Chapter 11: Terms Broken

At eleven that night someone knocked on the penthouse door, three times, hard.

I knew who it was before I opened it.

Samson stood in the corridor in his shirtsleeves with his jacket over one arm.

His hair was wrecked from dragging his hand through it all evening.

"We have terms," I said. "Business only. It's eleven at night."

"I know the terms."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because there is something I have to tell you before tomorrow," he said. "And I couldn't say it in an office."

I should have shut the door.

I stepped back instead, and let him in.

He stopped in the middle of the living room and looked at the lake through the glass, and at me.

I was in a long gray sweater and nothing under it that I'd planned for company.

"Say it, then."

"I can't yet."

"You came all this way to not say it?"

"I came all this way to see you," Samson said.

The words sat in the room.

"That's a personal question," I said. "It breaks the rule."

"I made the rule. I told you I'd break it."

"Samson."

"I haven't touched you since the library," he said. "I've counted the days."

He took one step.

"You're my brother's wife."

"I'm not anyone's wife," I said, and I heard my own voice go rough. "Not since Tuesday."

"Then tell me to leave."

I looked at his mouth.

I did not tell him to leave.

He crossed the room in two strides and his hands came up into my hair and his mouth came down on mine.

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