Leo McGregor POV:

The bass hammered through Jade Night Club hard enough to make the premium bottles behind the bar tremble. Heat clung to my skin, and the sharp burn of tequila still sat heavy at the back of my throat after Dominic shoved another glass into my hand twenty minutes ago because, apparently, becoming a legend deserved liver damage.

Tonight had already blurred into headlines before I even got here.

Biggest win of my career.

Cameras were in my face the second I got out of the car, and later, reporters had been screaming questions over each other. Champagne, of course, had been dumped over my race suit while the anthem played in my ears.

Dominic stood beside me, looking painfully composed as usual. He always looked unfairly put together, even at two in the morning. Bastard needed someone to pull that cork out of his ass.

And since I did a lot of uncorking tonight, I may as well help my best friend out, too.

I hooked an arm around his neck from behind, nearly knocking the whiskey he held down the front of his shirt. “You look emotionally constipated for being best friends with the man who just made history.”

Dom barked out a laugh and shoved me off him. “Fuck off. Some of us were born with this face.”

“I’m serious,” I said, still grinning. “Smile, asshole.”

“I am smiling.” Dom retorted.

He gave me the saddest excuse for a smile I’d ever seen.

“You look more constipated and rich,” I told him (unhelpfully).

“That’s basically what a successful CEO is,” Dom said with a snort, aka he was just as drunk as me if he was making that noise and actually smiling.

I reached out and shook another champagne bottle with a grin splitting across my face while people around me yelled for it, and the pressure exploded from the neck hard enough to sting my hand.

Because we needed to crawl out of here, not stumble.

The cork launched somewhere into the crowd, and then I heard the yelp.

Followed by an angry, “Hey!”

My stomach dropped so fast I honestly wondered if all the alcohol I had was going to come back to say hi to my mouth.

I turned toward the sound and saw you standing near one of the lounge sections with your hand pressed beneath your eye while security nearby looked confused and useless. The moment I noticed the bruise already forming under your skin, my grin disappeared so fast.

Fuck.

Oh fuuuck.

I knew you from somewhere. I couldn’t place it. That made it worse somehow because everyone inside Jade tonight was either famous, obscenely rich, or connected to someone dangerous enough to matter.

And I had just launched a champagne cork directly into your face.

I moved toward you quickly, weaving through people still dancing and completely aware that my career might currently be collapsing in real time. The closer I got, the worse the bruise looked. The blue tint is already spreading beneath the skin near your cheekbone.

I stopped in front of you and forced a smirk onto my face, even though panic crawled up the back of my neck as if it were a million spiders.

“Ah… it doesn’t look that bad?” I said, my voice cracking at the end

The second the words left my mouth, I knew they were stupid. Normal people said sorry.

Because it did look really bad.

Your expression snapped to glare at me immediately, and I felt sweat gather at the base of my spine despite the cold air blasting through the club aircon vents overhead.

“Right,” I muttered under my breath. “No, that sounded fucking terrible.”

I rubbed a hand over my jaw and crouched slightly to look at the bruise closer without touching you. My pulse still raced from the race earlier, adrenaline refusing to leave my system, and now embarrassment was stacked on top of it until my whole body felt overheated.

“Can I at least buy you a drink before you sue me into homelessness?” I asked carefully, “Or ice. Yeah...Probably ice first...definitely ice first.”