on the woman standing just a few feet away from us.
Sighing, I pushed my hands into my pockets and shook my head. “I’ll call you in the morning.”
Giving me a quick nod, he got back in the car and drove away, leaving me alone on the sidewalk. Taking the few steps to close the gap that separated me from my newly acquired wife, I stood beside her.
“This is it then,” she repeated, but this time it wasn’t posed as a question.
“This is it,” I agreed, and we stood side by side like that for a few agonizingly slow seconds.
“It’s really close to the coffee shop. I was afraid you lived around Bryant Park, closer to your office.” She gave me a quick look then faced forward again. “I take the subway from my apartment so I could’ve still done that, but this is better, of course.”
“I did live close to the firm at one point. I moved here two years ago. Shall we go up?”
She nodded. I opened the door for her, and we finally entered the building we’d been staring at. I ignored the doorman’s greeting and walked straight toward the elevators.
With each second it took us to reach the top floor, I could almost feel her drawing away from me more even though we were physically only inches apart. So far every interaction I’d had with her was turning out to be a disaster—not that I was expecting anything different. This was the bed I’d made for us, and now the time had come to lie in it.
Eventually, the elevator doors opened, and I stepped out ahead of her. After unlocking the apartment door, I pushed it open and turned back to look at Rose, really look at her. The quick shower she’d taken had helped with the paint splatters on her face—most of them—but not the fatigue. Her pale skin only accentuated her big and dark eyes and her long lashes. Despite looking like she had been done with the day some hours ago, somehow she still looked strong. She was a determined one and I respected that. Quite. She was clutching the handle of her bag with one hand and gripping her own elbow with the other. She met my eyes and offered me a small and unsure, but pretty smile.
Pretty.
Christ, Jack.
“Please,” I murmured, gesturing to the inside of the apartment with my hand and taking a step aside so she could enter. Just as she was passing me, I reached for her bag, and I supposed I managed to surprise her because she let it go without a struggle.
“Thank you,” she muttered quietly, looking around the space.
I closed the door after her, locked it, and took a deep breath before I faced her again. I was starting to feel like, somehow, the quiet had gotten louder behind the locked doors now that we were there and alone.
“Would you like to look around or would you prefer to see your room first?”
I wasn’t sure if she was feeling up to a tour—I was actually confident she’d want to pass on anything I would offer that would force her to spend more time with me—but I wanted her to feel comfortable since we had two years of this, of us in our future.
“Thank you, but you don’t have to do that. If you could show me where I’ll be staying, that’ll be enough.”
“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to, Rose. For the foreseeable future, this will be your home too. You should feel comfortable.”
“I appreciate you saying that, I really do, but still, can I take a rain check on the tour for tonight? I have to be back at the coffee shop tomorrow morning and I’m really tired, so…”
“Of course.” Walking through the foyer, I gestured toward the staircase to our right and followed her silently as she took the lead. Her hand held on to the black steel railing as she slowly and very carefully climbed up to the second floor. As soon as she was up on the landing, she stepped to the side and waited for me.
“This way,” I offered, taking her to the left. The penthouse I had bought only two years earlier had four bedrooms, three of them being on the second floor. One of the rooms was set up as a home gym. The second, which was my bedroom, was on the other end of the hallway, and the third would now be Rose’s. Just hours earlier it had