4. The Strange Girl

The sun's rays pierced through the curtains of his penthouse, waking Nikolas from his sleep. He groaned; he could feel the pounding in his head. Turning to look at his companion, he frowned when he noticed she was gone.

That was unusual. She usually waited for him to give her a five-star rating before leaving, as payments typically went to the agency, not the girls.

Still frowning, he sat up and tried his best to remember the details from yesterday, but his brain was foggy, and he had no idea what had happened after he left the funeral.

His face tightened as his heart skipped a beat at the thought of the funeral—his father's funeral.

He remembered leaving the funeral early, angry and disoriented. He tried to stay strong like his father, not wanting his mother and sister to see him fall apart.

He had gulped down an entire bottle of champagne before heading to the club.

The sad and heartbreaking feelings he'd experienced at the funeral began to resurface. Oh, how he admired the old man.

He tried his best to push those painful memories behind him and focus on the pounding headache he was feeling. He reached toward the bedside cupboard, grabbed a bottle of aspirin, and took a few pills, hoping they would help ease the pain.

Reaching for his phone, he winced as the screen shone brightly in his eyes. It took him a few seconds before the blurry screen cleared up, revealing the latest news flashing across it.

Tapping on it to reveal its contents, the headline read:

"Runaway bride comes back after leaving her groom at the altar."

He chuckled. He wasn't happy about the incident but wasn't sad either. Sometimes, women just don't know what they want, he thought.

Remembering why he had checked his phone, he dialed his manager's contact.

"Hello, sir," Rick's voice answered.

"Rick! Call the agency and inform them that the girl left this morning before I woke up," he said, sounding more surprised than angry.

"What, girl?" Rick replied, sounding confused.

"The girl I told you to get me from the agency," Nikolas said, beginning to get annoyed.

"Sir, I was just about to call you. The agency called last night to inform me that the girl couldn't find you at the club, so she ended up going with another client," Rick said, sounding more concerned.

"No, she came here with me last night," Nikolas answered, trying to stay calm.

"When I came out of the club, she was already in the car! We both drove to the estate together," he said, hoping for a positive response from Rick.

"I'm sorry, sir, but the agency was clear—you didn't pick up their girl," Rick said, sounding confused.

"What are you saying?" Nikolas screamed, standing up from the bed abruptly, causing the pain in his head to worsen.

"You didn't pick her up, sir!" Rick answered apologetically.

"Are you saying I slept with a strange girl last night?" he asked, trying to make sense of the confusing situation he had just found himself in as he paced back and forth in the room.

"I wasn't aware that you had another girl over, sir," Rick said apologetically. "I thought you had changed your mind about wanting an escort. I would have called you," he continued, his voice shaking with fear.

"I had sex with a strange girl!" Nikolas said in disbelief, more to himself than to Rick.

"This is all your fault! If you had called last night when you got the information, I wouldn't have slept with her."

"Find that girl, Rick, or you're fired!" Nikolas barked.

"Sir, if you could please describe the girl in question so I have an idea of who I'm looking for," Rick responded, scared that he might lose his job.

Peeling through his memory, nothing came to mind. How could he not know what she looked like? He thought angrily.

"I have no clue what she looks like. I was dead drunk," Nikolas responded irritably.

"Just find her!"

As much as he knew it wasn't entirely Rick's fault—if he hadn't gotten himself so drunk last night, he would have noticed something was off about her—Nikolas needed someone to blame for everything going wrong in his life.

First, his father dies, and now he sleeps with a strange girl from the street. Who knows what else is going to happen?

As he looked around the room, his eyes scanning for anything to at least confirm that he had not slept with a total stranger, his nose caught a familiar perfume scent. Picking up his clothes from last night and placing them close to his nose, he detected a mixture of alcohol and the familiar feminine perfume his brain registered as belonging to the stranger he had been with the previous night.

As his eyes trailed around the room, his pulse quickened as he realized the obvious.

"Wait! Why can't I find the condom?" he said aloud to himself.

His stomach dropped, a cold sweat broke on his forehead as he tore through the sheets, frantically searching around the entire room and even the bin, but there was no trace of a used condom.

Nikolas could hear his heart pounding loudly. He didn't use a condom? He had never made this kind of mistake before. He needed to find her.

He checked his phone to see if he had transferred money to her. Maybe he could get her identity through her bank, but he was disappointed.

He started questioning himself. Why did she leave before he woke up if he didn't give her any money and she didn't steal anything from him? Most girls usually stayed late the following day after sex, trying to get him to commit after seeing that he lived in a penthouse. So why was she different? Who was she?

Realizing she had already been in his car when he left the club, he picked up his phone and dialed Danny, his driver.

"Hello, boss. Anywhere you need to go today?" Danny's voice sounded.

"Danny, where did you pick that girl up from last night?" Nikolas questioned.

"I don't understand, boss," Danny responded, very confused.

"The girl I met in the car—the girl that followed me back home last night. Where and how did she get into my car?" he yelled, his voice echoing across the room.

"The escort? You told me to expect her, sir. She came out of the club just a few minutes after I got your text," Danny responded with a shaky voice, wondering what he did wrong.

"That wasn't the escort you picked up! That was someone else, Danny!"

"No, sir, I was sure of it. She approached me and asked if I had been waiting for long."

"Can you describe what she looks like?" Nikolas asked, growing increasingly annoyed.

"I'm sorry, sir. It was dark, and from how she dressed, I thought she was the one you told me about," Danny responded, his voice shaking as he realized he had let a stranger into the car last night.

After angrily ending the call with Danny and firing him for his incompetence, Nikolas received another disappointing update from Rick—he, too, hadn't had any luck finding the identity of the strange girl Nikolas had over last night.

Firing Rick didn't give him the satisfaction he needed. As he rode back to the club he had been at last night to try to gather any information about the girl, it was the same—nobody had ever seen her there before.

He had tried several times to remember at least what she looked like, digging deep, but his memory was blank.

Feeling tired and defeated from not finding any information about the girl, he realized he didn't even know her name. Who sleeps with someone without asking for her name? He smacked his forehead as he entered his car.

The ride back to his estate was slow and frustrating. Why had he been so reckless as to not confirm her identity before sleeping with her?

Entering his penthouse, Nikolas took a quick shower. The exhaustion from the search weighed him down, but he lay on his bed. Sleep eluded him as his mind wandered to the thoughts of the girl. Who was she? Why had he let his guard down around her? With many unanswered questions in his head, his only hope was that someday he would meet her again.