♛ One Year Ago
Of course, they were drinking champagne.
It was always champagne at parties like that—the kind where everyone was pretending to be effortlessly rich, effortlessly interesting, effortlessly not dead inside. The penthouse of Moretti Tower, a glass-and-steel middle finger to gravity.
Sixty-ish guests swarmed the place, doing the same three things on loop: drank, gossiped, and hoped someone was watching them while they did it.
The skyline of Atlanta sparkled below like it was in on the joke. You thought you were above it all, standing up there, drenched in LED light and narcissism. But the city didn’t care about your champagne or your secrets. It just blinked back at you, indifferent.
The DJwas spinning a beat that sounded like it was genetically engineered to numb people with too much money and not enough substance. Waiters glided through the crowd with trays of liquid distraction, their smiles tight, eyes glazed from too many fake laughs.
Everyone talked in whispers there. And they were all whispering about him. The man of the hour.
Giovanni Aidan Moretti.
The name dropped every few minutes. The women—mostly silicone and sequins—stole glances toward the second floor where a door sat closed. They tossed hair over tanned shoulders and tried to out-seduce each other with their whispers.
“Seen him yet?” one blonde said to a brunette, her lips glossy enough to catch moonlight.
“Nope,” the brunette breathed.
In the underworld—he was king. Giovanni Aidan Moretti was a name that held weight, not in the Instagram influencer kind of way. He owned the southern territories of the Moretti empire like they were Monopoly properties he was bored of collecting.
Young, polished, with that studied air of mystery that wasn’t mystery at all—it was distance. And distance is power. The party was in his honor. His newest “business venture,” whatever that meant. The kind of venture that might need a burner phone.
As sunlight clawed its way into the penthouse, the crowd dissolved. Vanished into town cars and rideshares, their high heels echoing like afterthoughts. The party ended the way most lies do—quietly, without closure.
And Giovanni was a no-show. Like he’d thrown the party just to see what would happen when he didn’t show up.
Champagne flutes lay on their sides like tiny casualties of capitalism. Napkins crumpled in corners. The dance floor had gone from glittering to grim.
At 8:45 a.m., the elevator chimed.
She stepped out—hair pulled back in a bun. No heels. No shimmer. Just a plain black hoodie, jeans, and a tote bag that looked like it had been through a few things.
Millie“Millie” Foster. Twenty-five. She was the kind of woman who knew that behind every “fun night” was a morning like this one. Broken glass. Sticky floors.
Her eyes scanned the room like a detective at a crime scene. Shetook it all in, one disaster at a time. She headed straight for the kitchen. Priorities. Dishes clattered like bones. She moved with the rhythm of someone who didn’t need praise, just progress.
By the time she hit the living room, the sun was spotlighting the mess in high definition. She glanced at her phone—10:00 a.m. She needed to hit the patio or risk throwing her whole day off balance.
She bent to fix a pile of fashion magazines—carelessly stacked nonsense designed to tell people whom to envy—when a moan cut through the silence. Not the good kind. The kind that made your blood run cold.
She froze.
“What the—” she muttered, spinning.
And there he was.
A guy.
He was a walking cliché, but the kind that still managed to punch you in the gut. Barely-there boxers rode low on his hips like they had something to prove, peeking out beneath a half-buttoned shirt that clung to a chest sculpted with just enough arrogance. Tattoos curled down his arms, visible hints of whatever mythology he’d decided to live by. The kind of ink that screamed I make my own rules, but probably had a backstory involving tequila and ego.
His hair was artfully messy—the kind that cost $80 to look like you didn’t care—and his eyes, a criminal shade of blue, squinted against the sun.
Who the hell is this guy? Her eyes asked the question her mouth couldn’t yet form.
Then, like some half-dead prince rising from the aftermath of his own party, he blinked at her.
“You must be the cleaning lady,” he said, his voice a gravel-soft rasp that slinked under her skin before she could defend herself. That tone. Weaponized indifference.
“Mr. Moretti?” she squeaked, and hated herself for the way it came out—like a cartoon character caught in a wind tunnel of pheromones.
He groaned, dragging a hand down his face like he was trying to erase himself. “Call me Aidan. And for the love of all that’s holy, please do something about that window. I need blackout curtains. My brain is staging a mosh pit.”
Right. Blackout curtains. As if the sun was the enemy here and not the bottle he’d probably emptied five hours ago.
Millie didn’t say what she was thinking—that maybe his highness could chug some coffee like the rest of humanity. Instead, she glanced at the window where sunlight poured in with the kind of joyful aggression that made people like him hiss.
“Blackout curtains?” she asked, eyebrow barely raised. “That might make the cleaning part tricky, Mr. Moretti.”
“Aidan,” he repeated, slower this time, like she was the one missing the point. He crossed his arms, exposing more ink and more muscle. “You can start cleaning after I wake up.”
Of course. He was aman accustomed to issuing commands. But Millie didn’t back down. She never did.
“You can go back to your room while I continue cleaning here,” she offered. “I promise I’ll be quieter.”
“I want to sleep on the couch,” Aidan said, eyes drifting toward the spot just behind her. “So, let me sleep. Wait until I wake up, then you can start cleaning. You can have a bottle of wine outside while you wait, if you’d like. Don’t worry, I won’t report you.”
Like he was doing her a favor. Like lounging on someone else’s leather sofa with a glass of stolen cabernet was a dream worth living. Millie bit her lip. Hard. This was already a scheduling nightmare, and somewhere out there, another client was expecting her not to be ten hours late because Giovanni Aidan Moretti wanted to nap.
“Actually,” she said, carefully, “I have somewhere to be after lunch.”
He didn’t blink. Just arched one perfectly arrogant eyebrow, letting that face do what it did best—challenge, charm, conquer.
“Cancel it. I’ll triple your rate.”
Triple. Just like that. Like money solved things. Like money fixed the fact that this man clearly hadn’t been told no since preschool.
Millie chewed on the offer. Not literally, but in that way people do when money and morality are trying to arm-wrestle behind their eyes. Tripling her rate? That would quiet the demon light blinking on her dashboard.
But canceling on a client? That wasn’t her brand.
“Generous offer,” she said, and it was. “But bailing on someone isn’t my style.”Of course it wasn’t. She had principles.
She shifted gears, recalibrated. “How about this,” she said with a voice of a woman who had backup plans for her backup plans. “I can push my next appointment and come back later. Cleaning gets done, and you get your beauty sleep.”
Aidan stared at her. Not just looked—stared. And his silence dragged a little too long, like he wanted her to squirm under it.
“Beauty sleep?” he echoed, brow arched like a man who hadn’t heard a sincere compliment in years. “You think I look like I just lost a bar brawl?”
He kind of did. And somehow, that only made it worse. Because he also looked like the kind of guy who won the bar brawl, then bought the bar, then burned it down just to watch the flames.
But Millie—smart, annoyingly compassionate Millie—fought the smirk twitching at her lips. She didn’t say what she was thinking: that yes, he looked rough, but in the kind of way that made people want to cook him eggs and ask if he was okay.
And that was dangerous. That kind of thinking. Because it led somewhere soft. And softness was never safe with a man like this.
Silence settled between them like smoke. She waited. Then—almost imperceptibly—his expression shifted.
Shit.
He exhaled. Not just a breath. A sigh.
“Fine, fine,” he muttered, dragging himself toward a bar setup she hadn’t even clocked before.
Her eyes widened as he pulled out a bottle of rum. At—what—10:12 a.m.? Breakfast of champions.
“Changed your mind about that beauty sleep?” she asked, trying to sound more amused than alarmed.
He twisted off the cap. “A bit late for that, wouldn’t you say?” he said, and then he did it—took two huge gulps, straight from the bottle. No chaser. No self-preservation.
Millie’s eyebrows practically leapt off her face.
This was not part of the job description. Cleaning penthouses? Yes. Polishing marble countertops while watching a man spiral into a liquid abyss? Not so much.
“Um, I think…” Millie started. She was trying to make this work—get out with grace, with a shred of her schedule intact. “Maybe I should come back when you’re feeling… more yourself, Mr. Moretti.”
“Aidan,” he corrected again, and this time, the rum actually sloshed when he raised it, like the bottle itself was drunk too. “And honestly, you staying might not be a terrible idea.”
Ah. There it was. The pivot. The shift from hungover host to bored millionaire who hadn’t had someone tell him no in a while.
“You want me to stay?” Millie blinked at him, confused. “Okay. I can stay. You drink there while I clean. And you can pretend I’m not here.”
She was drawing a line in the sand, but he was already kicking it like a spoiled kid at the beach.
“Not possible,” Aidan said, with that smirk. “I can hardly ignore your presence.”
There it was again. That glint in his eye. Not the dull stare of a man nursing a hangover. No—this was interest. Mischief.
“Change of plan,” he added. “Stay and keep me company. Cancel your other appointments. I’ll double, triple—whatever it takes—your rate. Hang out with me while I finish this bottle. And once I’m too out of it to care, then you can start cleaning.”
Millie’s jaw ticked. She was holding it together, but barely. The man was infuriating—rich, reckless, and way too aware of the effect he had on people.
“Look, Mr. Moretti—”
“Aidan,” he reminded her again, with a smile.“Think of it this way – you wouldn’t want me leaving a scathing review on your agency’s website, now would you?”
Oh. Wow.
Millie actually scoffed—out loud. “Just... wow.” She folded her arms. “Look, I’ve got a whole day ahead of me, and it does not involve babysitting hungover clients who use bad reviews as a threat.”
There was heat in her tone, yes. But underneath it? She was irritated—but not afraid. And that? That made her dangerous in a different way. Because people like Millie—people with backbones—never backed down cleanly.
Aidan’s brow shot up, like he was pleasantly surprised by the pushback. Like he hadn’t been told “no” by someone who wasn’t trying to sleep with him in years.
“Threat? Never,” he said, so faux-innocent it might’ve been charming if it weren’t soaked in ego. “But a man of my… stature”—he let the word linger, inflated with smugness—“can certainly make life inconvenient for your agency.”
Millie’s eyes narrowed.
“You stay,” Aidan added, lifting the bottle, “and I don’t destroy your agency’s reputation with my fancy-pants connections. Deal?”
There it was again. The veiled threat, wrapped in a drunken smile and the confidence.
Millie stood still, weighing her options like someone staring down a broken elevator and deciding whether to take the stairs. This was absurd, yes. Borderline unprofessional. And yet... the man was like a car wreck made of charm and unresolved trauma—you didn’t want to look, but something in you had to.
She let out a sigh. One of those slow, begrudging exhale.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll stay until noon, and that’s it. Triple my usual rate, and you leave a glowing five-star review, mentioning me by name for exceptional service.”
Aidan lit up like a kid offered ice cream before dinner. “Deal!” he exclaimed, clapping once, loud and gleeful—too gleeful.
“So… do you have a name?”
Millie tilted her head, but decided to give him the smallest inch. “Amelia Foster.”
“Come, Amelia,” he said, with a theatrical wave toward the couch. “Let’s get acquainted.”
She didn’t move immediately. Just stood there, tote bag still hanging from one shoulder, watching him.
And as she finally stepped toward the couch, one thought sat quietly at the back of her mind, What the hell did I just agree to?
