Contract said no feelings. His lips broke the rules. novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Camera Ready

At dinner they invent how they met in unison, the first public kiss lasts longer than clause four allows, and the woman from the photo walks up to the table.

The restaurant had given us the private room at the back, with a round table and a window onto the street.

Photographers were already on the sidewalk outside.

Someone had told them where to stand, and I did not have time to think about who.

The chairwoman sat across from us with her interpreter at her elbow, and she did not touch her menu.

"Madam asks how you met," the interpreter said.

Weston and I opened our mouths at the same moment.

"At a conference," he said.

"In an elevator," I said.

Nobody at the table moved.

"At a conference," Weston said, "in an elevator."

"It got stuck," I said.

"For forty minutes," he said.

"Between the thirtieth and thirty-first floors."

"She told me my contract was wrong."

"It was wrong. It had a clause that did nothing."

"I fixed it," he said, "and she was still angry."

The interpreter translated, and the chairwoman listened with her chin tilted.

"A woman who corrects a man in an elevator," the interpreter said. "Madam says this is the first true thing she has heard from him."

I did not look at Weston. I could feel him not looking at me.

The waiter poured the tea. The chairwoman waited until he left, and then she said something in a lower voice.

"Madam asks one more question," the interpreter said. "In her country, a couple that is real does not need to be told to touch. She has not seen it happen once tonight."

Under the table, Weston's knee was a few inches from mine.

He had not so much as passed me the salt.

The contract had a clause for this, and I had written it myself. Clause four. One kiss on the mouth if the room needs it.

The room needed it.

"She's right," I said. "We've been rude."

I turned in my chair, put my hand flat on his chest and kissed him.

I had meant it to be one short, clean kiss for the table.

His hand came up and settled along my jaw, and he didn't let me go.

His mouth was warm and slow and certain, and it opened mine without asking permission from clause four.

My fingers closed in his shirt.

I had not planned that, and neither of us seemed to be able to stop it.

His thumb moved along my cheekbone once, and my knee gave a small, stupid jerk against the table leg.

Somewhere across the room, the interpreter coughed and looked at the ceiling.

Weston lifted his head by an inch.

His breath was uneven against my mouth.

"Is that enough?" he said, very low.

It wasn't what I'd expected him to say, and I couldn't think of a rule for it.

"Yes," I said.

I let go of his shirt one finger at a time.

When I turned back, the chairwoman was watching me over her teacup.

She said something short, and the interpreter's mouth twitched.

"Madam says she has not seen a man look at a woman like that since her husband was alive," the interpreter said. "She says she would like to have a second dinner."

"Thank her," Weston said. His voice was rougher than it had been.

I picked up my napkin and put it in my lap.

My mouth still felt the pressure of his.

That was past the limit of clause four, and I knew it. I had set the limit myself.

The photographers outside had stopped shuffling. One of them was holding up a phone against the glass, and I could not have said whether he had seen it all.

"The room needed it," Weston murmured, not looking at me.

"The room did," I said, and I reached for my tea with a hand that was not quite steady.

The door opened at the far end of the private room.

A woman in a cream dress stood in the doorway with a clutch bag under her arm and a nervous half smile.

I knew her from the photograph. She had been laughing in it.

"Weston," she said. "I'm so sorry to interrupt. I've been trying to reach you all day."

She looked at me, then at his hand still resting on the back of my chair.

"I'm Marissa," she said. "I think I owe you an apology."

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