Secret Strangers in Love novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Fifty-Second Floor

On Wednesday night Mr. Stanhope took me up in a private elevator to the fifty-second floor.

"It's a company apartment," he said. "I'm only borrowing it."

"It has a piano."

"No one in it plays."

The place was all glass and pale wood, and the whole Gold Coast lay under the windows.

There was almost nothing on the walls.

On a bookshelf stood one small photograph of a boy in a ski jacket beside a laughing dark-haired woman.

"Your mother?" I asked.

"Yes."

"You look like her when you laugh."

"I don't laugh much."

"You do around me."

He did not answer, because he was already crossing the floor toward me.

He took my coat off, folded it over a chair and kissed my forehead.

Then his hands slid down my arms.

"Shower," he said. "You're cold."

"I'm not cold."

"You've been shaking since Monday."

"Nothing happened Monday."

"Lexie."

"A woman I used to know got on the elevator. It was awful."

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"No," I said. "I want you to make me forget it."

He took my hand and led me to the bathroom.

It was bigger than my apartment, with a glass-walled shower and a ceiling of rain.

He turned on the water and undressed me slowly, and I let him.

My blouse, my skirt, and the cotton he liked so much.

He pulled his own shirt over his head, and I got my first long look at him in good light.

He was lean and broad through the shoulders, with a pale line of old scar across one rib.

"Skiing," he said.

"I didn't ask."

"You looked."

I put my palm over the scar and felt his heart.

Then I stepped into the water, and he followed.

The steam wrapped us.

He backed me against the cool glass wall, where the whole city looked in, and kissed me until my head swam.

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