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Perhaps she should be feeling regretful that she hadn’t fallen into bed with Leandro. No strings sounded like a heck of a lot of fun for someone like Skye, who’d come out of a brutally committed relationship and still had the emotional wounds to show for it.
Skye’s shift finished at ten that night—the fourth night in a row she’d missed putting Harper to bed. Such was the schedule she kept. She hated missing out on seeing her little girl in the evenings, but her mom sent pictures to her phone and at least Skye knew Harper was happy. Harper had always been an excellent sleeper—Skye knew how lucky she was. It would be another ten hours or so before the little one stirred and Skye could make her breakfast and have the day with her.
As she stepped out of the staff entrance to the hotel, she registered the presence of a sleek black four wheel drive with tinted windows, a man standing outside of it, but it was the sign he held that caught her attention. Skye it said. No last name, but definitely her first name.
She tugged her handbag over her shoulder, frowning a little.
“Hello?”
“Skye?”
“Erm, yeah. Why?”
“Signore Valentino sent a car for you.” The driver opened the rear passenger door. “Ma’am?”
Skye stopped walking and stared, her heartbeat accelerating rapidly. “He did what?”
The driver’s expression didn’t change. Maybe the hotel mogul did this kind of thing regularly, because the driver looked totally at ease.
“He said I should advise you that he only wants a little of your time, then I’ll drive you home.”
Skye’s pulse was gushing through her ears, making it hard to think straight.
An hour ago, she’d thought she’d never see him again. She’d thought he’d left the hotel without a backwards glance—and she’d been disappointed. Surprisingly, crushingly so. And now? He was here—or his driver was—wanting to see her again.
As perplexing and out of character as it was, Skye started to walk again, towards the car, swallowing nervously as she slid into the plush back seat. The interior was all a creamy brown leather, and it smelled brand new. She ran her hand over the seat beside her, feeling the softness with admiration, before buckling up her seatbelt.
The driver started the engine—it was practically silent, so she guessed it was electric—and pulled out of the laneway behind the hotel. He drove with ease through the Manhattan streets, away from Midtown and towards the park. Halfway along Park Avenue, he pulled up in front of a steel and glass monolith, one of the newly built skyscrapers and stepped out of the car, coming around to open Skye’s door. Mouth dry, she joined him on the sidewalk, eyes taking in every detail of the luxurious building behind him.
A man emerged in a very fancy suit and top hat, like a parody of a doorman, and approached the driver, who handed him the car keys.
“This way,” the driver nodded towards the revolving glass doors, where two more doormen stood, wearing white gloves and polite smiles on their faces.
Skye was wearing a pair of jeans and a cashmere sweater she’d had for about ten years and loved to bits, and the comfortable shoes she’d bought for work. She was definitely about twenty notches shy of fancy-enough to enter a place like this. Nerves made her stomach zip and fire.
But the driver was looking at her expectantly, and she’d come this far…
Balling up her courage, she fell into step beside him, moving into the foyer and expelling a breath of amazement at how stunning it was. The ceilings were treble height, the floor was marble, the walls were wood paneled, the lights were crystal and gold chandeliers; it was excessive but also elegant.
At the elevator, the driver swiped to summon the lift, and then when the doors opened, he swiped the card again. No need to press a call button; the card evidently unlocked the floor. The driver stepped back out.
“I’ll see you when you’re ready,” he said, and she wondered, vaguely, where he was going to sit and spend time while she was with Leandro.
With Leandro.
Oh, God.
The knots were back, turning her stomach into something barely recognizable. What had she been thinking, to come here?
In the hotel, despite the luxury, it was also very familiar to Skye, almost ordinary, by virtue of the fact she was in those suites every night. This was something else altogether.
Her stomach stayed in the lobby while she travelled at high speed up, up, up to what must be one of the highest levels of the building. The doors pinged open, right into the foyer of an apartment. A penthouse? A…something. Her eyes went wide as saucers as she took in the details of this place. Like the lobby downstairs, the floor was marble, the ceilings were high, the lights were chandeliers. But up here, it was all about the view, with enormous windows showing Manhattan in all its glittering glory, as well as the darkness of Central Park. And at the sound of the elevator doors whooshing open, Leandro appeared, strolling from the lounge room towards the foyer with an expression on his face she couldn’t read.
“You came,” he murmured, a nod of approval.
“I don’t know why,” she blurted. “I just—you checked out.”
He stood where he was, bare feet planted wide on the tiled floor. “Si. It seemed to be a prerequisite.”
