A week ago, she was Tessy Lane, fiancée to the man who swore he loved her. Now? Now she was Tessy Lane, broke, alone, and $138,000 in debt-the price of trusting a man who disappeared with her savings and left her name on fraudulent loans.
She blinked up at the sun, as if it had the decency to hide its face. It didn't. The city kept moving, unaware and uncaring, as she stood on the edge of ruin in yesterday's dress and borrowed heels.
"Excuse me."
The voice was deep. Icy. Controlled. Like velvet wrapped around a blade.
Tessy turned, expecting to face a lawyer or a judge she'd unknowingly annoyed. Instead, she was met with cold grey eyes that looked at her as though he already knew everything about her-and didn't particularly like any of it.
The man was tall, crisply dressed in a charcoal suit that screamed money and power. He wasn't beautiful in the conventional sense, but there was something magnetic about him. Dangerous. Distant.
Harley Gabriel.
She recognized him immediately. Everyone did. The billionaire investor who made headlines for acquiring failing companies and gutting them for sport. He wasn't just rich. He was lethal. And completely out of place talking to someone like her.
"You dropped this," he said, holding out a folded paper she hadn't even noticed was missing. Her eviction notice. Of course.
"Thanks," she muttered, cheeks burning. She snatched it from his hand, but didn't turn away. Something about him kept her frozen.
"You're in trouble," he said plainly, not unkindly. Just stating a fact, like commenting on the weather.
"That obvious?" she asked, trying for a smile. It came out shaky.
He didn't smile back. Instead, he studied her, eyes flicking over the desperation she didn't bother to hide. The red in her eyes. The sweat on her brow. The envelope she gripped like a lifeline.
Then, he said something that didn't make sense.
"Come with me."
She blinked. "What?"
"I have an offer."
"Is this a scam?" she scoffed, though her voice lacked bite.
Harley's head tilted slightly. "You think I'd waste my time conning you out of... what? The six dollars in your handbag?"
Ouch.
She flinched, and his gaze softened by a fraction-like a crack in armor he quickly patched up.
"I'm serious," he said, stepping aside and gesturing toward a black car idling at the curb, too sleek and glossy to belong to anyone normal. "We'll talk. Five minutes. That's all I'm asking."
"I don't even know you."
"You do. Everyone does," he said. "And I don't make second offers."
Tessy looked at the car. Then at the courthouse behind her. At the pink sky above, as if waiting for a sign. The only sign she had was the crumpled eviction notice in her hand.
Five minutes couldn't make her life worse.
Could it?
She took a breath, tucked the envelope into her purse, and followed him.