He pulled the heavy wooden door open for her.

The interior was a world of dark wood, plush leather, and glittering crystal chandeliers. The air smelled of expensive whiskey and cigar smoke.

Her eyes swept the room, and she found him almost immediately. Julian was in a secluded booth with a group of young men, all of them dressed in the casual, expensive uniform of the wealthy. She recognized one of them, a blond named Leo Hayes, one of Julian's closest friends.

Seraphina didn't approach. She chose a seat at the far end of the bar, partially hidden by a large potted palm. From here, she could hear them perfectly.

She ordered a tequila, straight. The bartender raised an eyebrow but poured the drink.

Julian's voice, loud and triumphant, cut through the low hum of the club. "You should have seen it! She actually got on one knee! God, it was terrifying. I thought I was a dead man."

Leo Hayes let out a braying laugh. "I told you! A repressed prude like Seraphina Scott was bound to pull a stunt like that. So, Julian, does this mean the bet is settled? Three years, and you still haven't gotten her into bed. Now she's trying to trap you with a ring. It's pathetic!"

Seraphina's fingers tightened around her glass, her knuckles turning white.

A bet. Three years of her life. A bet.

She had spent the last hour wondering if there was still something worth saving. Now she knew the answer.

She had known Julian was a liar. She had known he was playing a part. She had built her entire strategy around that knowledge. But knowing something in your head and hearing it confirmed out loud—by his own mouth, laughing about it with his friends—were two very different things.

"Settle? It's not over," Julian said, his voice slurring slightly. "The bet was to make her fall in love with me, to make her so dependent she couldn't leave. She just proposed. I'd say that proves I've won."

Another man whistled. "I don't know, man. You turned her down. What if she gets pissed and dumps you?"

"Her?" Julian snorted. "She wouldn't dare. She's desperately in love with me. And without me, her position in that snake pit of a family is nothing. I'll say a few sweet things, and she'll come crawling back."

He paused, his tone dropping into a lewd conspiratorial whisper. "Besides, I haven't even tasted her yet. Women who act that innocent are always wild in bed. I'll have my fun, and then I'll dump her."

A wave of raucous laughter erupted from the booth.

Seraphina sat very still. She had expected cruelty. She had prepared herself for it. But the casual brutality of it—the way he said "she wouldn't dare," as if she were a trained pet, not a person—made something inside her go very quiet.

Not rage. Not yet. Just a hollow, ringing silence, like the moment after a bell stops and the air is still vibrating.

She threw back the tequila. It burned, but she barely noticed.

She ordered another drink. Her second one. She sipped it slowly, her gaze wandering across the crowded room. The bar's noise gradually faded into a muffled blur. Even the laughter from Julian's booth became nothing but background noise.

She thought of her mother. Her mother had used her own death to teach her that neither love nor marriage was reliable. Never trust a man. Never place expectations on one. Julian had only approached her as a youthful, arrogant prank—a bet among friends. She had been the fool, forgetting her mother's warning, and now she was reduced to this pathetic state. She should have known better. A man like Julian had seen countless beautiful women. There was never any such thing as love at first sight. It was all a joke. Nothing serious.

She finished that drink, feeling the edges of the world soften and her head grow hazy. The pain didn't disappear, but it seemed to be held at a distance—like watching flames through glass.

She wasn't thinking clearly anymore. She knew that. She also knew she didn't care.

She gazed at the amber liquid in her glass, as a wild, desperate, yet brilliant idea slowly took shape in her shattered heart.

"Do you think you've won, Julian? Do you think I'm someone you can toy with at will?

Do you think I'm a prude? Do you think my purity is a joke?

I'll show you just how impure I can be."

The third shot of tequila coursed through her, spreading warmth to her limbs. Seraphina's body grew numb, but her mind remained razor-sharp, honed by fury.

Her gaze drifted aimlessly across the bar, not deliberately searching for anything. She didn't want to see Julian's spot again, didn't want to see his face anymore.

Perhaps she needed a man. One who would make Julian look pathetic, insignificant. He had to be handsome, powerful, and he had to look expensive, better than Julian in every way.

Her eyes swept past a cluster of slick Wall Street types, too polished and predatory. She skipped over some young athletes, too loud and flashy.

Then, she saw that man.

He sat alone in the darkest corner of the room. A glass of whiskey rested in his hand, but he wasn't drinking it, merely letting the amber liquid catch the dim light. He wore a well-tailored charcoal suit, no tie. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing the sharp lines of his collarbones.

The light was too dim to make out his face clearly, but his profile was striking: a straight, aristocratic nose, a firm jaw, and thin lips pressed into a severe line. He looked like a Roman statue, all hard angles and breathtaking perfection. An invisible, intimidating aura surrounded him. No one dared approach his table.

Seraphina stared for a long time.

For once, she wasn't calculating anything. She was just dazed and adrift. She felt utterly exhausted, yet her mind refused to stop churning.

He was much older than Julian, yet there was something strangely reminiscent of him. He was the kind of man who didn't need to perform or pretend. He simply existed, and the whole space seemed to rearrange itself around him. His very presence made Julian's loud bravado seem childish.

She noticed the cufflinks at his wrists. Simple in design, but they gleamed with the deep, subtle luster of custom craftsmanship. Everything about him, from the cut of his suit to his stillness, radiated the kind of authority Julian could only dream of imitating.

She picked up her glass. For a moment, doubt crept in. Was she really going to do this? Throw herself at a stranger just to hurt a man who wasn't worth her time?

Then another burst of laughter came from Julian's booth.

That rational voice vanished.

She closed her fingers around the ring in her palm, the ring she had intended for a proposal. The future she had imagined with Julian would never happen now. She rose from her seat and walked toward his corner.

He must have sensed her approach, because he slowly raised his head.

Her breath caught. His eyes were a deep, complex gray. They were sharp and perceptive, as if they could see right through her.

For a moment, she felt utterly exposed, as if he could see all her pain, all her humiliation, everything that had gone so terribly wrong that night. The urge to turn and flee was overwhelming.

But she was tired of running. The alcohol made her bold, or perhaps just stupid. She could no longer tell the difference.

She stopped at his table and set her glass down with a sharp clink, spilling a few drops of tequila onto the dark wood.

Without a word, she placed the ring on the table and pushed it toward him.

"Take it," she said, her voice rough and low. "It's yours now."

He looked at the ring, then at her. His gray eyes held hers for a long, unreadable moment. Then he reached out, picked it up, and slipped it into his pocket. He had accepted it.

"Alone?" she asked, her voice rough from the alcohol and unshed tears.

The man didn't answer. His gray eyes held hers again, then flickered briefly downward to the neckline exposed by her slight forward lean.

Heat crept up her neck. She had really done it. She had actually done it.

She dipped one finger into the spilled tequila on the table. Slowly, deliberately, she brought the finger to her lips and licked it clean.

Her gaze never left his. It was a challenge, a plea, perhaps a touch of madness.

A flicker of something, interest or surprise, finally broke through the placid surface of his expression.

He spoke, his voice low and resonant: "You're playing with fire."

She let out a bitter laugh. It wasn't the laugh of a woman in control. It was the laugh of a woman who had lost everything that mattered and felt she had nothing left to lose.

"Maybe," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "But tonight, I want to be burned."

She didn't wait for his response. She slid into the seat beside him, her thigh pressing against his. She leaned in, her lips brushing his ear.

"Take me with you. Anywhere."

She felt the immediate tension in his body, muscles stiffening beneath the fine wool of his suit. She caught his scent: cedarwood and something crisp, like cold winter air.

For a moment, she thought he would refuse. She braced herself. In truth, a part of her even hoped he would.

Then a large, warm hand settled firmly and gently on the curve of her lower back.