The Dirty Truth

“My room’s on the fifth floor,” she says when I step in beside her. “Kitchen’s on the first, along with the living room and dining room. Second floor is laundry and staff quarters. Uncle West’s room is on the third. Fourth floor is his office—I’m not allowed to go there. Fifth is my room plus his study. Sixth is the media room and home gym. Seventh is the terrace. There’s a basement, but I don’t go down there because it’s creepy as hell and I swear the furnace looks like a monster . . .”

My mind spins so fast that I don’t have time to whip up a mental floor plan or process the fact that one man requires so many floors, so many rooms.

The elevator glides to a stop and deposits us on one of West’s superfluous levels, one that doesn’t look much different than the first. Polished marble floors. Wainscoted walls the color of midnight along with burnished black light fixtures accented with dimmed Edison bulbs.

“Gonna change. I’ll be right back. You can hang out in the study if you want.” She points to a room on the opposite end of the narrow hall before disappearing into her room.

I linger in the hallway for a few moments before eyeing the doorway to West’s personal study. Scarlett basically told me to make myself at home . . . and waiting out here while she gets dressed feels like something a nanny (or creepy stalker) would do, so I opt to give her some space and take her words to heart.

A second later, I step inside a tall-ceilinged room trimmed with black-painted wood, built-in bookcases, and leather gentlemen’s club chairs. A soapstone fireplace anchors the center of the far wall, and a library’s worth of Made Man issues fill a bookcase to my left.

Taking a seat in one of the buttery-soft vintage-looking chairs that flank the fireplace, I fix my gaze on an open issue of Made Man spilling over the side of the glass coffee table. Sucking in a breath when I realize it’s open to my February article—“The Dirty Truth about Valentine’s Day”—I attempt not to read too much into it. Surely West Maxwell has better things to do with his time than flip through old articles.

Especially my old articles.

I cross my legs, check my watch, and sink into the chair, which cradles me with a kind of crème de la crème luxury only reserved for the luckiest. No wonder West prefers to work from home—if I had rooms like this at my disposal, I’d never leave either. Closing my eyes, I’m the portrait of relaxation, entirely too comfortable to move a muscle, when a cleared throat pulls me out of my trance.

When I glance up, a masculine figure in a three-piece suit looms over me, his shadow covering me like a blanket of ice.

“You’re in my chair,” West says.

Reminding myself I no longer report to him nor do I work for him, I offer a polite yet curt, “You have an abundance of chairs in this room. Surely you can find another?”

He studies me for an uncomfortable moment before turning away and making a beeline for a brass bar cart in the corner. Pouring himself two fingers of whiskey-brown liquid from a crystal decanter, he returns a second later . . . and takes the seat beside me.

“Scarlett told me to hang out in here while she changed,” I say.

He pulls a sip between his perfect lips, staying silent.

“You off for the day?” I ask, eyeing his drink.

Something tells me the man despises small talk.

“What gave it away?” West takes another sip before placing his drink on a marble coaster next to the splayed February issue of Made Man—which he promptly flicks shut.

I don’t bother asking if or why he was reading it—I’d have better odds of him serenading me with a love song than getting a truthful response.

“Any plans for the weekend?” I sit up, clasping my hands over my knee and pretending none of this is painfully awkward. “I mean, what does the world’s most elusive yet fascinating man do in his spare time? Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Inquiring minds should worry about their own itineraries,” he shoots back. “How was the walk home with Scarlett?”

“Fine.” I wave my hand, leaving out the early stroppy bits. “I’m trying to get an idea of what her interests are . . . thought maybe I’d take her around the city tomorrow? Maybe grab a show or hit up the Museum of Natural History? Unless you wanted to do those things with her . . .”

He sniffs. “Be my guest.”

As he’s a private yet insanely well-known man, I could understand his not wanting to risk exposing his niece to the public eye. But he can’t expect her to spend her days hiding away like some princess in a tower.