That he could make everything all right.
Tentatively, she smiled back at him. And then, before he took it as an affront to his strictly business attitude, she quickly turned her attention out her window, watching with interest as New York City unfolded before her.
He pointed it out when they passed through Times Square, and the famous Theater District. She recognized Macy’s and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Empire State Building. The traffic was chronically snarled and it seemed to take forever to move a small distance, but the constant noise and activity outside the car held her interest. New York City was a constant swirl of movement, light and sound.
His apartment building, across from a park, impossibly seemed fancier than the hotel they had left behind. When they got out of the car, she didn’t know what to look at first.
“Is that Central Park?” she asked.
He followed her gaze, and said with affection, “None other.”
“I thought it would be scary. Especially at night.”
Instead, she saw that even though it was now after 11:00 p.m., the park was a well-lit beautiful space. Young couples were strolling...people were walking their dogs. A runner in colorful spandex flew by. A horse-drawn carriage was clopping along in the distance.
A horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park was on her secret list of things she wanted to do in the short period of time she was here.
“One of the many misconceptions about New York is that Central Park is not safe,” Jamie told her. “The park is closed between 1:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. but most of the rest of the time it’s pretty well populated. Naturally you would want to stay to the well-traveled paths, but it’s quite beautiful at night.”
In Timber Falls everything was closed after six at night! Except Wilbur’s Watering Hole. Somehow, Jessica didn’t want to share that with him, though.
A doorman opened the door, greeted Jamie by name and tipped his hat to her, supremely indifferent to her business with Jamie. Did that mean he came through here with women frequently, not as unfamiliar with dalliances and trysts as he was letting on?
None of your business, Jessica told herself firmly. She turned her attention to the lobby of the building, which was more understated than the hotel lobby had been, but every bit as opulent.
The lobby should have prepared her for his apartment, but it didn’t. He had a special key for the elevator and it opened directly into his apartment, which made her think of something out of a James Bond movie. Lights whispered on automatically as soon as the elevator doors opened. There was a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the park and made the nightscape of the city that surrounded it look like a sparkling painting.
The living room, kitchen and dining room were all one large open space.
She could not stop herself from moving toward the kitchen. She ran her hand along the leathered granite of a huge kitchen island and then turned to look at the banks of white cabinets and the shining stainless steel appliances.
“It’s incredible that you don’t use a kitchen that looks like this,” she mused. “Look at it. Double ovens!”
“What does one use a double oven for?”
She shot him a look to see if he was kidding. He was not.
“Thanksgiving dinner. Christmas dinner.” She could not contain a sigh of pure longing. “Turkey in one. Pies in the other. It’s always a problem.”
He was giving her a look as if she came from another planet. That look should have been enough to stop her exploring, but no, she might never see anything like this again.
She shamelessly oohed and ahhed over the wine cooler, a built-in barista-style coffee maker, the cleverly hidden pull-out-drawer-style dishwasher.
She stopped at the fridge. “It looks big enough to park a Volkswagen in,” she said. “Can I peek inside?”
He nodded, watching her with that look, the one she couldn’t quite decipher. The one where she didn’t know if he found her annoying or amusing.
The fridge had zones in it! And yet, it was relatively empty. A few condiments, a container of cream, three bottles of imported beer.
The fridge seemed to mirror the rest of his space. Nothing had a “used” look to it. The polished counters were bare of the clutter of daily life. There wasn’t even a sugar bowl or a paper roll out. Where were the dish towels?
She turned her attention to the rest of the space. No books out, not even a newspaper tossed carelessly. No family pictures. Definitely no socks. The artwork was gorgeous, but all abstract, revealing nothing about him.
The space should have cemented him in her mind as what he was: cosmopolitan, busy, not home much.
Instead, the perfection of it, the ready-for-the-posh-interiors-magazine-cover-shoot, made her feel oddly sad. His home was beautiful, and yet it did not have any soul.
When she turned to study him, it was obvious to her that he was beautiful, too, but that he did have soul, a great strength of character, a composure that rose above the inevitable chaos of life.
“Your space is gorgeous,” she said, quietly.
“Why do I sense a but?” he asked, cocking his head at her.
“It doesn’t really suit you,” she ventured, feeling as if she was being way too personal, and at the same time that honesty was called for.
“Ah. I’ll have to speak to the designer about that.” She could tell he wanted to leave it there, but curiosity got the better of him. “In what way doesn’t it suit me?”
She did not know him well enough to weigh in on that. He could be her future boss, after all. Still, she couldn’t stop herself.
“It doesn’t feel like a home. It feels like a hotel.”
For a moment, he
