Wrong Room: Sleeping With My Fiancé's Uncle novel · Chapter 10 of 32

Chapter 10: The Right Room

I held up my left hand.

The pale line where the ring had been was the only thing on it.

"I gave it back at nine," I said. "He called you at what, eleven?"

"Eleven twenty."

"So he took two hours to decide I was crazy."

Colm looked at my hand for a long time.

Then he looked at my face.

"Are you all right?"

"I don't know yet." I stepped back from the door. "Come in. Don't trip on the croissant slippers."

He came in and stood in the middle of Dell's tiny living room.

His head nearly touched the light.

"I'd offer you a drink," I said, "but Dell's only got cooking sherry and a beer from July."

"I don't want a drink."

"Tea, then. It's the fire escape or the couch, and the couch has a spring that bites."

So we sat on the fire escape.

Dell's window sticks halfway, so he had to fold himself through it sideways.

It was cold. The snow had stopped. Ninth Avenue was wet and yellow under the streetlights, and somebody on the next block was playing a trumpet badly.

I gave him Dell's mug that says WORLD'S OKAYEST BAKER.

He held it in both hands and didn't drink.

"I'm not here to ask you for anything," he said.

"I know."

"I mean it. Ryland called. I wanted you to hear it from me before you heard it from someone else. That's all."

"That's all?"

He was quiet.

The trumpet down the block tried a high note and missed.

"No," he said. "That's not all."

He set the mug down on the iron slats.

"I knew in the hall," he said. "When you told me I wasn't getting the notebook. I didn't know who you were, and I didn't care. I've been walking my own hotel at night for ten days hoping you'd be on the next floor."

I didn't say anything.

"Then I found out whose you were. At my own table." He looked at the street. "I told myself it was over before it started. I've been telling myself every day since."

"And?"

"And I'm not very good at listening to myself."

I laughed.

It came out shaky.

He turned his head and looked at me.

"You've had a terrible night," he said. "You've had a terrible ten days. I'm the last thing you need, and I'm his uncle, and it's going to be ugly when it comes out. So I'm going to finish this tea, and go home, and you can call me Mr. Kinsella in the morning."

"I don't want you to go home."

He went very still.

"I'm not drunk," I said. "I haven't had anything since the soda water at your bar. I'm not upset. I'm not doing this to get back at him."

"Romy."

It was the first time he'd said my real name.

It sounded like he'd been holding it in his mouth for days.

"I want to go back to the twentieth floor," I said. "I want to walk through the right door this time. On purpose."

He looked at me a long moment.

"Then say it like you mean it."

"I mean it."

"Say it once more."

"Yes, Colm. I want you."

He breathed out.

Then he leaned across the iron slats and kissed me.

Slowly, at first, like he was asking.

Then not slowly at all.

His hand slid into my hair and I grabbed his coat and the tea went over the side of the fire escape, mug and all, four floors down.

We both heard it smash.

I broke the kiss, laughing against his mouth.

"Dell's going to kill you."

"I'll buy her a new one."

"It was her okayest one."

He kissed me again, harder, until the iron was cold against my back and I'd forgotten the mug entirely.

When he pulled back, his eyes were dark and he was breathing.

"Not here," he said. "Not on a fire escape. Get your coat."

I put on the beige raincoat over my jeans and the gray sweater.

Then I stood in front of Dell's hall mirror and pulled on the wig and the glasses.

Colm watched me do it.

"You don't have to," he said.

"Not for him," I said. "For Dell's job. Nobody sees Ryland's fiancée walk into the Kinsella with you at one in the morning. They see Jane."

He drove.

He parked on 58th Street and we went in through the staff entrance, past the dark laundry, and up the back corridor to the private elevator.

He swiped his card.

The elevator was all brass and mirrors, with a small black camera dome in the ceiling.

I didn't look at it.

I was looking at him.

He didn't touch me the whole ride up.

His hands stayed in his coat pockets.

The numbers climbed. Twelve. Sixteen. Nineteen.

Twenty.

The doors opened onto the hall where he'd found me in his socks.

2001 on the left. 2002 on the right.

Brass numbers set low on heavy mahogany.

He unlocked 2001 and held the door.

I stood on the threshold and pulled off the wig and the glasses.

My hair came down over the beige coat.

He made a sound low in his throat.

I walked into the sitting room.

The desk by the window. The carpet where I'd set down the cake.

The connecting door to 2002 was shut.

I crossed the room and checked it myself.

Latched. Locked.

"It's been locked since that night," Colm said behind me. "I had them put a bolt on it the next morning."

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