Chapter 1: Glitter and a Negroni

Chapter 1: Glitter and a Negroni

The bass was a physical thing, a relentless fist pounding against Chloe’s sternum. It vibrated up from the sticky floor, through the soles of her barely-there heels, and settled deep in her bones. Sweat, sweet-acrid and smelling of spilled liquor and a hundred different perfumes, slicked the air. Neon lights—furious pinks, electric blues, acid greens—strobed across a sea of writhing bodies, rendering every face anonymous, every movement a blur.

It was perfect. Oblivion had a soundtrack, and this was it.

“I need another drink!” Chloe shouted over the deafening music, her voice raw. She leaned into her friends, Maya and Jess, forming a tight, glittering huddle in the chaos.

Maya, ever the instigator, grinned, her eyes flashing. “That’s my girl! Go get ‘em. We’ll hold the fort.” She gave Chloe a playful shove towards the bar.

Jess, always the more cautious one, grabbed her arm. “Be careful. This place is a shark tank.”

“I’m just getting drinks, not getting married,” Chloe laughed, the sound swallowed by a sudden beat drop. But the words hung there, a bitter little ghost. Marriage, or the dull, suffocating prelude to it, was exactly what she’d escaped. Four years with Ben. Four years of her vibrant colors being painted over in his preferred palette of sensible, muted beige. He’d hated clubs. Hated the way she dressed for them. He would have hated the glitter she’d painstakingly applied to her eyelids tonight, a defiant shimmer that felt like armor.

This skirt is a little short, don’t you think, Chlo?

The memory of his voice, calm and quietly cutting, made her flinch. She pushed it down, burying it under another wave of manufactured euphoria. Tonight wasn't about Ben. It was about his absence. It was about feeling everything he’d tried to numb.

Her mission, however, immediately hit a wall. The bar was a fortress, besieged on all sides by a desperate, thirsty horde. Hands waving cash and credit cards fought for the bartender's fleeting attention. Getting one drink would be a miracle; getting three seemed like an epic quest.

With a sigh of determination, Chloe began to weave her way through the press of bodies, murmuring a string of “excuse me’s” and “so sorry’s.” She was jostled and bumped, a stray elbow catching her ribs, a spilled drink splashing onto her leg. For a moment, her new-found courage wavered. This was hard. Maybe she should just go back to the relative safety of their tiny patch of dance floor.

And then she saw him.

He wasn't part of the desperate fray. He stood near the end of the bar, leaning against the polished wood as if he were in a soundproof bubble, an island of stillness in the churning ocean of people. The chaos didn’t touch him. It was as if the crowd, by some unspoken consensus, parted around him.

He was in his early thirties, she guessed, dressed in a dark button-down shirt that fit his broad shoulders perfectly. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing strong forearms dusted with dark hair. His own corner of the bar was cast in shadow, but the strobing lights caught the sharp planes of his face, the strong line of his jaw. He was holding a rocks glass, a single, large cube of ice cradling a liquid the color of sunset. A twist of orange peel rested on the rim. A Negroni. Sophisticated. Bitter. Potent.

As if he’d felt her gaze, his head turned. His eyes, dark and shockingly intense, cut through the strobing lights and the smoke-filled haze and landed directly on her. They didn't just see her; they seemed to dissect her, peeling back the layers of glitter and bravado to the raw, wanting thing underneath.

The air in her lungs hitched. The thudding bass of the club was suddenly replaced by the frantic, panicked drumming of her own heart. He didn't smile. He didn't leer. He just watched her, his expression a calm, predatory confidence that was more unnerving and infinitely more thrilling than any catcall.

A hot flush crept up Chloe’s neck. This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? To be seen. To be wanted. But the sheer force of his attention was overwhelming, a high-voltage current that threatened to short-circuit her entire system. She felt a primal urge to look away, to retreat to Maya and Jess, to the safety of the familiar.

But she didn't. She held his gaze, her chin lifted in a challenge she didn't feel. For a long, stretched-out moment that seemed to last an eternity, the club and its hundred occupants faded away. There was only the two of them, locked in a silent, crackling standoff across a crowded room.

He gave the slightest, almost imperceptible nod, a gesture of acknowledgment. Then, with an economy of movement that was mesmerizing, he pushed off the bar. Chloe’s breath caught again as he began to move, not towards her, but along the bar, speaking to the bartender with a low murmur she couldn’t possibly hear. The bartender, who had been ignoring a dozen other patrons, nodded immediately and got to work.

Chloe turned back to her own impossible task, feeling foolish. Of course he wasn't coming over. A man like that didn't cross a room for a girl like her. He was in a different league, a different world. The sterile perfection of his composure made her feel messy, loud, and hopelessly out of her depth. She was just an art student with glitter on her eyes, trying to forget a boy who clipped her wings. He was… something else entirely. Something dangerous.

She finally squeezed into a small opening at the bar, waving her credit card with the rest of them, feeling her brief moment of electrifying connection fizzle into embarrassment.

“Trouble?”

The voice was low and smooth, cutting through the noise right beside her ear. It sent a shiver straight down her spine. She turned, and he was there. Closer than she could have imagined, his body shielding her from the jostling crowd. He smelled clean, of expensive soap and crisp cotton and something else—something uniquely, intoxicatingly him.

“I… uh, it’s a bit of a war zone,” she managed, her voice sounding small and breathless.

He looked down at her, and for the first time, she could see the color of his eyes. They weren't just dark; they were a stormy grey, deep and full of secrets. “What are you and your friends drinking?”

“Vodka sodas,” she said automatically. “Three of them.”

He gave a slight, wry smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. “A practical choice for a long night.” He turned to the bartender, who was already approaching with three tall, fizzing glasses and his own replenished Negroni. He’d ordered for her. The sheer, unadulterated confidence of it stole her breath.

He paid with a black card, a transaction so swift and silent it was like a magic trick. Then he turned back to her, holding the tray of drinks. The space between them was electric, charged with unspoken questions. Her escape route was clear. She could take the drinks, mutter her thanks, and disappear back into the crowd. It would be the safe thing to do. The smart thing. The Ben thing to do.

But as she reached for the tray, his fingers brushed against hers. The contact was brief, accidental, but it sent a jolt of pure fire up her arm.

He didn't let go of the tray. He held it just out of her reach, his grey eyes pinning her in place.

“I have a proposal,” he said, his voice a low rumble that she felt more than heard.

“A proposal?” she echoed, her heart hammering against her ribs.

“A trade,” he clarified, his gaze dropping to her lips for a fraction of a second before returning to her eyes. The look was so intense it felt like a brand. “I rescued your drinks from the battlefield.” He paused, letting the statement hang in the air. “In return… you give me one dance.”