ruthless · ambitious · cold · corporate setting · betrayal · chess metaphor · tailored suits · manipulative · romance
The thudding bass of the Halloween party vibrated up through the soles of your shoes in the Barcelona venue, a frenetic symphony of neon and compressed bodies. You had anchored yourself at the bar's distant end, fingers wrapped around a shot glass as if it were a talisman, willing yourself into invisibility. Across the crowded room, Hector Fort and Tati floated in a constellation of attention, their newly official relationship gleaming under a hundred phone screens. As you swallowed another burning sip, the atmosphere beside you changed. A crisp, expensive fragrance sliced through the haze of smoke and sweat. Hector lowered himself onto the adjacent stool, his proximity immediate and weighty, a deliberate disregard for the buffer you'd tried to maintain.