FOR ONE NIGHT — “The Stranger in Suite 9C” – Part I
By a voice you’ve trusted in every good story you’ve ever read
It started with a mistake.
Or maybe it was fate dressed in coincidence.
Claire had been on the run — not in the criminal sense, but in the emotional one.
Three days ago, she walked out of her apartment in Lisbon, left behind a fiancé, a life, a future someone else had planned for her. She took only her passport, one carry-on, and the sapphire necklace her grandmother gave her when she was sixteen — the one her fiancé told her to “put away for special occasions.”
She was done waiting for special occasions.
So now she stood in the elevator of the Hotel Bellaria, a seaside jewel carved into the cliffs above Positano, gripping her keycard to Suite 9C, trying to remember how it felt to breathe without guilt.
The elevator chimed.
She stepped out.
The hallway smelled of citrus and something floral. Room 9C was the last one on the corner, ocean-facing. She pushed open the door and entered a suite so beautiful it made her laugh — high ceilings, tall windows thrown open to the sea, curtains dancing like ghosts in the breeze. She dropped her bag, toed off her shoes, and walked barefoot to the terrace.
And that’s when she saw him.
Leaning against the terrace wall — dark suit jacket slung over one shoulder, a glass of something amber in his hand. The man turned toward her, eyes unreadable.
“You’re early,” he said, a faint smile playing on his lips.
Claire blinked.
“I think… I’m in the wrong room.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t we all?”
They stood in silence. The waves crashed somewhere below.
She should have apologized, turned and left. But there was something in his voice — not flirtation, not danger — something slower, sadder. Like they were both ghosts in a room they didn’t belong in.
He finally stepped back, gestured toward the second wine glass already poured on the table.
“I won’t ask why you’re here if you don’t ask me.”
Claire hesitated… then walked over and took the glass.
They spent the next hours suspended in a bubble neither could name.
She told him her name, but not her past. He told her stories — some real, some not. He was a pianist, or maybe a private investigator, or maybe a widower who’d stopped believing in second chances.
She didn’t press. She didn’t want to know. Not yet.
They danced once — barefoot in the room, to an old jazz record that skipped every few bars.
She laughed.
He didn’t. But he watched her like she was the only real thing in the world.
They didn’t touch — not yet. But the nearness was electric. Like a storm waiting to strike.
At midnight, he asked her:
“If this were the only night we had, what would you want to remember?”
She looked out at the black sea, then back at him.
“I want to forget everything but this.”
He nodded slowly.
“Then let’s disappear together. For one night.”
The rest is blurred on purpose.
By design.
Their stories tangled in the quiet hours. Fingers traced skin, breaths whispered secrets. Nothing held back. Nothing taken beyond what was given.
No names beyond the first. No promises.
Only a shared understanding: we are each other’s escape tonight.
When Claire woke in the morning, the sheets beside her were cold.
The only trace of him was a folded note on the pillow.
It read:
“Suite 9C. Same time. Same night. In another life.”
And beneath it, a line of music — hand-written, elegant, unfinished.
To Be Continued…
Only if she dares to find him again.