The music was too loud, the lights too dim, and the air too thick with things Aria Monroe had no intention of feeling.
She stood near the edge of the crowded bar, fingers tight around a sweating glass she hadn’t finished, watching strangers laugh like they had nothing to lose. It was a reckless place for someone like her. Too impulsive. Too careless. Too full of people who didn’t know what it meant to calculate every decision by consequence.
Aria wasn’t here to forget herself.
She was here to remember that she still existed.
Nursing school had taken everything from her. Time. Sleep. Friends. Whatever softness she used to carry before responsibility hardened her edges. Between late-night shifts, overdue tuition notices, and the quiet terror of never having enough, her world had narrowed into survival. Tonight was supposed to be different. One night where she didn’t count hours or dollars or mistakes.
Nora Bennett had insisted.
“Just one drink,” she’d said. “You’re allowed to breathe, Aria.”
Aria had laughed at that. Breathing felt like a luxury.
She took a sip now, wincing at the burn, and tried not to think about the clinical exam waiting for her on Monday or the voicemail from the landlord she hadn’t returned. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but she ignored it. Tonight, she decided, nothing outside this room existed.
That was when she noticed him.
He didn’t blend in with the chaos. He cut through it.
Tall, dark-haired, dressed too well for a place like this, he leaned against the bar like he owned it without trying. His posture was relaxed, but there was something distant in his gaze, as if he were watching the room rather than participating in it. When he smiled at the bartender, it was brief and controlled, not careless like everyone else’s.
Aria felt it then.
That pull.
The warning kind.
Men like that came with complications. She knew better than to look twice. Yet her eyes betrayed her, drifting back again, lingering on the sharp lines of his jaw, the quiet confidence in the way he carried himself.
As if he sensed her attention, he turned.
Their eyes met.
The moment stretched. Noise faded into a dull hum. Aria forgot to breathe.
His gaze wasn’t hungry or aggressive. It was assessing. Curious. Almost cautious. Then his lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile, and her pulse jumped traitorously.
She looked away first, heat crawling up her neck.
Stupid. She was being stupid.
“Someone caught your attention,” Nora teased, appearing at her side with a grin that promised trouble.
“No one,” Aria said too quickly.
Nora followed her gaze anyway. “Oh. Him.”
“Don’t,” Aria warned.
“I didn’t say anything,” Nora replied innocently. “But wow. You deserve at least one mistake that looks that good.”
Aria shook her head. “I don’t do mistakes.”
Nora lifted a brow. “You do exhaustion and responsibility and pretending you’re fine. Tonight, you do something else.”
Before Aria could protest, Nora was already gone, swallowed by the crowd, leaving Aria alone with her thoughts and the man at the bar.
She told herself she wouldn’t look again.
She failed.
He was watching her now openly, one elbow resting against the counter, attention fixed entirely on her as if the rest of the room didn’t exist. It should have unsettled her. Instead, something inside her steadied, like she’d been holding her breath all day and only now realized it.
He approached without rushing, steps unhurried, expression unreadable.
“Hi,” he said, voice low and smooth, cutting through the noise with ease.
“Hi,” she replied, hating that her voice softened.
“I’m Dominic,” he said. Simple. No last name. No pretense.
“Aria.”
“Can I buy you another drink, Aria?”
She hesitated. Every instinct told her to decline. But something about his tone wasn’t demanding. It was an invitation she was free to refuse.
“Yes,” she said before she could stop herself. “But just one.”
His lips curved slightly. “Fair.”
They talked. About nothing and everything. About music and bad coffee and the strange comfort of late-night diners. Dominic didn’t ask invasive questions. He didn’t pry. He listened in a way that felt rare and deliberate, like he wasn’t waiting for his turn to speak.
Aria found herself laughing, the sound unfamiliar on her own lips.
She didn’t tell him about nursing school. Or the bills. Or the fear that sat in her chest every morning. Tonight, she was just Aria. Not a problem to solve. Not a woman constantly bracing for disappointment.
When Dominic’s hand brushed hers, it wasn’t accidental.
The contact sparked. Not wild. Not reckless. Controlled heat, simmering just beneath the surface.
“You look like someone who doesn’t do this often,” he said quietly.
“Do what?”
“Let go.”
She met his gaze, something fragile opening in her chest. “Maybe I don’t.”
“Then we can stop,” he said easily. No pressure. No disappointment.
The option steadied her.
“Or,” she said slowly, “maybe tonight doesn’t count.”
Something dark and understanding passed through his eyes.
They left together without saying much. The night air was cool, sobering, but the closeness between them warmed her skin. Dominic’s place was nearby. Clean. Minimal. Too neat for someone who lived there fully.
She noticed the absence of personal photos. The careful order. The distance even in his space.
He noticed her noticing.
“I don’t usually bring people here,” he said.
“Me neither,” she admitted.
Their kiss wasn’t rushed. It was deliberate, searching, as if both of them needed this to mean something and nothing all at once. When they finally came together, it was with an urgency born not of lust alone, but of loneliness neither wanted to name.
After, Aria lay awake longer than she should have, watching shadows stretch across the ceiling.
Dominic slept beside her, turned slightly away, one arm flung carelessly across the mattress. Even in rest, he seemed distant, already pulling back from whatever had passed between them.
She dressed quietly before dawn, slipping into her clothes with practiced silence. She left a note she debated writing and then decided against. No expectations. No attachments. That was the unspoken agreement.
As she closed the door behind her, Aria didn’t look back.
She had no way of knowing that this night would follow her.
That it would grow inside her.
That it would demand everything she had sworn never to ask for.
The city woke around her, indifferent and unaware, as Aria Monroe walked home believing she had left the past behind.
She was wrong.
