Page 19 of Shamefully Trained

It was one of those places that seemed designed to transport you to Europe. Dark wood, brass, expensive pastries under glass, little marble tables close enough together to encourage quietness. I had a look, and kept walking, then stopped half a block away and checked the time on my phone. 2:47.

Too early.

I stood there anyway, pretending to examine the menu in the window of a different café while my heart pounded. I wondered if he was already inside, watching. The thought made my nipples tighten abruptly under the bra. I looked around, suddenly self-conscious about the way I stood, the way I held my bag, the possibility that every man in a good coat might be him.

At 2:55 I could not justify waiting outside any longer, so I went back to Café Fleur and went in.

The bell over the door gave a discreet little chime that still felt to me like an announcement.

The warmth hit first, then the smell of coffee and butter and sugar. I took in the room in one sweep that I hoped looked casual: couples, two women with laptops, an older man alone with a newspaper, a pair of young staffer-looking types in shirtsleeves, their suit jackets over the backs of their chairs.

Then I saw him.

He sat at a table near the back, where he could see both the door and most of the room without being in the middle of it.

For half a second I stopped walking.

The photograph on the app had been accurate in a functionally useless way. Yes, the jaw, the mouth, the dark suit, the silver at the temple. It had omitted the effect.

In person Porter B. was tall, but lean rather than bulky, not imposing in the crude way some men were. He sat with such complete self-possession that the space around him seemed to arrange itself accordingly. His suit was charcoal, his shirt white, his tie dark blue. He looked wealthy without looking decorated.

His gaze was on me already, and I knew at once that he had recognized me, though I couldn’t have said exactly how I understood that. Perhaps he had narrowed his eyes, but so very slightly that only my unconscious mind perceived it.

I made myself continue toward him, very aware of my legs, my face, the sound of my heels on the floor. My pulse had shifted into an embarrassing, hard rhythm. It made me feel as if some animal part of me had begun throwing itself against my ribs.

When I reached the table, he stood.

That unsettled me too, because it felt so courteous, though somehow the courtesy did not dilute his effortless authority at all. If anything it made it seem heavier.

“Alexandra,” he said.

His voice was lower than I had imagined, even and controlled. No rush in it. No false warmth either.

“Porter,” I said, and then immediately quailed at having used his first name so quickly, as though we were already on terms.

His eyes rested on my face for a second longer than politeness strictly required. Appraisingly. I had the vivid, humiliating sense that he had taken in the flush high on my cheeks, the care I had put into my makeup, the fact that I had tried very hard not to look like a woman wearing nice lingerie under her clothes because he had told her to.

I also had the fleeting impression that he had almost just told me not to use his first name, but rather to call him Mr. B or something even more dismaying—sir or master. My tummy’s reaction to the latter brought a transitory crease to my brow.

Porter gestured to the chair opposite his. “Sit.”

Not please sit. Just sit.

I told myself that I was only sitting because that was what people did at tables in cafés. My body didn’t seem interested in such distinctions. I sat at once.

He resumed his seat after I had taken mine. Another tiny thing. Another tiny, somehow infuriating, thing I noticed.

A server appeared as if summoned by Porter’s posture alone. Porter looked at me. “Coffee?”

“Yes,” I said. “Black is fine.”

He glanced at the server. “Bring her coffee. And water.”

The server nodded and went away.

I should have objected to the water, maybe. Or to the way he had ordered for me without checking whether I wanted something else, like a pastry. Instead I sat there with my hands folded carefully in my lap. I tried not to think about how quickly my body had responded to his tone.

“You’re early,” he said, his mouth curving slightly upward, but his eyes tracking my reactions so closely I felt the heat in my cheeks ebb and flow—mostly flow.