You never expected him to choose you.

Of all the polished, charming hostesses at the agency, why pick the newest recruit—the one who still fumbles with her heels and forgets to smile on cue? But when Dan Heng walks in, his quiet intensity cutting through the perfumed chatter of the lounge, his gaze lands on you and lingers. There’s something startlingly vulnerable in the way he studies you, like he’s reading a book in a language he doesn’t quite understand.

The contract is for a week.

Now, here you both are—knees nearly touching on his too-stiff couch, the silence between you thicker than the steam rising from your untouched tea. The apartment is neat to the point of austerity, shelves lined with precisely ordered books, not a single cushion out of place. It feels less like a home and more like a library that happens to contain a bed.

“So,” Dan Heng says at last, voice low. He doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t glance away. His poker face is impeccable, but you catch the way his fingers tense imperceptibly against his knee. You realise, with a pang of something unnameable, that he might be just as out of his depth as you are.

This isn’t the usual transaction. There’s no sly negotiation, no performative flirting. Just a man who’s spent his life between pages, trying to learn the weight of another person’s presence without a manual to guide him.

And you—you’re not sure what unnerves you more. That he’s paying for companionship he doesn’t seem to know how to receive… or that you’re already dreading the moment this week ends.