The room had started to steam. She flipped the switch for the fan and heard nothing. Not the slightest whirr. No big surprise there. The place was falling apart, and that old bat Phoebe Matrix was too lazy and greedy to get anything fixed. You’d think since she owned the place, wasn’t just the manager, Phoebe would take better care of things. But she didn’t. Instead the old woman spent her hours and days peering out the window, spying on her tenants, when she wasn’t doting on that yappy little dog of hers or complaining about her ailments : a bad knee, arthritis in her back, diabetes, and her deathly aversion to peanuts. As if anyone cared.
Sophia pulled off her sweater and bra, then wiggled out of her skinny jeans and undies.
The shower pipes groaned as Sophia stepped into the phone-booth-sized shower with its stained panels. In the thin spray, she scrubbed off her makeup, careful to wash around her hairline, under her chin, and around her neck.
She thought of James again and was instantly pissed that she’d let him slip through her fingers. He was the one—the only one. It wasn’t that he was smart and sexy, it was that he was rich. Even though he hadn’t yet inherited the fortune he was due to receive, he still had money from all of his business ventures. Sophia knew. She had checked.
And once he inherited . . .
She lathered, then rinsed, turned off the shower, and stepped into the foggy bathroom to swipe at the mirror and crack the door. She let down her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders, covering the freckles on her neck, then found fresh clothes.
She set her jaw as the moisture in the room dissipated and goose bumps rose on her skin in the cold air. She’d made love to him, tried her best to be sexy and sweet, and . . . oh, it wasn’t working!
But she had a plan . . .
She snagged her bathrobe from the hook on the back of the old door and slipped it on, the thick white terry cloth drying the remaining droplets from her skin. Then she hurried downstairs and decided to call Julia.
Her sister would know what to do.
She always did.
But all Julia would do would be to caution Sophia not to lose her heart.
Well, too late for that!
Julia would remind Sophia how high the emotional stakes were and to play it cool.
As if she could!
Cinching the belt tight around her waist, she speed-dialed her sister. Noticing the date on her phone, she smiled to herself. Only a couple of weeks until Christmas . . .
She felt a warm rush of anticipation, her fingers skimming the terry cloth over her abdomen.
Things were bound to change.
* * *
Willow made it home. Her ankle and shin throbbing, she climbed the creaking exterior stairs to her little apartment. The lower floor was empty, the once-upon-a-time bakery no longer there. Sweet Scents had closed over a year ago; the ovens, tables, chairs, and counter were all gathering dust, and a FOR LEASE sign was fading in the grimy window.
She should move.
Though the bakery had been noisy—the baker arriving hours before dawn and pans clattering, a radio playing some classical music, the sounds drifting upward through the vents—she’d liked it. With the aromas of freshly baked breads and sweet cakes, yeast, cinnamon, and coffee wafting into her sparsely furnished unit, she’d felt a part of something. At almost any hour, Willow had been able to walk through the back door of the bakery, where the baker, Mrs. Nottingham, greeted her. A chubby, round-faced widow, Elsa Nottingham had been forever wearing an apron dusted with flour and had never forgotten to save Willow a day-old muffin or scone, which she’d handed out happily, along with a bit of grandmotherly advice that Willow had always ignored.
But those days were long gone, and this winter, Willow’s studio was drab and cold, her blankets thin, the space heater inconsistent, the entire building feeling forsaken and empty.
Currently, she was the only occupant of the building as the only other apartment, most recently occupied by an elderly man, was now vacant and had been for over six months, which left Willow as the single tenant in over five thousand square feet of neglected building.
All in all, it was depressing.
But that was bound to change.
Once James realized . . .
Oh, God—what about the gun? If he found the Glock in the bedroom—
Angrily she pushed that thought aside and unlocked the apartment.
Inside, she turned on the space heater. As it clicked to life, she peeled off her clothes and dropped them into a bathroom hamper. Her ankle was already swollen and discoloring rapidly, and the scrape on her shin was crusted with blood. She cleaned the scrape, decided it wasn’t all that bad, and applied antiseptic lotion and a row of Band-Aids. In the medicine cabinet, she found a near-empty bottle of Tylenol and tossed back the last two capsules, taking them dry. Gingerly, she stepped into flannel pajamas she’d bought years before, the print of pink French poodles and gray Eiffel Towers nearly indistinguishable.
Paris.
The City of Light.
Would she ever really get there?
Of course! James would take her.
Maybe for their honeymoon!
Feeling slightly better, Willow turned on the lights on her tiny artificial tree, made a cup of herbal tea, and sipped it while surfing through the channels on her old TV. She settled on a movie channel playing some inane romantic comedy. Then she crawled into her bed, a twin she’d had since she was eight, and propped herself up on the pillows. When the movie ended, she switched to the channel that played heart-and-hearth-style Christmas movies, filled with glitter and hope, the bad guys always found out, the hero and heroine destined to find happiness and Christmas forever . . .
She let herself be drawn into one movie and then another, and finally clicked off
