She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be there. Seven?”


    “Yes. I trust you already have the address?”


    Faye stands, her eyes meeting mine for one long, breathless moment. “Yes,” she says, “I do. Think we can handle it?”


    “Being alone together?”


    She nods, tucking herptop under her arm. I run a hand along the edge of my desk and meet her bold gaze straight-on. “You challenged us to stay away from one another. If I remember correctly, you also predicted you’d win.”


    There’s a grin on her lips, hovering right around the corners of her mouth. It makes me want to smile in response. “So I did,” she says. “I guess we’ll just have to see who does.”


    It’s seven p. m., and Faye’s right on time, standing outside my apartment door.


    She’s let her hair down, and it tumbles loose and long down her back. ck strands frame her face. For such a small woman, she has a huge presence. There’s nowhere else I want to look when she’s around.


    She gives me a businesslike nod and steps past me. “So this is your apartment.”


    “Yes.”


    “It’s very close to work.”


    “Convenient.”Text ? 2024 N?velDrama.Org.


    She hangs her thin jacket up on one of the pegs in the hallway and walks into the living room unescorted. I hang back, watching in silence as she looks around. Her fierce beauty makes my neutral apartment look dull inparison.


    “Huh,” she finally says. “It’s nothing like I expected.”


    “How so?”


    She stops at the coffee table, eyes roaming over arge book on ancient Roman architecture. “It has… personality.”


    Hah. Bemused, I put my hands in my pockets and just look at her. She nces up and seems to realize her words. “Sorry. That didn’te out the way I meant it.”


    “Not the first time I’ve heard it,” I say. My apparent ck of personality” has be amon refrain from friends and family at this point. Lighten up. Smile. Why so serious?


    “Have you been?” I ask, nodding at the book.


    “To Italy? No.”


    “You’d love it.”


    A faint, dreamy smile softens her lips. It changes her features, the alertness momentarily gone. “Of that I have no doubt,” she murmurs.


    She’s so beautiful with her guard down, and the fierce desire I feel is not something I’m used to; I want to bring out that softness again, over and over, in quiet moments when there’s no one around but us.


    I clear my throat. “A ss of wine, and then we’ll start with your questions. White?”


    “Yes. Please.”


    She leans against the kitchen ind as I open the wine cooler and find a bottle of Sancerre. It’s light, easy, theplete opposite of the conversation I’m sure we’re about to have.


    “So…” she begins.


    “So,” I echo, uncorking the bottle. “Let’s get our story straight. That’s what you wanted, right?”


    She slides into one of the tall chairs by the kitchen ind and runs a hand over the marble. “Do you cook?”


    “Sometimes,” I answer calmly.


    “This kitchen is meticulously clean. Did you scrub it down with bleach before I came?”


    “Cleanerse twice a week.”


    She nods, like she expected nothing else, and lets her eyes wander. They slide around the open kitchen space, therge windows, the sofas that beckon. I wonder what she thinks of my ce-what it says about me. We’re architects, after all. Forms and shapes are never just functional.


    “Where’s the wedding?”


    “In Paradise Shores,” I say. “It’s a seaside town in New Ennd.”


    “Ah,” she says, a whole world conveyed through that one word. It’s not hard to imagine what she’s thinking. She epts the winess I hand her, twirling it thoughtfully by the stem. “Think I’ll fit in?”


    The thought that she wouldn’t hadn’t even crossed my mind. “Absolutely.”


    “Is that where you grew up?”


    “Yes.”


    She slides out of the chair and walks, winess in hand, to therge sofas in the adjoining living room. They’re all gray; there’s barely any color in sight. I watch in silence as she runs a hand over the high back. “If we’re going to do this, we need to know more about each other.”


    I gesture for her to sit down, and she does, as far away from me as the couch allows. Smart. Despite the distance, my body is painfully aware that she’s here, with me, in my home. Alone. Control, I remind myself. Boundaries.


    “You’re right,” I say. “Tell me about where you’re from.”


    She sighs, her gaze slipping from mine again tond on the sleek firece. Not for the first time, it strikes me just how beautiful she really is. It was something she’d mentioned in her cover letter-that she wasn’t taken seriously because of it. The notion that people only see her face, and not the fierce intellect beneath it, makes me just as angry on her behalf.


    “I’m from a small town out in the Midwest,” she says. “You wouldn’t know it.”


    “Ohio, right?”


    “Yes. My parents are amazing. They had me when they were really young, and money was always tight, but they gave me the best they could.” Her eyes are proud-like she’s waiting for judgement. Has she received it in the past?


    “I’m sure they did.”


    “My father came here as an immigrant when he was a teenager. He worked every job he could.” A small, indulgent smile spreads on her face. “He’s the one I call whenever I have a problem, of any kind. He knows how to repair a dishwasher, how to fix chipped paint on a car… absolutely anything.”


    “He sounds great.”


    She nods. “He is. My mom is Midwestern, born and bred. She got her teaching degree when I was still a kid, and she’s worked as a third-grade teacher ever since. Her students call her Mrs. C, because Alvarez is too hard for some of them to pronounce.”