Chapter Six
Six
A strikingly tall woman meets me in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria and seems to identify me immediately. “Georgia?” Her clipped British accent matches the severity of her coppery-red hair pulled back in a tight knot at the back of her head. “Yael Miller. This way.”
Before I can reach to shake her hand, she’s already turned and taken two long strides toward the elevator bank.
I’m uneasy about the lack of information, but not overly so. Billy knows where I am, knows who I’m meeting. He wouldn’t send me into a shady situation. And it’s obviously important if he agreed to give me a twelve-hour extension on my deadline.
Yael Miller presses the button for the penthouse, and we ride in the elevator in silence. Finally, the elevator doors open and we step out into a small alcove with only a single door ahead of us. She swipes a keycard and opens it, gesturing for me to step inside.
I do, but she doesn’t follow me in. The door sweeps closed with a heavy whoosh, sealing me inside.
And then my heart falls from my mouth and straight through the floor. Standing in front of the windows, leaning back with his hands braced on the sill, and looking very much like he did on the elevator up to his room only two days ago is Alec Kim.
The first words out of my mouth are simple reflex: “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He straightens immediately. “Don’t walk out.”
My shoulders are angled away already, and I’m sure the instinct to flee is written all over my face. A sour thought hits me like a pill dissolved on my tongue. “Wait. Was that your assistant?”
“Yes.”
“The one who got me the underwear?”
Alec nods.
“Well, remind me to thank her on the way out. I’m sure she loves running that particular errand.”
“It was a first,” he admits.
“She must have been pretty displeased,” I say, looking around. “She didn’t say a word to me the entire ride up.”
“That’s just how she is.” His brows flicker up as he interprets my meaning another way. “There’s no jealousy happening. I don’t appeal to Yael in that way.”
I exhale slowly, looking to the side. I now have no idea why I’m here. Does Alec really have something to tell me about Jupiter? And if so, why did he give no indication that he knew something when we were together in Seattle?
“Well,” I say, staring at the art on the wall. It looks expensive. I don’t remember even noticing the art in his last suite. “I’m here. What did you want to tell me?”
He inhales sharply through his nose, nodding slowly. “The way you left the airport, I couldn’t tell for sure… but it’s hard to miss the anger in your tone right now.”
“I’m not angry, Alec. I’m annoyed. I shared a really intense night with someone who lied to me about who he was, and now I’ve been summoned—while on deadline—and I have no idea why.”
“It was intense for me, too,” he says, ignoring the rest of what I’ve said. “But we both know it wouldn’t have been anything like that if I’d told you more about myself.”
He might be right but, “Still shitty,” I say.
“You work for the foreign news desk at the LA Times and had no idea who I was, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for not telling you?”
My jaw drops. “You’re an actor, not a diplomat,” I say. “Is your ego really so huge?”
He groans, tilting his face to the ceiling. “Come on, you know that isn’t what I mean. I just—either be angry that I didn’t tell you, or be glad we had the night we had, but you can’t be both.”
“I can absolutely be both. But it’s moot anyway: what we had two nights ago was bullshit.”
He weathers this as if I’ve physically shoved him, and a thread of guilt tugs at my chest. “Why would I think I should clarify for you who I am?” he asks.
“Why would it matter, at least at first? You were my sister’s childhood best friend.
I let you use my shower. I figured that would be it, and if you didn’t recognize me as someone other than Sunny’s brother, it made no difference to either of us.
But then we started talking, and then we were having drinks, and then we were holding hands, and the longer I didn’t tell you, the more I didn’t want to. ”
“You asked me all about my life and then were deliberately vague about yourself,” I say. “At least tell me, ‘I want a night off from my reality,’ or, ‘I don’t feel like getting into it.’ Don’t give me half-truths that make me feel like we’re being equally forthcoming.”
“I liked that I could just be a man with you,” he says. “That I didn’t have to live up to some expectation and that you weren’t nervous with me. I liked that you were real. I never get real, ever.” He stares at me for several tense seconds. “But I’m sorry I lied to you.”
I don’t know where we can possibly go from here. “Did you really bring me here to talk about what happened between us? You don’t have anything to tell me about Jupiter?”
He takes a few seconds to answer this, and in the quiet, I watch his jaw clench and relax. “No,” he says finally. “I had information to tell you.”
Immediately, my brain changes tracks. “Wait. You do know something?”
This story is a powder keg. My UK colleague Ian and I spent the last two weeks scrambling to unearth what’s really happening inside Jupiter. We found some bombshells, but without sources willing to speak to us, we also met a frustrating number of dead ends.
And Alec knows something important enough for him to call Billy and have me sent here? Stunned, I feel my jaw open and then close.
He reads my reaction in the silence. “I wasn’t sure I could talk about it at the hotel.” Alec doesn’t break eye contact but winces very slightly. “Unfortunately, my source is having second thoughts.”
An incredulous laugh bursts free. “You are so full of shit.”
“I’m not. There’s so much I want to tell you, but the story isn’t mine to share. I really can’t talk about it without this person’s go-ahead.”
The words slice out from between my gritted teeth: “If you end up somehow being involved in this disgusting—”
“Gigi!” Alec cuts in. Horror washes him out. “Are—are you kidding? That’s not—” He closes his eyes, taking a steadying breath. “I’m not involved with Jupiter in any way—not as an investor or patron. That’s not at all what I wanted to share with you.”
Either he’s an even better actor than I imagined or this one landed on an incredibly tender target. “Good,” I say, more gently now. “That is a huge relief.”
He opens his eyes and looks at me steadily. “I thought I had information to give you that could help you expose someone, but I don’t.”
The adrenaline drains in a cold flush, leaving me numb. “Okay, then we’re done here.”
I make my way to the door, but Alec cuts out a sharp, “Wait.” I pause but don’t turn to face him. “I… also realize we forgot to exchange numbers.”
Now I turn to gape. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Come on. I’m trying to make things right.”
Unexpectedly, my heart tightens in a painful pinch. “Why?”
“Because I’ve thought of nothing but you for the past thirty-six hours.”
His words drop a black curtain in front of every other thought.
I forget about the story and—for a scattered few seconds—I forget to be mad.
All I see is his posture, with hands tucked tightly into his pockets and the heavy bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows again.
I see his tongue as he licks his lips, anxious for my reply.
My “Why?” comes out much quieter this time.
“It…” He seems unsure how to answer this. “I needed to see you again.”
Apparently I only know one word anymore. “Why?”
His disbelieving smile is fleeting. “Gigi, come on.”
“For sex,” I guess flatly.
“For whatever this is between us,” he corrects. “I have a hard time believing it was just me. Did it feel like regular sex the other night? The kind of sex you’ve had with other people?”
“Not sure that’s a fair comparison,” I say. “I’m betting my list is much shorter than yours.”
He sends a hand into his hair, looking away. I should feel guilty for that shitty jab, but I’m too distracted by the tight clench of his jaw, the way his neck flushes red in anger. This deep, ravenous feeling in the pit of my stomach shoves everything else aside.
“Right.” Alec turns back to me. “Then you’d know if I just wanted sex, I could get it anywhere.”
Exactly, echoes a chiding voice in my head. The assistant who sends underwear to Seattle could easily find someone to satisfy an itch. It isn’t about that, and you know it, Gigi. You’re being a coward.
I let out a shaking breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Yeah.” He blinks out the window, frowning. “Well, I guess we’ve answered that question.”
“What question?”
“Whether it was only like that between us because you didn’t know who I am.”
I’m not sure why this raises a contrary, defensive flag inside me. “That isn’t fair.”
His surprised gaze flashes to me. “How is that unfair?”
“You have to let me be hurt that I was being real and you weren’t.”
“Is that really what you think? That I wasn’t being real?”
And this, right here, is where he has me. He knows it, too.
We stare at each other, breathing fast and deep, worked up.
“If I acknowledge that I hurt you,” he says quietly, and when he fights a coy smile, it digs a dimple into his cheek, “then what?”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling back. “Then… I don’t know.”
“Come here,” he says in a gentle purr.
Staying put requires pretending my feet are blocks of concrete. “I have to edit my article.”
He stares at me, jaw tensing, and then nods once. “Right. You’re on deadline.”
And… that’s it? He would just let me leave? I feel like a punctured balloon. My thoughts are a swirling storm of relief and lust and irritation and ambition and infatuation. Alec Kim has the wildest chemical effect on my blood.
I mean… technically, the article is written.
All it needs is editing.
And by calling me here, he’s given me twelve additional hours.