It was three in the morning when Valen finally returned to the presidential suite.
His black gloves were still on, stained with blood that wasn’t his.
The men Paul Webster had arranged to handle the shipment had apparently decided to make a very stupid mistake.
They had tried to keep the merchandise for themselves, thinking they could cheat Valen and walk away with his merchandise .
They had needed a reminder that his deals were not suggestions.
Valen had given them one.
He stepped into the suite, pulled off his gloves, and threw them onto the nearest table.
His jaw was tight, his patience already hanging by a thread.
All he wanted was a shower, a few hours of sleep, and silence.
Naturally, he got none of those things.
The sound of footsteps came from the bedroom.
Valen’s eyes narrowed.
Please.
Not tonight.
The footsteps grew closer before Isadora appeared in the hallway, looking half-asleep and still slightly drunk.
“Is that you, Valen?” she mumbled.
Valen stared at her.
“Who else would it be?” She didn’t seem bothered by his tone.
She simply walked toward him, rubbing her eyes.
At some point during the night, she’d apparently decided that a shirt was optional.
Valen’s irritation deepened.
“Why are you like this?” “I felt hot.” “Then turn on the air conditioning.” His answer earned absolutely no reaction.
Instead, Isadora walked straight toward him and sat on his lap again.
Valen went completely still.
He looked down at her, then toward the ceiling as if asking for divine intervention.
“Seriously?” Isadora simply settled against him, already drifting back to sleep.
Valen’s jaw clenched.
“Of all the people in this world…” He had spent the entire night dealing with armed idiots who had tried to steal his shipment.
He had negotiated a dangerous deal, dealt with Paul Webster, and nearly had to turn an entire private casino room into a battlefield.
And now he was sitting here with a drunk woman asleep on his lap.
Fantastic.
“Isadora.” No response.
“Get up.” Nothing.
His eye twitched.
“Isadora.” She finally stirred.
“Valen?” “What?” “I… I think…” She paused, apparently struggling to remember what she wanted to say.
Valen’s patience was disappearing by the second.
“What?” “I think I want to vomit.” His entire expression changed.
“Wait.” He immediately tried to move her away from him.
“Don’t vomit on—” Too late.
Isadora threw up all over him.
Valen froze.
Absolute silence filled the suite.
He stared straight ahead, completely motionless.
Then, very slowly, he looked down at his ruined clothes.
His face tightened.
His hands curled into fists.
He had been shot at before.
He had been betrayed.
He had spent years dealing with men who would gladly put a bullet through his head.
None of them had ever tested his patience quite like this woman.
“Unbelievable.” Isadora was already leaning against him again, eyes closed, apparently relieved of her burden.
Valen looked at her in disbelief.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She didn’t answer.
Of course she didn’t.
Valen dragged a hand down his face, fighting the urge to lose his temper completely.
“Lord…” He took a long, slow breath.
“Give me patience.” His eyes dropped to Isadora.
“Because right now, I have absolutely none left.” .
.
The next morning, Isadora woke slowly, her face half-buried in the soft cushion of the sofa.
Sunlight slipped through the curtains and fell directly across her face.
She groaned, turned away from it, and pulled the sheet over her head.
“Five more minutes…” She stretched without thinking, then immediately regretted it when a brutal headache exploded behind her eyes.
“Ahhh—!” She grabbed her head with both hands and sat there, completely miserable.
Her mouth felt as though she had spent the night chewing sand, and when she swallowed, the awful taste made her grimace.
“My head… Why does it hurt this much?” she muttered, rubbing her temples.
“And why does my mouth taste like that?” She tried to remember what had happened the night before, but her brain seemed to have decided that morning was the perfect time to go on strike.
“Okay… think.” She closed her eyes and concentrated.
Nothing.
“Think harder.” Still nothing.
A few scattered memories eventually surfaced: the casino, champagne, dancing, Valen… Then absolutely nothing.
Isadora opened her eyes again.
“Oh, that’s not good.” She looked around, slowly taking in the elegant room.
It was enormous, unfamiliar, and definitely not part of Valen’s estate.
“Where the hell am I?” She pushed herself upright, only to regret the movement immediately.
The pain in her head intensified, and she collapsed back against the sofa with a groan.
“Nope.
Bad idea.
Never doing that again.” Once the room stopped spinning, she forced herself to look around again.
The large windows, expensive furniture, and unfamiliar décor made one possibility increasingly obvious.
“This isn’t Valen’s estate,” she murmured.
Her gaze drifted toward the windows.
“Is this a hotel?” That was when she noticed the sheet covering her.
At first, she barely paid attention to it.
Then she slowly pulled it down and looked at herself.
She froze.
For three long seconds, she didn’t move.
She simply stared, as if refusing to accept what she was seeing could somehow make it disappear.
She wasn’t wearing a top.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!” She yanked the sheet back up to her neck and stared down at herself in horror.
“What happened to my clothes?” Her mind raced as she desperately searched through the fragments of the previous night.
“I don’t remember taking anything off!” Her face began to heat up.
Then another thought occurred to her, one so horrifying that she almost didn’t dare finish it.
“Wait…” Her eyes widened.
“No.” She shook her head quickly, as though she could physically reject the possibility.
“No, no, no, no.” She remembered Valen.
She remembered sitting on him.
She remembered telling him that she wanted to dance.
After that, everything became dangerously unclear.
“Oh my God…” She covered her face with both hands.
“Please tell me I didn’t do something stupid.” She lowered her hands just enough to peek through her fingers.
“And please, please tell me Valen didn’t see me like this.” Her cheeks burned even hotter.
She quickly wrapped the sheet around herself as tightly as possible and hurried toward the first bedroom, trying not to trip over the fabric.
Empty.
She checked the second room.
And stopped.
Valen stood near the window, apparently fresh from the shower.
A towel was wrapped around his waist, his v shaped could be seen, and his dark hair was still damp and slightly messy.
Water glistened faintly across his skin, drawing attention to his broad shoulders, defined chest, A tattoo seems to start from his back going along his arm.
He also had a tattoo of flower down his neck , his narrow waist showing his V shape could be seen.
It was the kind of physique that made looking anywhere else unnecessarily difficult.
Isadora’s face went from embarrassed to catastrophically embarrassed in less than a second.
She immediately looked away.
“Oh…” Her voice came out much smaller than she intended.
“I’m sorry.” Valen turned toward her, his expression remaining completely calm.
His eyes briefly moved to the sheet wrapped around her before returning to her face.
Isadora tightened her grip on it and wished, with every remaining ounce of dignity she possessed, that she could simply vanish.
“I want to go back to sleep.
Actually, I want to go back to yesterday and stop myself after the first glass of champagne.
No.
Better.
I want to be reborn.”