Zsuzsa Mile -Author

Marco nodded with satisfaction. His gaze moved slowly across the room, and I followed it without any hurry, because I knew that whoever he chose, the outcome would not change. Then his eyes stopped on a waitress. At first glance, there was nothing unusual about her. I had not seen her here before, which meant she was probably new, and that alone would have meant nothing… until the moment I looked at her too, and then I saw her. She was not one of those women whose beauty demanded attention immediately. Hers was different. Quieter. More dangerous.The red dress followed the lines of her body softly, while her movements did not seek attention, and maybe that was exactly what made my gaze stop on her, because she was not playing by the rules of the room around her. Her beauty was not loud or showy. It unfolded slowly, and the longer I looked, the harder it became to look away, as if it was not only her appearance, but something far harder to grasp in her presence that drew the eye.Marco looked at me from the side.– Her. The one working in the red dress.The rim of my glass stilled between my fingers, and in that moment, before I even knew her name, something instinctive inside me whispered that this game might be easier than I had thought.Marco slowly raised his glass, then signalled to the new waitress with a barely noticeable movement, while the conversation at the table continued in its usual rhythm, moving between business figures, agreements spoken in low voices and long-familiar interests, as if this evening were no different from any other. A few seconds later, she stopped beside us. Marco placed the order calmly, and she wrote down what we asked for without demanding any more attention with her presence than her work required. My eyes stayed on hers the whole time, because people say the eyes are the mirror of the soul, and when women are near me, their eyes usually reveal everything. But with her, I noticed nothing, as if she was standing in front of ordinary people. After she had written everything down, she nodded and left to get our drinks. The conversation continued without interruption, yet something difficult to name remained in me, a strange unease that had nothing to do with business or the people sitting around me. It was more like the trace of her brief presence, something I would not have been ready to explain even to myself, because it was rare for someone to pass so untouched through the kind of attention that usually changed people before it even had to do anything else. A few minutes later, she returned with the drinks.She held the tray with steady hands, and when she stepped closer to place the glasses on the table, the distance between us became smaller than it needed to be. In the world I was used to, that kind of closeness had its own unwritten rules, and I had lived by them for too long to question them. When she leaned over me, my hand moved instinctively up her thigh. The next moment overturned the order I was used to. She was faster than I expected.Before I could say a word, she snatched a glass from the table and poured its contents over me without the slightest hesitation. The cold liquid ran down my shirt and over my skin, while the pulsing noise around us seemed to dull for a single moment, and the lively world that, only seconds earlier, had been made of music and half-spoken conversations suddenly became a distant background. My shirt clung to my chest, but that was not what I truly felt. Anger suddenly flooded my mind, and I stood up. Marco caught my hand then, calming me. Our faces were close, but she was not afraid of me, and that was strange.– What do you think you’re doing? – she asked. Her voice was sharp, yet controlled, every word carrying a boundary she was not willing to cross for anyone. She looked at me angrily, and it only made her more attractive.Silence fell around the table. Not complete silence, because the music still pulsed and the club still breathed around us, yet the sudden tension that spread through the VIP section was unmistakable. Beside me, Marco breathed out quietly. Someone moved in the background, but I did not care about any of them. My eyes stayed on her. It was not the public scene or wounded pride that occupied me, but the realisation forming inside me with unexpected sharpness while my wet shirt clung to my skin: she was not one of those women who dissolved tension with silence or adapted to whatever was placed in front of them. Her face remained tense, her gaze did not waver for even a moment, and I saw no fear in her, none of that quick regret that usually appears in people’s eyes when they realise who they are standing in front of. She did not regret it, and that stirred a strange, unexpected interest in me, because in this world, too many people bowed too easily.She, however, was not like that. Then she turned away. Not quickly, not uncertainly, but with the calm, final movement of someone who was not running, but deciding, as if the scene was already over for her. The red dress followed her steps softly as she left the VIP section, and although she did not try to disappear or look for an explanation, there was something final in the way she simply walked away.And that was exactly where something broke in the usual order, because others would have looked back. They would have measured the consequences. She did not. My gaze stayed on her even after the lights and moving bodies slowly swallowed her presence, and as the silence around the table grew heavier, an unusually calm thought formed in me. Not anger. Not offence. The realisation that Marco may have, for the first time, chosen a woman who did not yet know what kind of game she had stepped into, and that thought was dangerously interesting.The world around me slowly returned to its usual rhythm, the music filled the room again, and the conversations continued as if what had just happened had only been a brief disturbance in the system, an unpleasant but quickly forgettable moment. Inside me, however, the silence remained, because what I had just seen did not fit any pattern I knew. Marco looked at me with a wide, almost satisfied smile, as if he had been waiting for exactly this moment.– Good luck, Massimo… you have six months, – he said calmly, then added after a short pause, – I wouldn’t wait too long if I were you.His voice stayed light, yet I heard the unspoken pleasure in it, the kind that comes from seeing something, for the first time, that might not be entirely predictable even for me. And for the first time, the question was not whether I would have her, but how long it would take. My shirt still clung wetly to my skin, the fading trace of cold still there, but that detail had become completely meaningless, because my thoughts were no longer circling the small details of the scene. They were on her. On that look, that voice, and that line she had drawn so naturally, behind which there was no uncertainty or fear, but something far more stubborn. As if, for her, this was not an exception, but a rule. And I had never been the kind of man who accepted anything outside his control. I sat still for a few more seconds, watching the direction of the exit where she had disappeared into the lights and the crowd only minutes earlier, then slowly stood up, and without saying anything to anyone, I went after her, because in that moment, what had happened was no longer what interested me.She was. Who was this woman who could react to me like that, and what was it in her that refused to bend the way it did in others? The hallway was quieter, the pulse of the club filtering through the walls in a muted throb, and the half-light made the space feel narrower and more closed in, as if behind the noisy world there existed another one, one most guests would never see. When I reached the dressing room door, I pressed the handle down in one firm movement. The door opened soundlessly.I stepped inside.Then I closed it behind me. The dull sound echoed through the narrow room, and the moment the lock settled into place, the outside world seemed to drift farther away. She stood with her back to me. She was packing her bag with quick, tense movements, as if every second mattered, and her shoulders looked stiffer than what she had shown outside. But when she heard the door close, she turned at once. Her gaze found me in a single instant. Sharp. Direct. Without avoidance.– Get out of here, you’re not allowed in! – she snapped immediately. Her voice was not only angry. It was firm. The voice of a woman used to drawing her own boundaries and not waiting for others to respect them.I stopped in front of the door. I did not hurry. My gaze moved over her, then I took one slow step towards her, as if her reaction was completely natural to me.– Interesting way to welcome guests, – I said calmly, without a trace of anger in my voice. Her gaze hardened immediately.– You are not a guest, – she snapped back without hesitation. – And don’t try to act as if you don’t know what I’m talking about.Her words struck sharply in the narrow space. She did not step back. She did not lower her eyes, and the anger in her, which might have been messy or instinctive in someone else, carried a strange discipline. I took another step towards her. The air between us suddenly felt thicker.– Do you always judge people this quickly? – I asked quietly, while a dangerously playful half-smile appeared at the corner of my mouth despite myself.Her eyes flashed.– And do you always think you can do whatever you want? – she answered with growing tension. I could feel the anger inside her, but it did not fully break loose. Her face remained still, as if even the smallest spark of rage could not shake her.Silence settled between us after the question. It was not uncomfortable, but charged, because in that moment the situation was no longer about the drink, the club, or even the scene from earlier. It was about two wills. Two people, neither of whom was used to stepping back. And as she stood in front of me, one hand still on her bag, the same raw resistance burning in her eyes that had stopped the air in the VIP section only minutes before, the thought seriously crossed my mind for the first time that Marco might not have made a simple bet. He might have started a war.– Yes. I can do whatever I want, and I go wherever I want, – I answered quietly, my voice holding the calm certainty a man builds over long years when he has seen too many times that the world adjusts to him, not the other way around, and when no one has ever forced him to explain or justify it.