Caught between two Kings

Joanna POV

The place smells like perfume and money, all mixed up and too loud. Everyone is polished, smiling too wide, like they practiced these faces in a mirror. My dress is borrowed, my heels are cheap garbage pretending to be nice, and my sketchbook is the only thing that feels like me.

“Stop looking like you’re about to rob the place,” Mara says, shoving a glass into my hand. Her nails are perfect, of course. Her smile is already a practiced investor smile.

“I did not rob anything,” I mutter, and now I do look guilty, because my voice sounds small in the glitter.

She snorts. “Then act like you belong. Investors hate nervous designers. They want a cold and confident lady, like a shark in a suit, not a kitten on a sidewalk.”

“Right, a shark,” I say, and try to look lethal. I drink, it tastes like pennies and regret.

That is when I see him. Jordan Kings. He is not the rumor, he is worse, and also exactly the rumor. Tall, dark suit that looks like it was sewn on a statue, a face that could be dangerous if it wanted to be, eyes that sweep a room and the room rearranges itself.

He stops by the directors table, they laugh like idiots, and he does this small half smile that is more like a crack in ice. He does not need to laugh, he needs to measure. People curl around him like planets around a sun.

I look away, I swear I try, but my eyes crooked back, like a magnet.

Then a voice says, right behind me, “You are standing in the wrong place.”

I turn and nearly spill my glass. He is closer than I expected, like a person who can walk into your life and change the air.

“What?” I say, and my voice goes thin.

He points. “Investor display. You are blocking it.”

I flush hot. “Oh, sorry, I did not realize—”

“You did not look,” he says, nothing soft about it. His eyes run over me like a checklist. Not hungry, not flirtatious, just cold inspection.

I want to snap, throw the glass, be dramatic, but I bite it because I am supposed to be chill. “Maybe next time put up a giant sign, so peasants do not ruin your night.”

His mouth moves, like something almost there. “You are not from here.”

“What gave it away? My shoes? My accent? My complete inability to pretend I belong?” I say, sharper than I mean to.

“You are defensive,” he says, like that is a diagnosis.

My heart goes stupid. “And you are an ass.”

His phone buzzed. He just says, cool as ice, “Try not to stand where you do not belong,” and walks away.

The room tilts for a beat. Mara grabs my arm, all bright teeth. “Do you know who that was?” she whispers.

“Yeah,” I say without thinking, “a jerk.”

Her expression collapses into a hundred watt