Looking Inside

“Yeah, but can we make it an early one? A couple nights in Evanston have got me wrung out.”

“Catherine the Great was in fine form, I take it?” Jimmy asked. Jimmy was very familiar with her mother and father. As a nonfamily member, he had the privilege of looking upon her mom’s antics with amused fondness.

“We put up the Christmas tree this morning,” Eleanor said. Jimmy’s heavy sigh told her that statement had said it all. It was yet another Briggs family tradition that she cherished, the four of them putting up the Christmas tree on the Friday after Thanksgiving before Eleanor and Caddy returned to the city. “‘The G’ just kept prattling on,” she said, calling her mom by the familiar derivative of her nickname created by Caddy long ago. “Acting like nothing was wrong and she was having the time of her life, putting up the decorations. I swear, Jimmy, she completely exhausted my dad. He just sat in his chair and stared at the Christmas tree. Not like he was seeing it, but like the Dementors had just sucked the soul out of him or something, and he was an empty shell. And all the while, my mom’s going on about whether or not we should do white lights or colored ones, and should we order the fresh garland from Shreff’s Florist or online this year?”

She slammed the refrigerator door shut, a shudder going through her.

“I’m sorry, Eleanor. Your poor dad. Poor Catherine too,” Jimmy murmured sympathetically. “She’s just dealing in the only way she knows how.”

“I know,” Eleanor agreed miserably.

“I know you do. Doesn’t make it much easier, though, does it?”

“Not even a little bit,” she agreed, rolling her eyes. “It’s a good thing I prepared myself for how hard the first holiday could be. Not that it helped, but at least I was a little less despondent than I would have been if I hadn’t prepared for complete and utter catastrophe.”

“You need a drink. We can talk about it tonight,” Jimmy consoled.

“No, we’re done talking about that. I’ve had enough of the gloom and doom,” she replied steadfastly. “But I do want to meet. I feel like we haven’t talked outside of work in forever. How does meeting at five sound to you?”

“Fine by me. But if we aren’t going to talk about Thanksgiving at the Briggs house, you will promise to spill all the details about Riordan?”

Eleanor seriously doubted she’d be describing any of the fine points of her outrageous seduction, but she did owe Jimmy some dirt.

“There’s a bar in the building next door, Gold Coast? Meet me there at five?” she asked. She’d hatched up a plan on the drive from her parents’ house to get Trey her phone number. She’d drop a brief, nonchalant message off for Trey with Ralph, his doorman. She’d do it after Jimmy and her had a drink.

“Isn’t that Riordan’s building? Are you expecting him to be there?”

“No, are you kidding? He’s out of town for the holiday weekend. I wouldn’t go over there if I thought I’d run into him. Not in a million years,” she mumbled under her breath.

“Why? What happened, Eleanor?”

“I’ll tell you about it tonight.”

She said good-bye to Jimmy. She turned in the kitchen, feeling that familiar, forbidden pull from the guest room in the distance. Leaving the lights in the condo off, she walked down the hallway. She entered the still, hushed guest room. Still wearing her coat, she crossed over to the window and peered out at Trey’s penthouse. It was dark, of course.

Dark and empty.

But unlike before when she’d looked inside his home, she now knew what it was to be in that room. She’d switched points of view. She’d lain in Trey’s bed, his arms surrounding her, and looked back here—into the known world of her condo, to a place where she’d lusted and longed so intently. Her lungs froze.

It all seemed so strange. So

forbidden and exciting . . .

So unlike her.

Something else had altered too, she realized as she stared out the window. Something elemental. Her perception of Trey himself had changed. He was no longer just the untouchable, beautiful, outrageously sexy playboy.

He was becoming three-dimensional.

Breathtakingly so.

Feeling exhausted by her thoughts, by Thanksgiving with her shrunken family—by everything—she made her way to the master bedroom. She stripped and climbed into bed.

When she awoke an hour and a half later, she felt rested and more content . . .

Until she noticed the time, that is.

“Shit,” she muttered, scrambling out of bed. She only had twenty minutes to shower and get ready to meet Jimmy next door at Gold Coast.