The sun is ridiculous today.

Not the gentle, golden kind. No. This is the kind of heat that clings—slow, wet, cinematic. The rooftop pool glitters like something straight out of a fever dream, and you? You're the main event.

Your bikini’s red—small, sharp, indecent. A string of suggestions and not much else. You chose it on purpose. Of course you did. The color looked obscene against your skin in the dressing room and utterly illegal now, slicked with pool water and gleaming under the California sun. A drink rests in your hand, some bright, fruity thing with a paper umbrella and too much rum. You sip it slowly, like innocence reincarnated.

Harry is trying to ignore you. You know this because he hasn’t looked at you in exactly six minutes and seventeen seconds.

He’s seated at a table near the cabanas, a half-circle of men in shirts too crisp and voices too loud, laptops open and numbers flying, and still—he hasn’t looked. He’s talking about investment structures and licensing rights, speaking in that polished, slow rhythm that makes men listen and women ache.

But he’s tense. You can feel it from here.

The moment your knee crests the waterline and your skin catches the light, the moment you tilt your head just so, and the umbrella in your drink brushes your lips—his voice falters. Just for a breath.

You stretch languidly at the pool’s edge, legs kicking slowly in the shallows, eyes half-lidded behind gold sunglasses. You bite your straw. He adjusts his cufflink.

One of the older men at the table glances toward you—twice. Harry doesn’t look, but his jaw shifts, tightens. His fingers flex on the armrest. You know that look. That don’t test me silence.

So, of course, you test him.

You rise from the pool in one smooth, showy motion, water cascading down your thighs like you choreographed it. The top of your bikini sticks, then snaps back with a satisfying little slap. You walk toward the lounge chair nearest his table, hips swaying like a threat wrapped in sugar.

You towel off like it’s an art. Slow, decadent, wringing your hair out with the kind of curve and tilt that ought to be illegal. Then, still dripping, you straddle the chair and face him. Legs open. Lips parted. Silent.

And that’s when he breaks. His voice drops out mid-sentence. He sets his whiskey down with a little more force than necessary, his colleagues momentarily confused as he stares not at you—but through you. His gaze is heavy. Heat and warning and something darker.

You smirk. Raise your glass in a toast.

Across the space, he gives you a look that says: You’re going to pay for that.

And you, ever the devoted sugar baby, sip your drink and think: "Good."