Chapter 1 Aidan Moretti
Of course, they were drinking champagne.
It was always champagne at parties like that—the kind where everyone was pretending to be effortlessly rich, effortlessly interesting, and effortlessly not dead inside. The penthouse of Moretti Tower, a glass-and-steel middle finger to gravity.
Sixty-ish guests swarmed the place, doing the same three things on loop: drinking, gossiping, and hoping someone was watching them while they did it.
The skyline of Atlanta sparkled below like it was in on the joke. You thought you were above it all, standing up there, drenched in LED light and narcissism. But the city didn’t care about your champagne or your secrets. It just blinked back at you, indifferent.
The DJ was spinning a beat that sounded like it was genetically engineered to numb people with too much money and not enough substance. Waiters glided through the crowd with trays of liquid distraction, their smiles tight, eyes glazed from too many fake laughs.
Everyone talked in whispers there. And they were all whispering about him. The man of the hour.
Giovanni Aidan Moretti.
The name was dropped every few minutes. The women—mostly silicone and sequins—stole glances toward the second floor, where a door sat closed. They tossed hair over tanned shoulders and tried to out-seduce each other with their whispers.
“Seen him yet?”One blonde said to a brunette, her lips glossy enough to catch moonlight.
“Nope,” the brunette breathed.
In the underworld, he was king. Giovanni Aidan Moretti was a name that held weight, not in the Instagram influencer kind of way. He owned the southern territories of the Moretti empire like they were Monopoly properties he was bored of collecting.
Young, polished, with that studied air of mystery that wasn’t mystery at all—it was distance. And distance is power. The party was in his honor. His newest “business venture,” whatever that meant. The kind of venture that might need a burner phone.
As sunlight clawed its way into the penthouse, the crowd dissolved. Vanished into town cars and rideshares, their high heels echoing like afterthoughts. The party ended the way most lies do—quietly, without closure.
And Giovanni was a no-show. Like he’d thrown the party just to see what would happen when he didn’t show up.
Champagne flutes lay on their sides like tiny casualties of capitalism. Napkins crumpled in corners. The dance floor had gone from glittering to grim.
At 8:45 a.m., the elevator chimed.
She stepped out, hair pulled back in a bun. No heels. No shimmer. Just a plain black hoodie, jeans, and a tote bag that looked like it had been through a few things.
Millie “Millie” Foster. Twenty-five. She was the kind of woman who knew that behind every “fun night” was a morning like this one. Broken glass. Sticky floors.
Her eyes scanned the room like a detective at a crime scene. She took it all in, one disaster at a time. She headed straight for the kitchen. Priorities. Dishes clattered like bones. She moved with the rhythm of someone who didn’t need praise, just progress.
By the time she hit the living room, the sun was spotlighting the mess in high definition. She glanced at her phone—10:00 a.m. She needed to hit the patio or risk throwing her whole day off balance.
She bent to fix a pile of fashion magazines—carelessly stacked nonsense designed to tell people whom to envy—when a moan cut through the silence. Not the good kind. The kind that made your blood run cold.
She froze.
“What the—” she muttered, spinning.
And there he was.
A guy.
He was a walking cliché, but the kind that still managed to punch you in the gut. Barely-there boxers rode low on his hips like they had something to prove, peeking out beneath a half-buttoned shirt that clung to a chest sculpted with just enough arrogance. Tattoos curled down his arms, visible hints of whatever mythology he’d decided to live by. The kind of ink that screamed, I make my own rules, but probably had a backstory involving tequila and ego.
His hair was artfully messy—the kind that cost $80 to look like you didn’t care—and his eyes, a criminal shade of blue, squinted against the sun.
Who the hell is this guy? Her eyes asked the question her mouth couldn’t yet form.
Then, like some half-dead prince rising from the aftermath of his own party, he blinked at her.
“You must be the cleaning lady,” he said, his voice a gravel-soft rasp that slinked under her skin before she could defend herself. That tone. Weaponized indifference.
“And you must be Mr. Moretti?” she squeaked and hated herself for the way it came out—like a cartoon character caught in a wind tunnel of pheromones.
“You make me sound so old.” He groaned, dragging a hand down his face like he was trying to erase himself. “Aidan Moretti. And yes, he is me. But call me Aidan. And for the love of all that’s holy, please do something about that window. I need blackout curtains. My brain is staging a mosh pit.”
Right. Blackout curtains. As if the sun was the enemy here and not the bottle he’d probably emptied five hours ago.
Millie didn’t say what she was thinking—that maybe his highness could chug some coffee like the rest of humanity. Instead, she glanced at the window where sunlight poured in with the kind of joyful aggression that made people like him hiss.
“Blackout curtains?” she asked, eyebrow barely raised. “That might make the cleaning part tricky, Mr. Moretti.”
“Aidan,” he repeated, slower this time, like she was the one missing the point. He crossed his arms, exposing more ink and more muscle. “You can start cleaning after I wake up.”
Of course. He was a man accustomed to issuing commands. But Millie didn’t back down. She never did.
“You can go back to your room while I continue cleaning here,” she offered. “I promise I’ll be quieter.”
“I want to sleep on the couch,” Aidan said, eyes drifting toward the spot just behind her. “So, let me sleep. Wait until I wake up, then you can start cleaning. You can have a bottle of wine outside while you wait, if you’d like. Don’t worry, I won’t report you.”
Like he was doing her a favor. Like lounging on someone else’s leather sofa with a glass of stolen cabernet was a dream worth living. Millie bit her lip. Hard. This was already a scheduling nightmare, and somewhere out there, another client was expecting her not to be ten hours late because Giovanni Aidan Moretti wanted to nap.
“Actually,” she said carefully, “I have somewhere to be after lunch, Mr. Moretti.”
“Aidan,” he corrected smoothly. “Let’s skip the formalities.”
He lifted one annoyingly perfect eyebrow, wearing that face like a weapon—equal parts challenge, charm, and trouble.
“I have another client’s house to clean,” Millie said, trying to keep it professional.
“Cancel it,” he said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. “I’ll triple your rate.”
“Excuse me?”
“I think you heard me, Miss…”