After leaving the Romani camp, Bruce did exactly what the old woman had predicted he would do.
He followed her directions and made his way to the Black Rose, a bar more than ten kilometers away.
His curiosity was too strong, and his respect for anything that smelled even faintly of the occult pushed him the rest of the way.
The place was not especially luxurious, but it was clearly doing good business. Even close to eleven at night, the lights were still bright and the noise inside was still going strong.
Bruce did not go in.
He followed the old woman's instructions and waited by the mouth of the alley to the right of the entrance.
It was a terrible place to stand.
A dumpster full of the bar's trash sat less than ten feet away, and in the middle of summer, the smell rolling out of it was almost unbearable. Bruce spent the first ten minutes lingering farther off, only moving into place when the twenty-five-minute mark was close.
Even then, he stayed in the shadow by the wall.
Partly because of the smell.
Mostly because of the shirt.
The too-small replacement shirt he had borrowed earlier looked ridiculous on him under the bar's lights. He had already been laughed at more than once on the way over, and he had no interest in giving anyone else the same opportunity.
As the minutes dragged on, his curiosity slowly gave way to irritation.
Just as he started wondering whether the whole thing had been nonsense and whether he should leave, he heard the sound of hurried footsteps coming from the bar.
Fast.
Unsteady.
Coming straight toward him.
Bruce turned instinctively.
He did not even get a proper look at the person before the smell hit him first.
Alcohol.
A lot of it.
Then came the retching.
The woman stumbled right into him, grabbed both of his arms for balance, and promptly threw up all over him.
Bruce froze.
The wet mess soaking into his clothes, the sour reek of liquor and stomach acid, the sheer shock of it all, wiped out every trace of curiosity and excitement he had left.
In both of his lives, this was a first.
And the disgust hit him so hard it turned into anger almost immediately.
He was just about to shove the filthy disaster in front of him away when a pale, slender hand suddenly rose into view.
A set of keys dangled from it.
"Take me home."
Bruce stopped.
Only then did he realize the person hanging off him was a woman.
A tall one, with long blonde hair and a slim, shapely frame. Between the darkness, the smell, and the fact that she had just thrown up on him, he had not taken much else in.
Men were often more forgiving with beautiful women than they should be.
Bruce was not immune to that either.
He frowned and asked in a rough tone, "Fine. Where do you live?"
"Home."
That was clearly all he was getting.
Bruce took the keys from her hand, got her upright as best he could, though at that point "dragged" was probably more accurate than "helped," and headed for the parking lot in front of the bar.
He hit the unlock button.
A white Aston Martin flashed its lights.
Bruce raised an eyebrow. "So you've got money."
He got her into the passenger seat, then stopped before climbing in himself.
He looked down at his shirt, soaked and reeking.
Without a second thought, he stripped it off, used the less-damaged side to wipe at the worst of the mess on his skin, and tossed it into the nearest trash can.
A moment later, shirtless and in a very bad mood, he started the Aston Martin, turned the wheel, and pulled out into the night.
As for where he was taking her, that part was easy.
His hotel.
He had no idea where she actually lived, and he was not about to spend the next hour interrogating someone too drunk to form a full sentence.
As he drove, he glanced at her once.
Was this the "luck" the old woman had talked about?
The woman in the passenger seat was about five-eleven, maybe a little taller in heels. She wore a black sleeveless Chanel top, and her long bare legs were crossed awkwardly against the seat. On her feet were strappy crystal-embellished sandals. An Omega watch circled her left wrist, and a diamond necklace flashed faintly at her throat whenever the light caught it.
Most of her face was hidden behind her hair.
Even so, the outline was enough to tell him she was striking.
And her figure did not exactly make that conclusion harder.
Bruce looked away after only a moment.
Beauty had limits.
Once someone was drunk enough to stink like a brewery and cover you in vomit, those limits arrived fast.
By the time he got back to the hotel, he was beyond tired.
He got out, went around to the passenger side, and hauled her out of the car.
The doorman hurried over at once.
"Sir, do you need a hand?"
Bruce handed him the keys and a tip he had already palmed on the way out.
"A hundred bucks says you park it carefully. My girlfriend's drunk."
That amount was more than enough to guarantee the man's full enthusiasm.
"Yes, sir. Right away."
Bruce did his best not to grimace as he carried the woman through the lobby.
He hated the smell on her.
He hated the mess on himself.
But with her barely conscious, he did not have much choice.
He took the elevator up, got into his suite, turned on the lights, and instead of putting her on the sofa, carried her straight into the bathroom and sat her down on the closed toilet seat.
As her long blonde hair slipped back from her face, Bruce got his first clear look at her under the bathroom lights.
He paused.
She really was beautiful.
Refined features. Smooth pale skin. The kind of face that made people look twice without meaning to.
And for some reason, she seemed vaguely familiar.
Bruce narrowed his eyes. "Have I seen you somewhere before?"
A knock at the door cut off the thought.
He went back out and opened it.
The doorman stood there holding out the car keys. "Sir, your keys."
"Hold on."
Bruce took them, then stopped the man before he could leave.
"Do you have female attendants on staff tonight? Send two of them up."
The doorman's expression shifted for just half a second.
Bruce caught it immediately and said, "You saw the state she's in. I'm not touching that. I just need someone to help her get cleaned up."
That cleared things up.
"Of course, sir. I'll pass it along right away."
"Please do it fast."
Once the door closed again, Bruce went back into the suite and looked toward the bathroom.
The woman was still sitting there, barely holding herself upright.
He stood in the doorway for a second, then let out a dry, self-mocking laugh.
He would have been lying if he said the thought had not crossed his mind. A drunk beauty, a luxury hotel, and no one else around. Plenty of men would have seen where that setup could go.
But the moral line he had carried through both lives still held.
Barely, maybe.
But it held.
"Maybe I really am worse than a thug," he muttered.
The joke reminded him of one of those old stories from the internet, the kind where a man and a woman spend the night in the same room, nothing happens, and somehow the man still gets mocked for it afterward.
Underneath the money and the success, Bruce was still the same man who had once scraped by at the bottom in Shanghai. He might have two hundred million dollars now, but changing your instincts was a lot harder than changing your bank balance.
The hotel's service was efficient.
Less than three minutes after he sat down in the living room, two female attendants in their thirties arrived and knocked on the door.
Bruce brought them to the bathroom, explained what needed doing, and stepped back out.
Then he went into his bedroom, stripped off his ruined pants, and threw them into the trash with the rest. Because of the injuries to his arms, he could not shower properly, so he settled for wiping himself down with a wet towel as best he could, getting rid of the dust, sweat, and whatever else had ended up on him.
After pulling on a clean set of clothes from his suitcase, he finally felt human again.
Then, the heat started.
At first, it was just a faint wave of restlessness.
By the time he sat down in the living room again, it had turned into something stronger.
Bruce frowned.
"Didn't I turn the AC on?"
But a second later he realized that was not the problem.
The heat was coming from inside him.
"Sir," one of the attendants said as she stepped back into the living room, "your girlfriend is cleaned up. Would you like us to help her into the bedroom?"
Bruce looked up.
The woman speaking wore a fitted black hotel uniform and a black pencil skirt. She was ordinary-looking, neat, professional.
And for one ugly instant, Bruce had the sudden, violent urge to push her back against the wall and tear those clothes off her.
The force of it startled him.
The attendant caught the look on his face and hesitated. "Sir? Are you all right?"
Bruce shook himself hard and said quickly, "I'm fine. Please take her into the bedroom. And send her clothes out to be cleaned. I want them back in the morning."
"Of course, sir."
The two attendants helped the now bathrobed woman into the bedroom. A moment later they left, taking her dirty clothes and Bruce's tip with them.
The suite fell quiet again.
But Bruce's body was getting worse by the minute.
"What the hell is this?"
He tore off his T-shirt, went to the kitchen area, and poured himself a full glass of water.
He drained it in one go.
It did nothing.
Still thirsty, still overheated, he filled a second glass.
Before he could bring it to his mouth, a pale hand reached in from the side and took it from him.
Bruce turned.
And the moment he did, the heat in his body surged like gasoline meeting a live flame.
The blonde woman was awake.
She stood there in the loose bathrobe the attendants had put her in, still looking half-drunk and half-asleep as she lifted the glass and drank from it without a word. Water spilled from the corner of her mouth and ran down her chin to her throat.
When she lowered the glass, her robe slipped farther off one shoulder.
"Is there more?" she asked, her voice blurred from drink and exhaustion.
Bruce stared at her.
At the damp skin, the loosened robe, the heavy-lidded eyes, and the fact that every nerve in his body felt like it was on fire.
In that instant, the old woman's final gift, whatever it really was, no longer felt mysterious.
It felt dangerous.
Very dangerous.
Bruce's breathing turned ragged.
Reason was still there, but it was slipping.
The room felt hotter. His pulse was pounding. Months of pressure, frustration, restraint, and the unnatural heat now roaring through his body all crashed together at once.
What happened next was not something he would later remember with pride.
The night tipped out of control.
It became reckless, blurred, and morally messier than anything he could easily excuse, even to himself.
And by the time it was over, Bruce knew one thing with absolute clarity.
Whatever pleasure the night had offered, morning was almost certainly going to come with a price.
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