Marie Adeline - Secret Shared

“Does Tracina know?”

“I haven’t run it past her yet, no. Cassie, we’re not … we’re not partners. Not like it would have been with … you.”

We both felt the weight of his words fill the unfinished room. I reached forward, caressing his forearm with my fingers, electrifying us both. I meant it as a thank-you gesture, to punctuate this great opportunity he had just offered me, one that I would still need time to think about. But then my hand started to move, almost of its own accord, traveling up his arm, under the sleeve of his T-shirt where a new muscle had formed, the one that twitched when he punched in numbers at the cash register or rolled a layer of paint on a wall. My hand moved slowly over his chest, lingering above his heart, which sped up beneath my touch, sending a vibration through my arm. He grabbed me by the elbow and tugged me against him, placing a hand under my chin to tilt my face up so I was staring into his eyes.

“Do you understand how much I want you?” His voice was strained, hoarse.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but the words were stuck in my throat. And then I felt it, his mouth on the base of my neck, kissing me there. When our lips met, it was like they had missed each other for ages.

“Cassie …” He said my name between kisses, biting, nibbling my lips, one arm around my back, holding me against him, his other hand diving under my T-shirt, cupping my breasts lovingly, greedily. I felt him stiffen as I buried my head in his shoulder and shut my eyes. I wanted to freeze this moment with the only man I really wanted, holding me, wanting me …

“I won’t stop, unless you tell me to stop,” he whispered, his hand sliding down the back of my jeans, squeezing.

I didn’t want him to stop, and if I hadn’t spotted my flushed, guilty face in the mirror over the bar, I wouldn’t have made him stop.

“We can’t,” I said, prying myself out of his embrace and taking a step back. He recoiled too, not from me, but from his own actions.

“We were friends for years, Will,” I said. “Good friends.”

“I don’t want another friend. I want you.”

“Believe me. In a few months, you’re gonna need friends,” I said, tucking my T-shirt back into my jeans and straightening my apron.

“I’m sorry, Cassie. It’s actually pretty shitty of me to offer you a promotion and then turn around and fall all over you like that.”

“I won’t lodge a complaint … if you promise not to do it again.”

“I’m not making any more promises I can’t keep. But can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Will you think about my job offer?”

“I will.”

“Will you be here tomorrow?”

“First thing.”

“And the next day?”

“And the day after that.”

“I guess that’s gotta be good enough. For now.”

I smiled. How could I not? I turned and headed out of the room and down the hall to the stairs.

“Cassie, just so you know …”

I turned to face him.

“It’s you … it’s always been you.”

I braced myself on the balustrade.

“Did you hear me?”

“I did. I gotta go, Will.”

Downstairs I yelled a “see you later” to Dell in the kitchen, who gave me a weird look. Then I snatched my purse from my locker and left, hot tears stinging my eyes. It wasn’t until I hit Chartres that I realized the front of my black T-shirt was covered in white plaster and bits of paint.

THE DAYS OF only seeing photos of beautiful places were over. That was the first thought that came to me when I woke as Captain Nathan, in his soothing accent, announced the plane’s descent. I was expecting to see pasture out the window, but when I peered out, the sun was rising over a carpet of city, Buenos Aires stretching as far as I could see. Its scope took my breath away. I had read about the dazzling sprawl, but I was actually seeing it, and from high up. I’d never seen any city from this vantage point before, and it felt otherworldly, like having a superpower. Soon, I would be more than a mere observer. I’d be immersed in the city itself, the Paris of South America.

I privately thanked S.E.C.R.E.T. and, while disembarking, quite publically thanked my pilot by kissing him on the cheek as I passed.

“That’s for helping me,” I said.

“The pleasure was all mine,” said Captain Nathan, tipping his pilot cap.

Two drivers stood behind a placard with my name on it: one would take me to the hotel; the other would bring Carolina’s painting to a secure facility until the auction. Waiting for me in the back seat of a limo was a bowl of chilled fruit, pastries and hot coffee, which I savored along the way. I was ravenous, for food, for people, for life, my eyes scanning every detail out the window, as wide as saucers.

All in one block, I saw neoclassical French facades, Italianate cupolas, art nouveau gates and modernist glass block rectangles wedged between six-story walkups, laundry strewn over every balcony. I couldn’t keep up with the feast of curves and cornices. People seemed oblivious to traffic lights, a hazard in a place where a quick turn off an eight-lane avenue could send you down a narrow one-way street with no sidewalks. So this is what it’s like, I thought, to be a stranger on an adventure in a new place. My senses were alive, my whole body tingling with possibility.

My driver, Ernesto, was an eager tour guide, pointing out all the relevant signposts, like when the highway from the airport turned into Avenida 9 de julio, one of the widest streets in the world.

“It is … comemorativo,” he said with a crisp accent, “this one celebrating Argentina’s independencia. Most streets in Buenos Aires are named in celebration of something or someone.”

Approaching the hotel, we cruised through the heart of a dense and hectic neighborhood called Recoleta, a posh part of town, Ernesto said, where people still lined up to pay homage to Eva Perón in its famed cemetery.

Stopping in front of the Alvear Palace Hotel felt like we were pulling up to a castle. I chastised myself for feeling like a princess, something from which I thought my workaholic tendencies had inoculated me. But there I was stepping out of the long, sleek car with Ernesto’s help, feeling utterly prized. A line of international flags whipped loudly in the wind, highlighting the fact that the hotel took up nearly an entire city block.

“This will be your home for the next little while,” he said, removing his cap and bowing slightly.

I caught a better look at his face. His creamy dark skin and slightly Asian eyes were an alluring mix; for someone so young, he had an air of gravitas about him.

“It’s beautiful, thank you.”

My bags disappeared through the gold doors and I quickly followed them. That regal feeling was heightened when I took the elevator to my eighth-floor suite, where I kicked off my shoes. My sitting room faced a street already choked with morning rush-hour traffic, but the triple-paned windows meant it was as silent as a tomb. Good lord, this was a real suite, the kind where you ate in a room separate from where you slept. I flung open the heavy, gold floor-to-ceiling curtains, my bare feet caressing the deep pile of the Oriental rug. The porter left clutching his tip, and I stood for a moment in the middle of the rooms, squeezing my fists. Then I let out a high-pitched cry of joy, ran to the bed and flung myself onto it.

It was still a few days until the auction, the responsibility of which suddenly flooded my body. I was on a kind of mission, like a woman of mystery and intrigue, I decided. If I were afraid of anything, I would just pretend to be that woman, the fearless kind, the kind who took delicious pleasure thirty thousand feet up and received a suite of rooms for her daring.

After a hot shower, I peeled back the downy layers of bedding and slid between the heavy covers. Just a quick nap, I thought. I hadn’t slept well on the plane. I closed my eyes and woke three hours later to a gentle knock on the door. I opened it to a bellhop, who rolled in a trolley. Perched between a carafe of coffee and a tray of crustless sandwiches was a thick, square envelope, Dauphine spelled out in that familiar S.E.C.R.E.T. scroll. It was odd, if not a little discombobulating, seeing something familiar in a place so far from home. I plucked the card off the tray and sliced it open with a butter knife. Step Four was traced out on one side of the heavy card stock, the word Generosity on the other, and beneath it the line “We are with you every Step, Dauphine.”

It was happening! Another one.

Suspended on a hook above the trolley was a thick garment bag that felt hefty as I carried it to the bed. I unzipped it, exposing a fanciful red dress, sequins on the bodice, cascading to a riot of feathers around the hips and legs. It looked like a giant crimson swan. I held it up against my body in front of a full-length mirror. An invitation to a midnight tango show came drifting out of its wings.

Dancing? No. Not dancing. I avoided it almost as much as I avoided flying. As much as I loved music, I could never do more than nod to the beat in the dark corners of the clubs. Sometimes I danced alone in my apartment. I danced for Luke once, until I undermined the seduction by hamming it up, too self-conscious to pull off a real striptease. But the idea of dancing in front of strangers curdled my stomach. I wasn’t lean or graceful, unlike my sister.

“If Bree only had Dauphine’s discipline, or Dauphine Bree’s thighs, we’d have had a ballerina in this family,” my mother often said. I think she thought it was a compliment, but it gutted me.