Seven Day Loan (The Original Sinners 0.15)

“You hear books?” Daniel’s lightly sarcastic voice came from the far left corner of the library. “Interesting. Most people actually have to read them.”

“It’s a gift,” she said, shrugging. “What are you doing?”

Daniel stood behind a desk stacked shoulder high with books.

“I am draining all the alphabet soup out of my library.” She raised an eyebrow at him as she walked to the desk. “I thought you were a bibliophile,” Daniel taunted in response to her puzzled look.

“I am a bibliophile. A bibliophiend even. But I still have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Well, as your book knowledge comes from the retail side of the industry then I’ll pardon your ignorance.” He winked at her and she fairly flushed as a sensory memory from last night hit her lower stomach with soft but insistent force. And the light, that certain white light created only by the morning sun reflecting off new-fallen snow rendered Daniel’s handsome features almost luminous. She almost forgot what they’d been talking about. “Let’s see, at your bookstore your books are divided by subject and then alphabetized by author’s last name, yes?”

“Right. With a few exceptions.”

“Well, libraries aren’t allowed any exceptions. The books have to be in perfect order at all times. You can’t do that with just sorting by genre and then alphabetizing.”

“Yeah, that’s what the Dewey Decimal system is for, right?”

“But there isn’t just Dewey. There’s the Library of Congress classification system. Dewey is a clean, efficient system, ten main classes divided by ten and so on. The Library of Congress is alpha-numeric and based on 26 classes, one for each letter of the alphabet. Compared to Dewey it is crude and confusing, and I only had the library that way because of Maggie. It’s what she was used to.”

“Alphanumeric—so that’s your alphabet soup.”

“Yes, and this library has been disorganized soup for far too long.” Daniel shook his head as he wrote out a series of numbers on an index card and slipped it inside the front cover of a book.

“Oh my God,” Eleanor said, sounding utterly shocked.

“What?”

“You’re a nerd.”

Daniel only looked at her a moment before laughing.

“I am not a nerd. I’m a librarian.”

“No way,” she said, recalling again the ferocious passion and the skill he’d demonstrated last night. “Guess they were right.”

“Who?”

“You know, whoever said ‘it’s always the quiet ones.’”

Daniel’s mouth twitched to a wicked half grin. “I’m the quiet ones,” he said, flashing a look at Eleanor that nearly dropped her to her knees.

She coughed and shook herself out of the erotic reverie she’d fallen into.

“Okay,” she said, walking toward him with more gusto than guts. “I can accept that you’re a librarian and a sex god—”

“Well, considering your lover is a pr—”

“Nope. Nyet. Halt. I told you last night—”

“Oh, yes. I had forgotten. Our mutual acquaintance is off-limits to discussion.”

“If you want me to survive this week with what passes for my mental health intact, then yes.”

“Which I do. So I apologize. But as we barely know each other, finding a topic of conversation apart from our mutual friend might be difficult.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” she said, sitting on the table next to a stack of books. “We’ve got books in common, sex…” She ticked them off on her fingers.

“All of two,” Daniel said skeptically.

“Well…” She stuck out her foot and tapped his leg lightly. “We’ve got you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I’m curious. You’re a curiosity. As long as you don’t mind answering personal questions—”

“How personal?” Daniel interrupted.

“Unapologetically intrusive, knowing me. Unconscionably so.”

“You have a large vocabulary, Eleanor.”

“And you have a large…” She paused as he gave her a warning look. “House.”

“I do.”

“How does a librarian afford a house like this? That was the first unapologetically personal question, for those of you keeping count.”

Daniel smiled but Eleanor saw the pale ghost of pain pass across his eyes.

“Librarians can’t afford houses like this. But a partner in a Manhattan law firm can.”

“Your wife? She was a lawyer?”

“She was. A very powerful attorney.”

“You married a shark?” Eleanor asked, laughing.

“A corporate shark, in fact.”

“Wow,” Eleanor said, duly impressed. “How did you meet her?”

“At the library, of course.”

“She read?”

“She gave,” Daniel said with great emphasis on the last word. “She gave balls, galas, parties, charity events, fund-raisers of every stripe. She actually had a heart and a conscience. She was the human face of an otherwise very imposing old firm. She held a gala one year to raise money for a literary charity at the NYPL—”

“Holy shit, you worked at the NYPL?”

“Fifth Avenue, Main Branch,” he said with barely concealed pride.