it.
I don’t know what it says about me that I’m slightly disappointed.
No Mrs. Page in the hallway. No Gerard. The dining room downstairs is empty. I wonder if Leo’s out on business. He must be. He can’t be staying here all day, every day, just because we have an agreement.
I don’t long for him. God, no. Not at all. I just rub my knuckles against my chest and walk the halls until I find myself in his den. The built-in bookshelves pull me in like a current in deep water. There. Yes. It feels better with my hands on the spines of books. I pull one down at random and flip it open.
It’s Leo’s.
The neat print of his name inside the front cover makes me look twice to confirm that it is in fact his name inside a book. A book he intends to keep, since I can’t imagine he sends anything with his name on it to used book sales. Not like my family. Our house churns with books. They come in, they go out, they get sold back to the student bookstore. There wasn’t space to keep all the books I loved, anyway. The only other mansions I’ve visited, like Aunt Caroline’s, have shelves full of decorative fakes and a few uncut first editions for looks.
This is the real thing. There’s even a crease in the spine.
I fold it to my chest like a life preserver and take it to the armchair closest to the fireplace. It’s classic sci-fi. I fall headfirst into it like a swooning teenager, which is embarrassing, because I know in my heart that it’s not the plot or the characters or even the perfectly fine writing that’s doing it for me.
It’s Leo’s name inside the cover.
Chapters tick by, page by page by page, the light outside the windows shifting from one winter glow to the next. Dusk comes, and so does Mrs. Page. She turns on a low lamp nearby without asking and replaces my tea. Not long after I trade my prim seated position for a slouch and then finally let my legs dangle over the arm of the chair.
That’s how I’m sitting when I feel the presence in the doorway.
Leo leans against the doorframe, watching me with undisguised amusement. He’s dressed for the office in what’s obviously a custom suit, judging by how well it fits him. “You’ve made yourself at home.”
I swing my legs forward and tug at my clothes. “I am home, according to our contract.”
He laughs, and I expect him to say something cutting about how a Constantine could never be at home here. But he doesn’t. His eyes sweep over the room. I follow his gaze. The evidence of my daylong staycation in his den is on the side table. My last mug of tea. A plate with a half-eaten sandwich. A can of Diet Coke I haven’t opened.
“Mrs. Page says you’ve spent all day here.”
“It’s a decent book.”
“Not the best book?” It’s not fair how good he looks in the suit. And under the suit.
“The best book is Jane Eyre, obviously.” Nobody can argue that point with me.
“Yet you’ve spent an entire day of your life sitting in my den reading something mediocre. You love reading enough to settle?”
“No. Leather furniture turns me on.”
Surprise bursts across Leo’s face like a sunbeam through clouds. It’s gone almost instantly, fitted back into his usual piercing expression. He straightens up. “Get up and get dressed.”
I’m on my feet embarrassingly quickly. “I’m already dressed.”
“Not for going out, you’re not. Mrs. Page.” She’s there instantly, like he snapped his fingers and made her appear from thin air. “Haley needs a dress. We’ll leave in twenty minutes.”
What am I supposed to do, question it? I don’t. Of course I don’t. I climb the stairs to the guest bedroom and make myself slightly more presentable. My hair is flat on one side from all the reading, so I fix that. There’s makeup in neutral colors in one of the guest bathroom drawers, everything new and in the package. Leo’s sister has thought of absolutely everything. The only thing she couldn’t do was match foundations in advance. She solved that problem by putting ten of them in the drawer, all miniatures. By the time Mrs. Page bustles in with a garment bag I look pink-cheeked and human.
Part of me dreads this. Going out was never supposed to be part of this arrangement. Going out is for people who are in real relationships, or at