Chapter 1: The Purse Predicament
The private lounge hummed with a low, moneyed buzz, the kind of sound absorbed by velvet and good taste. Julian Vance swirled the eighteen-year-old Macallan in his glass, watching the amber liquid cling to the crystal. He was a statue of composed masculinity in a Brunello Cucinelli suit, his posture relaxed but exact, a man who owned every room he bothered to enter.
Sera sat across from him, a deliberate chaos to his order. Her hair was a dark tumble, her smile a sharp, knowing curve. The remains of their seared scallops lay between them like casualties of a quieter war.
“Pass my bag, would you?” she asked, her voice a low thrum. She nodded toward the small, obsidian-black clutch on the booth beside him.
It was an innocuous request. A silken pillow. A ten-ounce rectangle of leather and metal.
Julian’s hand, which had just moments ago traced the line of her jaw with predatory certainty, froze mid-reach. His fingers, which could dissect a hostile witness or explore the geography of her body with equal precision, hovered. A faint, almost imperceptible tension wired his jaw.
Sera’s eyes narrowed.