One Night to Forever novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Blackout
A borrowed badge, a ballroom blackout and a stranger in the dark lead Cassidy to suite 2210, and at dawn he says he will marry her, then her best friend texts that he already called her.
The badge pinned to my dress said BIANCA THORSBY.
My name is Cassidy Rowe, and I had never been in a ballroom this expensive in my life.
Bianca had called me at six that evening, her voice thick and small.
"Cass, I have a migraine from hell. Please take my place at the Ryerson gala."
"I'm an illustrator," I said. "I draw foxes in raincoats."
"Wear my green dress, wear my badge, and smile at the right people."
"Nobody will care who you are," she said. "Just be seen for me."
So I stood under three chandeliers at the opening of the Ryerson Chicago Grand, holding a glass I couldn't afford to spill.
A lean man with wire glasses stopped in front of me and read my badge.
"Ms. Thorsby, good, you got the invitation," he said, and pressed a black card into my hand.
The card said, "2210. A private thank-you drink with Mr. Ryerson."
"I'm sorry, I'm only," I started.
But he was already gone, swallowed by the crowd.
I told myself I would hand the card back to someone before midnight.
At 11:40 every light in the room went out.
Two hundred people gasped at once.
Somebody laughed, somebody screamed, and a tray of glasses hit the marble.
I put my hand on the wall and felt my way along it.
The only thing I could see was a faint green exit sign down a service corridor.
The corridor was black and narrow and smelled like warm bread.
I walked straight into a man.
He was solid and warm, and my glass went down the front of his shirt.
"I'm so sorry," I said. "I can't see anything."
"Neither can I," he said.
His voice was low and dry.
"You're the one with the 2210 card," he said.
The card said Mr. Ryerson, so the man in the dark was Desmond Ryerson.
"How do you know that?"
"Because I wrote the guest list, and the only person left to come up is Ms. Thorsby."
My heart did something stupid.
I should have said, "No, I'm Cassidy."
Instead I said, "I'm sorry I'm late."
He laughed, a short real laugh.
"Don't be," he said. "Power's out for four minutes. I'd rather spend them with someone who isn't asking me for money."
Four minutes in the dark with a stranger, and I hummed because I always hum when I'm nervous.
"Moon River," he said. "My grandmother's favorite."
"It's mine too."
His hand found my wrist and slid down to my fingers, and he held them.
"Come upstairs," he said.
I knew exactly what he meant.
I went.
The lights came back in the lobby while we were in the elevator, a long gold stripe sliding across his chest.
I saw a white shirt soaked with my champagne, a loosened collar and his hand on the rail.
Then the elevator door opened on the twenty-second floor, and he walked me down the hallway with his hand at my back.
The suite was black, with heavy curtains drawn against the city.
He didn't turn the lamps on.
He pressed me back against the closed door, and his mouth came down on mine before I could say a word.
He kissed.
I pulled his shirt out of his trousers and my palms hit hot skin.
"Tell me what you want," he said against my jaw.
"You," I said. "Right now. Please."
His hands went to the zipper on Bianca's green dress and dragged it down my spine.
The fabric slid off my shoulders and pooled at my feet.
He lifted me by the backs of my thighs, and I wrapped my legs around his waist.
He carried me to the bed.
My back hit the cool sheets and his weight followed me down.
He kissed my throat, my collarbone, the swell of my breast, and I arched into his mouth.
He pulled my bra away and closed his lips around my nipple, and I gasped his name, the only name I had for him.
"Desmond," I said.
"Say it again."
"Desmond."
He dragged my panties down my legs with his teeth, and I felt his breath where I was already wet and shaking.
He put his tongue on my clit, slow and deep, and I grabbed the headboard.
"Oh God," I said. "Don't stop."
"I wasn't going to."
He licked me in long strokes, then in tight circles, and he slid two fingers inside me and curled them until I could not speak.
I came with my thighs shaking around his shoulders and his name tearing out of my throat.
He climbed up my body, wet-mouthed and breathing hard, and I tore at his belt.
I wanted him inside me more than I had wanted anything in years.
I shoved his trousers down, and his cock sprang into my hand, thick and hot and heavy.
I stroked it, and he groaned into my neck.
"Bianca," he said against my mouth, and I should have corrected him.
I didn't.
I pulled him between my legs instead.
"Fuck me," I said. "Please."
He pushed into me slowly, inch by inch, and I felt every one.
I was so full I could barely breathe.
He stopped when he was all the way in, his forehead against mine.
"You feel unreal," he said.
Then he moved.
He fucked me deep and hard, his hips driving, the bed knocking the wall, my nails raking his back.
I wrapped my legs higher around him and he hit a place that made me cry out.
"There," I said. "Right there."
"Like that?"
"Yes. Harder. Please, harder."
He gave me what I asked for.
He gripped my hip, lifted my leg over his shoulder, and fucked me until the whole bed shook.
I came again, clenching around him, and I heard him swear.
"I can't hold on," he said.
"Don't. Come in me."
He thrust once more, buried to the root, and groaned as he came, hot and deep inside me.
We lay tangled in the dark, sweating and breathing.
He pulled me against his chest and I felt a long ridge under my fingers, a scar down his ribs.
"Boathouse roof," he said. "I was ten."
"It's beautiful," I said.
"It's ugly."
"I like it."
We did it again before two, with me on top of him.
We did it again near four, slowly, with his hand over my mouth to hold in the noise.
At four he lay with his arm over my waist and spoke into my hair.
"I don't do one night."
"What do you do?" I asked.
"I'm going to marry you."
I laughed, because I thought it was pillow talk.
"You don't even know my face," I said.
"I know your voice. I'll know it anywhere."
He fell asleep, heavy and warm, and I lay there with my heart going so hard I thought it would wake him.
At 5:40 I slipped out from under his arm.
I picked up the green dress from the floor, and the badge slid out of the pocket and landed on the nightstand.
I left it there.
I didn't want to wake him, and I didn't want to answer for Bianca's name.
In the elevator I called her.
She picked up on the second ring, wide awake for someone with a migraine.
I told her all of it in a whisper, shaking: the song, the scar, the words at four a.m.
She said, "Oh my God," five times, and, "I'm so happy for you."
I hung up on the street, the sky still black over Lake Michigan.
I was smiling.
Then my phone buzzed with a text from Bianca.
"Congrats, Mrs. Ryerson. LOL. Don't tell a soul till I've talked to Ford."
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