Haunted Love

Aspen Ryder is a twenty-two-year-old college senior who has spent most of her life in love with Izaac Banks, her older brother Austin's best friend. Izaac, six years her senior, was adopted as a young child by a wealthy couple and has been practically a member of the Ryder family since childhood. He owns three successful nightclubs and has always treated Aspen as nothing more than Austin's little sister. Despite years of longing, Aspen has never been with anyone, unable to move past her feelings for him.

One Friday night, Aspen's best friend, Becs, drags her to Vixen, an exclusive underground sex club complete with NDAs, health screenings, and color-coded wristbands indicating sexual preferences and experience. Aspen selects a white band signifying virginity and a red one for private intercourse. In the VIP lounge, she follows a tall stranger into a pitch-black private room where, in total darkness, a man who calls her "Little Birdy" takes her virginity with overwhelming intensity. She never sees his face.

The next morning, Aspen arrives glowing at her mother Angella's sixtieth birthday lunch at the Ryder estate. Angella spots a smudged gold moth stamp on Aspen's wrist from Vixen's entry process. Both Austin and Izaac recognize it: Izaac secretly owns Vixen and realizes Aspen was in his VIP lounge. Austin privately demands Izaac delete all footage of Aspen and ban her. By the pool that afternoon, Izaac presses Aspen about Vixen. As he scoops her hair aside, sensory details flood him: her perfume, her waist, her voice. He realizes with horror that Aspen was the woman in the dark room. He took his best friend's sister's virginity without knowing it.

Concealing his discovery, Izaac invites everyone to his club Pulse that evening to maintain normalcy. Austin and Aspen fight about Vixen, with Aspen calling him a hypocrite for attending the club himself. That night at the Ryder estate, Izaac hears Aspen through the thin bedroom wall, and a text exchange escalates into explicit messages. Both climax simultaneously, then agree Austin can never know. The next morning, Izaac insists nothing can happen between them.

Over the following days, Izaac deletes Aspen's surveillance footage from Vixen. When Aspen mentions a Tinder date, Izaac reacts with jealousy. The date falls through, but Aspen drives back to Vixen. In the dark room, the mystery man speaks close to her ear and she recognizes his voice: It is Izaac. She kicks him away. The confrontation is devastating. Izaac admits he identified her at the birthday lunch but returned to the dark room anyway. She tells him she hates him. Two weeks of silence follow.

Izaac eventually sits outside Aspen's apartment for two hours until she angrily lets him in. She makes a bold proposition: He will teach her the limits of her body at Vixen, strictly physical with no emotion or kissing, and she will forgive him. If he refuses, she will find someone else. Driven equally by desire and guilt, Izaac agrees after two days, setting conditions that everything stays at Vixen and Austin never learns.

Their sessions intensify, but emotional boundaries keep dissolving. At Austin's birthday party at Cherry, another of Izaac's clubs, Izaac breaks his own rules by having sex with Aspen in his office after punching a man who groped her. Afterward, he shuts down emotionally. In a painful phone call, Aspen demands to know if he will ever love her. He says he is not capable of it. She tells him not to call again.

Izaac texts demanding she meet him at Vixen, but Aspen ignores him. When she fails to show, he storms into her apartment and discovers she has plans to go out. She tells him she is done unless he can admit he loves her, and asks him to kiss her as proof. He refuses, and she walks out.

That night, walking home alone after drinks with Becs, Aspen is followed by a man in a black hoodie. She hides in bushes and calls Austin, who is out of town. Austin connects Izaac, who races toward her while confessing his feelings over the phone to keep her calm: He wants her more than anything, and he has been a coward. He arrives, beats the stalker unconscious, and pulls her into his arms. At a gas station on the way to his house, Aspen grabs his hand through the car window when a woman flirts with him, and Izaac laces his fingers through hers.

At his home, Aspen demands he admit he loves her. Izaac reveals his deepest wound: Abandoned by his biological parents, he believes he is incapable of love. Aspen counters that he has shown love his entire life through protecting her, holding her hand, and fighting for her. After a moment of paralyzing fear, Izaac kisses her deeply for the first time and carries her to his bed, where they make love with full emotional intimacy. He has never kissed anyone or brought a woman to his bed before.

During a family gathering at the Ryder estate, Austin finds Aspen half-naked in Izaac's arms and throws a punch that accidentally strikes her. A brawl erupts, and Austin declares Izaac dead to him. In the painful weeks that follow, Austin blocks Aspen and cruelly tells her Izaac is just using her for sex. Izaac insists he cannot be with Aspen until Austin approves and tells her to fall in love with someone else. Aspen walks away in tears.

Becs convinces Aspen to return to Vixen, where Aspen waits in the dark room with the door inadvertently left open. Ryatt Markin, a club member who has repeatedly approached Aspen and preys on women who appear innocent, enters and blocks the exit. He attempts to assault her. Using the self-defense technique Izaac taught her during the stalker incident, Aspen stabs Ryatt in the neck with a pen. Izaac kicks down the door, finds her bloodied and terrified, and declares to Austin, who has also arrived, that he is in love with Aspen and done waiting for permission.

At home, Izaac tells Aspen he loves her and reveals he has been fighting for Austin's acceptance for weeks, including being arrested twice for trespassing at Austin's restaurant. Police confirm Aspen acted in self-defense. Days later, Austin comes to Aspen's apartment and delivers a sincere apology, acknowledging his cruelty contributed to the events at Vixen. He concedes that if Izaac makes her happy, he wants that for her, though he needs time.

In the epilogue, three months later, Aspen has graduated and begun working at a PR firm. The family gathers for the opening of Austin's restaurant, named Aspen's. Izaac reveals he has purchased a fifth club, to be called Little Birdy, and discloses that all his clubs were secretly named for Aspen: Cherry for her virginity, Pulse for his racing heart, Scandal for what their relationship would be, and Vixen for her. He proposes a playful bet: If Aspen wins a challenge at Vixen, they get a puppy; if Izaac wins, he makes her his wife. Wanting nothing more than to lose, Aspen accepts.