Chapter 1 Handsome stranger

EMMA

The music was deafening, exactly what I needed to drown out everything my mother had said that morning.

“Stay here. I’ll go get us some drinks.”

“Okay, sure.”

I watched Maya disappear into the crowd, her dark hair swinging behind her. The bass vibrated beneath my heels, settling deep in my bones. I never thought I’d find myself in a club on a Monday night, much less a BDSM club, but a girl had to do what a girl had to do.

And today, I needed an escape.

I barely recognised myself. Maya had spent almost an hour on my face, adding dark liner, lashes that felt too heavy, and a deep red lipstick I would never have chosen myself. The black dress clung to places I usually kept hidden, and the heels forced me to stand differently.

The real me wore glasses, oversized sweaters, and spent most nights with a book.

Tonight, I looked like someone else entirely. For a few hours, I wanted to be.

Maya returned with our drinks, pressing a cold glass into my hand before a man with kind eyes and a leather cuff pulled her onto the dance floor. I stayed where I was, fingers wrapped around my glass, while the conversation with my mother replayed in my head.

How could she want to get married again? Why now?

It had only been a year since Dad died. A year of quiet dinners, of finding my mother asleep on the couch with the television still playing, of learning how to live in a house that suddenly felt too big.

I’d started to believe the worst was behind us.

Then, this morning, she’d sat me down at the kitchen table with that careful smile she wore whenever she’d already made up her mind.

Richard. The man from the charity gala. The one with the expensive watch and quiet, assessing eyes.

She was going to marry him.

We would move into his estate, where his son also lived. Everything was already arranged.

I’d nodded and said the right things because she looked happier than she had in months. I couldn’t bring myself to ruin that happiness, even as something inside me tightened at the thought of leaving the only home I’d known with her.

I understood that she deserved to be happy. I just hadn’t realised how much her happiness would change my life.

I took a long drink, hoping the alcohol would quiet my thoughts.

Gosh, I just want to forget everything for one night.

A few moments later, I felt someone watching me.

I glanced around until I found him.

He sat alone at a low table near the edge of the main floor, one arm stretched along the back of his seat, the other curled around a glass. His dark shirt was rolled at the sleeves, and his face had the kind of sharpness that drew attention without asking for it.

When our eyes met, something stirred in me.

It wasn’t the cold air-conditioning. It was warmer, heavier, and far more dangerous.

I should have looked away.

Instead, I set down my glass, straightened my shoulders, and walked toward him before I could talk myself out of it.

He watched me approach. When I stopped at his table, he tilted his head slightly, as though my decision had confirmed something he’d already suspected.

“You look like you’re trying very hard not to think,” he said.

His voice was low, smooth, and certain.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Only to someone who’s doing the same thing.” He nodded toward the empty chair across from him. “Sit. Or don’t. But you walked all the way over here for a reason.”

I sat.

Up close, he was even more striking. Sharp jaw, dark eyes that revealed little, and the quiet confidence of a man accustomed to getting attention.

Suddenly, I felt both underdressed and overexposed.

“I’m not looking for conversation,” I said.

“Good. Neither am I.”

He took a slow sip from his glass before setting it down.

“Tell me what you need tonight.”

The directness caught me off guard. Most men circled around what they wanted. He went straight to the point.

“I need to stop feeling like my life is being decided for me,” I admitted. “Just for a few hours.”

Something flickered in his eyes.

“I can give you that,” he said. “But I don’t play without rules. Safe word. Now.”

I almost laughed, though the sound came out thinner than I intended.

“I don’t need one.”

He leaned forward slightly, and the air between us seemed to change.

“Look around.”

I did.

On the main floor, a woman was bound to a St. Andrew’s cross while a man worked a flogger across her thighs in measured strokes. Near the far wall, another couple moved together intimately, her wrists held in one of his hands. Elsewhere, people watched or participated in scenes of their own.

The club wasn’t pretending to be anything else. Maya and I were among the few women still fully dressed.

When I looked back at him, he was waiting.

“I don’t take anyone into a private room without a safe word,” he said. “You give me one, or you stay out here and finish your drink alone. Your choice.”

The control in his voice should have made me leave.

Instead, those last two words settled something restless inside me.

Your choice.

For once, nobody was telling me what came next.

I held his gaze. “Red.”

A slow, approving breath left him.

“Red it is.”

He stood, collected his glass, and held out his free hand. When I took it, his fingers closed around mine with quiet certainty.

He led me through the crowd toward a corridor lined with black doors. I glanced back once. Maya was still on the dance floor, laughing at something her partner had said. I lifted my free hand and waved. She waved back, her eyes widening when she noticed where I was headed.

Then I turned away.

The stranger stopped in front of one of the doors.

“Last chance to change your mind,” he said.

I thought of the estate waiting for me tomorrow. The new father I hadn’t asked for. The son I’d never met. The life that no longer felt like it belonged to me.

I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but I was tired of feeling as though I had no say in it.

“I’m not changing it,” I said.