Chapter 15
Approximately sixty minutes later, I found myself in a carpeted hallway lined with winter garlands, walking hand-in-hand with Alaric.
Breakfast was over, the suite door closed behind us, and I hadn’t quite processed how we’d gone from our argument at Igor’s Pizza Parlor the day before yesterday to me allowing Alaric to take my hand without protest.
If Quinton and Renee had noticed, they’d made zero mention. Before we left their suite, Quinton, in his blandly superior way, had simply asked what our plans for the rest of the day were.
“Nothing much,” Alaric had replied, sending a quick, loaded glance in my direction. “Just spending time together.”
At the elevator, I’d expected Alaric to let go.
Instead, he tightened his grip. Not in a possessive way, but as if making sure I was still there.
A sort of anchor. My free hand hung at my side like an appendage from someone else’s body, feeling useless.
As useless as my spiteful and miserly choices since leaving Boston.
Glancing down at our hands, I wondered if maybe I’d gotten it wrong. Maybe Alaric was trying to be my anchor. I did feel slightly unmoored.
As soon as the elevator doors dinged open and we stepped inside, I could feel the change in air pressure—the world squeezing smaller, the boundaries pressed in close. We were alone, just the two of us, a silent mirror reflecting our images in both directions.
Alaric pressed the lobby button. The doors whispered shut. For three floors, neither of us said a word. I watched the numbers tick down.
It was Alaric who broke the silence. “You’re being very quiet,” he said.
The words hovered, not quite an accusation, but not neutral either.
I tilted my head, staring at the brass button panel. “Did you give Renee and Quinton talking points before we arrived?”
He let out a short, surprised laugh. “What? No. Of course not.”
The elevator was slow, almost luxurious in its descent. I considered the carpet under my feet, the unremarkable shade of beige. “Then why did you take me there? What was the point of that?”
He waited until the floor indicator chimed ten, then said, “My crackpot investigators, as you called them, said they couldn’t find anyone in Chicago who you were friendly with except Renee.”
That stung more than I expected, though I’d already known it. For a second I imagined a team of trenchcoated creeps rifling through my garbage, finding nothing but cold efficiency and a few withered shreds of humanity at the bottom of the can.
I bit the inside of my lip, hard, and stared straight ahead.
Alaric continued, “I don’t mind telling you, my goal for today is for us to spend time with people who we know, and who we value.”
The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors didn’t open immediately. There was a soft, pneumatic hiss, but no movement.
The truth was, I wasn’t sure I knew how to value someone without a scoreboard attached. Not anymore.
Standing here, beside a man who’d saw through me so exceptionally, and seemed to know all my faults and mistakes, I felt suddenly and irreparably inferior.
“Is this your way of telling me that I have no friends?” I asked around a tangle of knots in my throat that was starting to become familiar. “If so, you don’t need to. I already know this.”
“You do have friends, Alison. We met several in Boston, you just need to reach out. And Renee is your friend.”
I shook my head, more out of habit than disagreement. “No. She’s my employee. And apparently, I treat her very badly and punish her for all the mistakes other people have made, even though she is ridiculously loyal and hard working.”
He waited, as if testing whether I was finished or if I’d keep talking. The doors finally whooshed open, revealing the lobby. Alaric didn’t move, even as a bellhop rolled a clattering luggage cart past us, glancing at the two of us with unobtrusive curiosity.
Sensing I was finished, he said, “Usually, I would agree with you when you call her your employee. I don’t make a habit of befriending people who report to me. I don’t think it’s appropriate to blur that professional line. But you and Renee have been working together for over ten years, right?”
I nodded. The truth was, I’d known her much longer. We’d grown up in the same three-mile patch of West Texas, though at opposite ends of every socioeconomic and social hierarchy. But in this context, it was the professional history that mattered, so I focused on that part of the story.
“Again, based on what my crackpot team said, you hired her after her mom died and she was swimming in debt. Renee hadn’t yet graduated from college and had very little work experience other than retail.
Even so, you hired her, paid for her to finish college, and she’s your only W2 employee. You trust her completely.”
I thought of how she always had a pen ready, how she could finish my sentences on a contract revision, how she would show up for work even when she had the flu and a death in the family or a broken tooth.
Just like Alaric, Renee was better than I deserved, and I knew it.
“She’s smart and hardworking,” I said, my voice low, careful. “Anyone could see that. And we grew up together. She stood by me when we were kids, even when everyone else. . .”
I trailed off. Even when everyone else… what? Decided I wasn’t worth the effort? Believed the rumors about my mom? Even when every other person I’d ever let close had either left me, died, or turned out to be a villain?
“I hate to break it to you, but Renee is your friend.”
I let the words hang, looking anywhere but at him. They felt both true and unearned, like a trophy left behind by a previous tenant. I wondered what it might feel like to believe I deserved that kind of loyalty. Similarly, I wondered how it would feel to deserve Alaric’s admiration and affection.
He said, softly, “And as far as friends go, she’s an amazing one.”
I looked up, then, and saw that he meant it. That he had no ulterior motive, no manipulation, just a simple observation. I had a friend. I’d been so busy focusing on everything I’d lost that I’d stopped noticing who had chosen to stay by my side.
The elevator chimed again, signaling it was time to get the hell out or risk being forced back up to the top floor.
Alaric squeezed my hand and stepped forward, pulling me gently with him. “Hey, follow me for a second. I want to show you something.”
The lobby vibrated with pre-Christmas energy.
Alaric led me away from the main desk, past the Starbucks kiosk (always, everywhere, a Starbucks kiosk), and down a corridor I hadn’t taken note of when we’d first walked in.
It was quieter here, the lighting softer as we moved away from the main artery of the building.
There were brass placards on every door, names of rooms that sounded vaguely like colonial governors or whisky brands: The Ashton Room, The Fairfax, The St. James.
He walked with purpose, but not haste, as if this was a regular route and he was in no hurry to reach the destination. I let myself fall half a step behind, so that I could watch his shoulders move inside his coat, the way his hand found mine even when he had to shift his grip.
After a minute of walking, he stopped at a door labeled, in understated serif font, The Brenwine Room.
He turned, held the door for me. “After you.”
I was tempted to make a joke about what a ‘brenwine’ was and whether it could be cured with antibiotics, but I resisted and stepped inside.
The room was a small conference chamber. It was nothing special—an oval table, twelve high-backed chairs, a TV mounted on one wall, a dry-erase board, markers arranged by color. There was a faint scent of whiteboard cleaner and stale coffee.
Alaric closed the door behind us. It clicked with a mechanical finality, and I was instantly aware that we were alone again, but this felt different than the elevator.
He crossed the small space in three strides, and suddenly he was in front of me, crowding my personal space—not in a threatening way, but like he was drawing a line on the floor and daring me to step closer.
I squinted at him. “What are we doing in here?”
He just smiled, slow and deliberate, and I felt a wave of suspicion as he let the tiniest glimmer of his charisma out to play.
My stomach full of butterflies caused by the look in eye, I had not option but to make a bad joke. “If you’re about to ambush me with a PowerPoint presentation, I have to warn you—”
“Look up,” he said, voice velvet.
I looked up. There, dangling from a ceiling tile by a red-and-white baker’s twine, was a fist-sized ball of mistletoe.
For a second, I wanted to laugh. I wanted to say, You have got to be kidding me, or make some snide remark about OSHA guidelines and the fire hazard of dangling plants in a commercial space.
But instead, I felt my lips curve in a rueful, helpless smile. “Is that what you wanted to show me?”
He nodded, and the glint in his eye made it clear he was enjoying this moment a lot.
Holding my gaze until the last possible moment, he bent down, slow, giving me plenty of time to dodge or flinch, and pressed his mouth to the corner of my lips. Not quite a full kiss, but more than just the brush of skin. It was warm, and soft, and so careful that it felt a little like a question.
Then he pulled away, his eyes half-mast and heavy with a kind of barely restrained desire that, I was annoyed to find, made my toes curl inside my shoes.
I had to clear my throat before I could speak. “Will there be mistletoe everywhere we go today?”
He grinned, unapologetic, and his response sounded more like a threat than merely a taunt. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and find out.”
* * *