I smiled, amused that he was at all familiar with my wardrobe, although I couldn’t remember wearing that particular dress around him. “I have one with a rosette, yes. Different designer but similar.”
“It suits you.”
Something about the dress tugged at my memory, but I quickly forgot when he perched his chin on the top of my head and looked at us in the mirror. “If you look like this every morning on the way out the door, then I’m fucked. We’ll never make it to work.”
I turned in his arms and smiled up at him, running my hands over his t-shirt and under his hoodie. It was our first moment truly alone to appreciate each other since everything had happened. Things were beginning to feel right. David dipped his head for a leisurely kiss. It was nice not to feel guilty or as if I’d been simmering with need for months.
“We’re going shoe shopping next,” he said. “If I have to bend this far down every time I kiss you, I’ll throw my back out before I hit forty.”
I laughed and rose onto the balls of my feet for a last peck. “Get out of here so I can change.”
David had given the staff his credit card long before we ended up at the register, so I never even saw the transaction. Suddenly the salesgirl was handing me several large bags, which David chivalrously intercepted, and we left the store.
After he’d put them in the trunk, we stood on the sidewalk. “Listen, I have some work to do back at the apartment,” he said. “Give me your wallet.”
I cocked my head but dug it out of my purse and handed it to him. He stuck it in his back pocket, pulled outhiswallet, and handed me a credit card. “Go find a dress for tonight, anything you want, anywhere you want.” I started to object, but he stopped me. “Surprise me. If it feels too weird to spend my money on yourself, then do it for me. Pick out something you think I’d like.”
I took the card and opened my mouth but didn’t know what to say. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said. “It makes me feel like I’m doing you a favor. I’m not. Like I said, we’ll talk money, logistics, all that shit later. Just take this for now. Oh, and this . . .” He burrowed his hand into his hoodie pocket and produced a bundle of items. “Keycards and keys to the Gryphon—come in the back entrance. You remember which apartment it is, right?”
“Penthouse,” I said with a defeated shrug.
“I know it’s a lot,” he said softly, “but we’re in it now. Might as well get comfortable.”
“Where’d you get all this?” I asked, palming my foreseeable future.
“I’ve had it for a while. I told you,” he said, touching me under the chin, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
5
As I walked to David’s apartment, evening gown in hand, the last forty-eight hours played through my mind like a movie. Things had never felt as simultaneously terrifying and clear as they did now. I wondered how Bill was and decided to call Gretchen with my new phone number when I got back.
David lived in ahotel—one of a few residences comprising the top floors of the Gryphon Hotel. That fact was abundantly clear as I skipped the back entrance as he’d suggested and crossed the lobby instead. Not to be outdone, David was at the top—the penthouse—just under the rooftop venue that’d hostedChicago MetropolitanMagazine’s Meet and Greet. It was intimidating to say the least, but it also thrilled me. It meant views of my beloved Chicago from almost every angle.
I swiped the card in the elevator as I’d seen David do. When I reached his floor, I stepped into the foyer and looked around. Various emotions rushed through me as I remembered fleeing his apartment months ago. Desperate to escape, I’d run out in just the sheet from his bed and changed here in the foyer as I’d waited for the elevator. I blushed when I noticed a camera in one corner, wondering if it belonged to David or the hotel. Neither possibility lessened my embarrassment.
I walked to the front door and halted there, unsure of how to proceed. I dug out the single key and flipped it over and over in my fingers, thinking, immobilized. My phone pinged.
David:Coming in?
I smiled at David’s text and unlocked the door. Apparently, the cameras belonged to him. As I entered, another message came through.
David:Last door on the right before my bedroom.
I took in the semi-familiar space and automatically walked the path to the bedroom I’d once run from. When I reached an open door just before it, I stopped and peeked into an office I’d never seen. In a leather swivel chair, David nodded into the desk phone at his ear. Behind him spread a jaw-dropping view of Chicago’s skyline. He motioned at me to come in, so I draped the garment bag that held my new dress on an empty chair and walked toward his waving hands.
“Sketches are almost finished, but I still need to meet with Greer about preliminary estimates,” he said into the receiver as I settled on his lap. He kissed me quickly on the cheek as he listened.
Judging by the two oversized computer screens, piles of paperwork, and a drafting table, I sat in his home office. A display of flat screen security televisions made up one corner, and I blushed when I noticed that one of them watched the foyer. Thankfully, nothing beyond the entryway was included. He winked when he noticed my gaze. I didn’t see much to indicate a personal presence—no pictures, no framed awards or articles, nothing distinctly special about the office’s inhabitant.
“Let’s set that up then.” He paused, covering the mouthpiece to ask me, “When should we go see your father? Can you get Friday off so we can make a weekend of it?”
I bit my lip. My boss frowned upon taking time off, but I had plenty of vacation days because of it. I gave him a half-shrug. “I’ll try.”
He removed his hand and placed it on my lower back. “Monday,” he said into the phone. “I probably won’t be in on Friday. No, it won’t be resolved by then. Make it Monday.” After a moment he hung up and ran his hand up and down my back. “How was shopping? Is that your dress?”
“It was great,” I said and pecked his cheek. “Thank you.”
