Chapter 9: An Unexpected Ring

Maya

The bus ride back to the city was brutal. My damp clothes smelled like seawater and old diesel fuel, and my left ankle throbbed with a dull, steady ache from where I had twisted it on the resort’s rug.

Kiki sat next to me on the stained blue bus seat, staring out the fogged window and biting her thumbnail down to the quick. Neither of us said a word for the first forty minutes. The heavy silence between us was only broken by the grinding of the bus gears and the steady swish of the windshield wipers against the rain.

When we finally got back to Kiki's building, I took off my heels in the hallway and dragged myself up the two flights of wooden stairs in my socks. My feet were covered in dirt and dried lawn clippings.

"You called him a monkey criminal, Maya," Kiki whispered as soon as we stepped inside her apartment and locked the deadbolts. She leaned her back against the door, holding her head in her hands. "Do you have any idea who that was? That was Dominic Montgomery. He owns half the real estate down the coast. He could have had us arrested, or thrown in jail, or sued into oblivion!"

"I don't care who he is," I said, dropping the canvas tote bag onto the linoleum floor with a heavy thud. I peeled Kiki’s wet black slip dress off over my head, tossed it toward her laundry basket, and pulled my worn gray hoodie back over my shoulders. "He grabbed me, he talked down to me, and he acted like he owned the air I was breathing."

"He does own the air you were breathing!" Kiki yelled softly, throwing her arms up. "He literally owns the entire resort! And you poked him in the chest and made fun of his face!"

"His face is scary," I muttered, sitting down heavily on the edge of the sofa. I rubbed my aching left ankle with both hands. "He looks like he survived a bomb blast. And he stands there staring at people like he's deciding whether to crush them or throw them off a cliff."

"That's because he's a billionaire, Maya!" Kiki sat down next to me, resting her hands on her knees. "He doesn't owe anyone a polite smile. People pay millions just to get ten minutes in a conference room with him. And you treated him like some creepy guy at a bus stop."

"Good," I said, setting my foot down on the floor. "Maybe someone needed to tell him he isn't God."

"You're completely unhinged," Kiki said, shaking her head, though the panic in her face was starting to fade into pure exhaustion. "I'm going to wash my face and go to bed. Don't wake me up unless the building is on fire."

"Fine," I said.

After Kiki went into the small bathroom and shut the door, the apartment went dead quiet. I leaned my head back against the worn fabric of the sofa, staring at the peeling paint on the ceiling. My throat felt dry, and my heart was still beating at a strange, irregular pace.

Every time I closed my eyes, I didn't see Trevor's handsome, useless face, or Colette's smug smile. I saw the scarred man standing in the warm light of that resort hallway. I remembered the heavy, crushing weight of his broad chest against my front when he caught me, the smell of dark scotch and rain clinging to his suit, and the way his dark, unblinking eyes had pinned me to the spot.

He hadn't flinched when I yelled at him. He hadn't even looked angry. He had just watched me with that cold, unreadable intensity, like I was a strange animal that had wandered into his house.

Creepy freak, I thought, closing my eyes tightly. He's probably used to everyone bowing down to him because of his money.

My phone, lying face down on the small wooden coffee table next to my empty water glass, suddenly began to vibrate.

The low, buzz-buzz echoed loudly in the quiet living room.

I didn't reach for it right away. I assumed it was another frantic text from Trevor using a burner number, or Colette trying to justify why she was letting my ex-boyfriend sleep in her apartment.

The phone kept ringing. Four long buzzes. Five.

I let out a tired breath, reached over, and picked it up. The screen displayed an unknown, unlisted ten-digit number from a private exchange. No caller ID, no location tag.

I swiped the green icon and brought the phone to my ear.

"What do you want, Trevor?" I snapped flatly, not bothering to hide the venom in my voice. "I told you to lose my number."

Silence hung on the line for two agonizing seconds. I didn't hear breathing, just a faint, low hum of static.

Then, a deep, raspy voice drifted through the small speaker—slow, heavy, and completely devoid of emotion.

"I am not Trevor."

My body froze instantly. The hair on the back of my neck stood up on end. I sat up straight on the sofa, my knuckles turning white around the casing of the phone.

I recognized that voice immediately. It was low, rough around the edges, like stone grinding against stone.

"Who is this?" I demanded, though my heart was already hammering against my ribs.

"Dominic Montgomery," he said quietly.

A cold shock ran straight down my spine, settling in the pit of my stomach. I stared at the dark wall across from me, my tongue feeling suddenly heavy in my mouth.

"How did you get my number?" I asked, my voice rising in sharp, defensive anger. "Are you tracking me? Is this how you billionaires spend your free time—stalking people you caught trespassing?"

"It took my head of security four minutes to pull your file," Dominic replied, his tone remaining completely flat and unhurried. He didn't sound angry. He sounded like he was reading line items off a financial statement. "You left a canvas bag with your friend's initials on it, you triggered my network security, and you gave the guards your real name. You aren't particularly good at hiding, Maya."

Hearing my name come out of his mouth in that rough, low rumble sent a strange, uncomfortable shiver straight down my arms.

"Don't call me by my name," I snapped, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees. "And don't ever call this phone again. I don't care who you are or how many buildings you own. If you try to harass me or send your guards to my friend's house, I will file a police report."

A low, faint sound came through the speaker—a short, dark exhale that sounded almost like a humorless chuckle.

"You hit your head when you tripped, didn't you?" Dominic asked.

"I didn't hit anything!" I yelled into the phone, my face flushing hot with humiliation. "I twisted my ankle because your stupid rug was uneven! Get a life, you scarred freak!"

I slammed the red end-call button before he could say another word.

I threw the phone face down onto the coffee table so hard the glass mug rattled against the wood. My hands were shaking. My chest was heaving up and down like I had just run another sprint through the resort ballroom.

The bathroom door creaked open, and Kiki walked out, wiping her face with a hand towel. She looked at me, her eyes widening when she saw my red face and shaking hands.

"Maya? Who was that? Was it Trevor?"

"No," I said, my voice thick with a mixture of rage and sheer disbelief. I stared at the dark screen of my phone on the table. "It was the scarred guy. Dominic."

Kiki dropped her towel onto the floor. "What? He called you? On your personal cell phone?"

"He tracked my number through his security team," I said, running both hands through my damp hair. "He called me to patronize me about tripping over his rug."

Kiki stood frozen in the middle of the small living room, staring at me like I had grown a second head. "The billionaire... called your personal phone... just to talk to you?"

"He's a sick, arrogant creep," I spat, pulling my knees up to my chest on the sofa. "He thinks because he has money he can just intrude into people's lives whenever he feels like it. I hate him."

Kiki slowly walked over and sat down beside me, her eyes still huge. "Maya... a man like Dominic Montgomery doesn't waste thirty seconds looking up a girl's number unless he wants something."

"He doesn't want anything," I muttered, staring flatly at the dark window. "He's just bored."

But as I lay down on Kiki's couch twenty minutes later, pulling the rough blanket up to my chin, the sound of his low, rough voice kept repeating in my head—over and over, cutting through the dark like a knife