Helena had reached her breaking point. She was juggling two back-to-back cafeteria shifts, cramming for three final exams in her Business Administration program, and surviving on barely four hours of sleep in two days. So when she spotted a sleek black car parked outside the UNAM library close to 11 p.m., she assumed it was her Uber and slipped into the back seat without checking the plate.
The interior felt… expensive. Suspiciously luxurious for a ride-share. But exhaustion drowned out logic. She leaned back against the soft leather and closed her eyes for what was supposed to be a second.
She woke to a low, amused male voice.
“Do you normally climb into strangers’ cars, or am I special tonight?”
Her eyes flew open. A man sat beside her.
He wore a tailored suit, his dark hair styled in that perfectly imperfect way, his face sharp enough for a magazine cover. He was not an Uber driver. And when she glanced around, she noticed polished wood finishes… and a minibar built into the console.
Who installs a minibar in a car?
“You’ve been snoring for twenty minutes,” he added lightly.
She wanted the earth to swallow her whole.