“Thought you were at work,” Allie said, striding to the alcove where her computer was set up.
Behind her Hedra said, “I was just about to walk out the door.”
Allie found the floppy disk she was searching for, slid it into a protective hard plastic cover, then stuffed it into her purse.
When she walked out from behind the silk folding screen that formed a fourth wall of the alcove, she said, “I had an interesting conversation with a waiter down at Goya’s.”
Hedra adjusted the belt of her brown skirt. The skirt’s hem hit her at an unflattering angle, Allie noticed. “It’s too easy in this city to have interesting conversations with waiters.”
“This one turned out to be a nice guy.”
“Far as you know from talking to him over the soup. You shouldn’t mix with strange men that way, Allie.”
“He’s one of our neighbors.”
Hedra frowned. She had more makeup on today and looked almost attractive. Allie recognized the eyeshade and lipstick. Colors like her own makeup. “He lives here?” Hedra asked. “In the Cody?”
“Right.”
“Like I used to,” Sam said, walking in from the kitchen. He was using a spoon to scoop low-fat yogurt from a plastic container. Dressed for business today: dark blue pin-stripe suit, white shirt, red tie. It was an outfit the dress-for-success books said was supposed to inspire trust.
Allie realized her mouth was open. She looked at Hedra, who couldn’t meet her eyes and seemed to be studying the toe of her black loafer. Hedra mumbled, “I tried to let you know …”
Allie glared at Sam. “What are you doing here?”
“Came to see you, but Hedra said you’d left.”
“Hedra—”
“Don’t blame her,” Sam interrupted. “I sorta forced my way in.”
“I wasn’t gonna blame anyone but you for being here,” Allie assured him. Anger gathered deep in her. “If you think you have the run of this place just because you can notify the landlord I have a roommate, think again, Sam.”
He gave her his smile that could melt cold steel. Usually. “I only wanted to see you. I still love you, Allie. I can’t help it.”
Hedra coughed nervously, then said, “I better get moving or I’ll be late for work.”
Neither Allie nor Sam spoke as she grabbed up her purse and a light coat and went out, moving jerkily and too fast.
“I’m leaving, too,” Allie said.
“I’ll go with you down to the street.”
She knew she couldn’t stop him from doing that. Not unless she wanted to leave him here in the apartment by himself. “You sure will. You don’t think I’d leave you here alone, do you?”
“I don’t suppose you would,” Sam said.
Allie locked the apartment door behind her while Sam stood in the hall, watching. There was the slightest hint of a smile on his face, as if he’d just heard a good joke and it lingered in his mind.
Hedra had already gone down in the elevator. Allie and Sam waited silently while it rose slowly back to the third floor. It seemed to take long enough to rise three hundred floors.
Allie heard the cables thrum as the elevator adusted to floor level. The doors slid open. Sam stood back like a gentleman to let her enter first. She felt like waiting until the doors were about to close, then stepping into the elevator so he wouldn’t have time to follow. The old rattletrap didn’t have the kinds of doors that opened automatically if someone stuck a hand between them. But she knew that was foolish and would accomplish nothing in the long run.
Alone with him in the elevator, she reached around him to press the button. Gave it a twist with her thumb.
Sam said, “I’m asking for your forgiveness, Allie.”
She was silent, trying not to let his nearness affect her in the cramped space. She could smell his familiar aftershave, feel the warmth of him. The doors slid closed and the elevator hummed into motion.
Neither she nor Sam said anything until the elevator doors opened. Allie started to step out, then realized they weren’t at lobby level. She looked at the floor indicator light, saw she’d pressed the wrong button on Three. The elevator was on the thirtieth floor. Sam was smiling faintly, as if he suspected she’d done it with subconscious purpose as some kind of Freudian slip. My God, might he be right?
She very deliberately stabbed a finger at the Lobby button, and the elevator began its descent. She felt a hollowness in her stomach, as if they were plunging straight down the shaft at dizzying speed. Down to the center of the earth.
He said, “Other women forgive other men for less.”
“We’re not other women and other men.”
He gave a humorless soft chuckle. “Somebody has to be. How else could Gallup and Harris take all those polls?”
“I never took part in a poll.”
“My life’s not good without you, Allie.”
“You don’t seem to have any trouble finding stand-ins.”
He clenched his fist and stared down at it, as if what had happened to his hand troubled him. Then he banged it into the elevator’s steel wall. “So I’m a fucking sinner! Who are you, Mother Teresa? Isn’t a human being allowed one mistake? For God’s sakes, are you shooting for the ministry? I need you, Allie!”
Allie’s heart was slamming. The abruptness of his outburst had startled her. The unexpected violence, and the heat of his words. Words that penetrated like darts because they recognized an imperfect world and made undeniable sense.
He was staring at her, his deep dark eyes angry and injured. She didn’t know quite how to react. She heard a voice something like hers say, “What now, Sam? You grab me and kiss me into submission like in the movies? Or give me a good shake until I see reason? Get what you want by force if it isn’t given willingly?”
“I don’t play the game that way and you know it.”
He was right, of course. She did know that about him. “Game, huh?”
The elevator stopped on Ten. The doors opened to an empty hall, then closed again. They continued their descent.
“Don’t twist what I say, Allie.”
“All right, I suppose that wasn’t fair. Mother Teresa apologizes.”
He wiped a hand down his face in slow motion, a gesture of remorse. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”
“No, but maybe I shouldn’t blame you.”
He bent down and kissed her gently on the forehead. “I’m sorry, Allie. So sorry.” She didn’t move. Felt him bend lower as he braced with one hand against the elevator wall. His lips were against hers. She was suddenly tired of resisting, and all this time she hadn’t realized she was resisting him. Perhaps that was the most exhausting kind of self-denial.
Allie parted her lips, felt the probing warmth of his tongue. She felt herself catch fire.
He shifted position and his arms were around her, pressing her to him.
The fire spread throughout her body. Jesus, she didn’t want this! Yet she wanted it fiercely! So fiercely! She was ashamed of herself but couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop needing Sam. This was the kind of crap that happened in romance novels, not in her life.
They were no longer plunging through the core of the building. They’d been at lobby level for some time while the elevator adjusted position. The doors hissed open on the empty lobby, to faint sounds of traffic and the outside world.
Allie pulled away from Sam. She stared at the world beyond the street doors, and suddenly she didn’t want to go any further. She was held by a force stronger than her pride. Sam pulled her close to him again, as if she were as weightless as she felt. She heard him say, “Can you phone wherever you were going and say you’ll be late?”
She nodded, her cheek pressed against his white shirt and red tie. Trusting him. Wanting him. She nodded again, more vigorously, so he could feel the motion of her head against his chest even if he couldn’t see it.