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In the living room, a dimmed crystal chandelier casts an inviting glow over creamy upholstered furniture and a pale gray patterned rug. Built-in bookcases line the entire span of the far wall, packed with enough reading material to keep someone busy for a couple of years. Delicate accent tables hold small collections of art objects and interesting trinkets that Claire has likely picked up from her travels. The entire room is a sophisticated, visual feast—all of it perfectly arranged before a pair of ten-foot square windows that look out at the sparkling nighttime city that surrounds us.
For what certainly isn’t the first time, I find myself caught in disbelief that Claire Prentice’s bad luck tonight has become my life-line.
And what a life-line it is.
I walk up to the immense panes of glass and can only stare out in awe at the incredible view. I’ve never longed for extravagance, and, God knows, I’ve never come close to having it, but I feel like a princess in her tower as I stand in the elegance of Claire’s living room and look out at the city lights. The clusters of buildings overlap each other in my field of view, thousands of illuminated windows glittering like diamonds in the darkness. I can’t wait to see the view from here in the daylight. With a few months ahead of me while Claire is away, maybe I’ll even have the chance to paint it.
“Hey, check out this amazing kitchen!” Tasha calls from the adjacent area. “You sure you don’t wanna come stay at my house and I’ll water Claire’s plants for the next four months? Hell, I’ll even let you keep the money.”
I laugh quietly and shake my head. I have no doubt I’d be far more comfortable in Tasha’s cramped Queens duplex than here, but I know she’s only kidding about trading places with me. At least, I think she’s kidding.
We spend the next hour taking stock of Claire’s gorgeous apartment. While Tasha ogles Claire’s designer wardrobe and enviable shoe collection, I move through the place making a mental checklist of things I need to figure out or ask Manny or the building manager about when I come back.
Eventually, Tasha and I lock up, then head down to the lobby to leave. We say our goodbyes outside the building, where I ignore her protests and spring for separate taxis home for both of us. After cursing me for being stubborn and wasting good money, she gives me a hug then follows Manny to the opened door of her cab, waving as she takes off.
I walk over to the other idling vehicle.
“Here you go, Ms. Ross,” Manny says, holding the door for me. “Shall we look forward to seeing you tomorrow, then?”
“Ah, I guess so,” I say as I climb into the backseat, though part of me is still processing the idea of trading my tiny apartment for this kind of opulence, even if only temporarily.
This isn’t my world, and I’ll do well to remember that. After four months, my time here will be up and I’ll go back to the life I’ve made for myself in the real world. All of my problems will be waiting to reclaim me on the other side of this brief escape from reality . . . along with the secrets I carry that will never let me go.
With reminders of my past clinging to me, I pause to look up at the kind doorman before he closes my door. “Goodnight, Manny. And please, call me Avery.”
“Very well, then. Goodnight, Miss Avery.” He winks and inclines his head in a slight bow as he closes the door, then gives the roof of the taxi a light pat to send it on its way.
I tell the driver my address, then settle back for the forty-minute ride. As we cruise down Park Avenue, I study the neighborhood that’s going to be mine for the next few months.
And when I spot the dark figure of a lone runner on the opposite sidewalk, heading back in the direction of the building, I can’t help the jolt of recognition—of visceral awareness—that arrows through me.
Mr. Baine.
His strides are long, fluid. Aggressive. His muscular body slices through the darkness like a blade. Like a man who expects the world around him to make way for him, simply because he’s there.
If I need reasons to stay away from a man like him—from any man, in fact—I have plenty. But that doesn’t keep my pulse from speeding up as I watch his powerful body move. It doesn’t keep my skin from heating and tightening at the memory of penetratingly sharp blue eyes piercing me—stripping me bare—earlier tonight.
He is not for me. I know this.
But once I see him, I can’t stop looking.
Not until the distance stretches between us and he vanishes into the night behind me.
~ ~ ~
After a restless night on the pull-down bed in my one-room studio, reality wakes me in the form of my landlord pounding on my door just before eight in the morning. Dreams of glittering high-rises and glowering blue-eyed strangers dissolve under the relentless hammering.
“Avery, I know you’re in there!” my landlord, Leo, shouts to me in his smoker’s rasp through the dead bolted door. “We need to talk about the apartment.”
Bam-bam-bam.
“Come on, open up, now. I know you got the eviction notice I left for you. How long you think you can avoid me? Avery?”
He pounds again. At the same time, my cell phone starts ringing.
On a groan, I throw the blanket off me and drag my eyelids open to see who’s calling.
Wonderful. It’s my mother. The last thing I want is for her to hear my landlord threatening to break down my door and toss me out onto the street. She worries about me enough as it is. I’m not about to add any stress to her life.
