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He never deserved to sit across from her, let alone touch her.

I hope he spends years wondering why it went wrong. I hope he never works it out.

"The bartender looked like he wanted to crawl under the bar when you lifted your hand."

"He served you well liquor and ignored your order. He should be worried."

Her reflection glances at mine. "It was a twenty-four-dollar Manhattan."

"It was yours."

That lands. I watch it land. Her lips part, just slightly, and I have to look at the floor numbers to keep my hands where they are.

"Do you always have that effect on people?"

"Yes."

She laughs.

The sound fills the elevator. Warm. Low. Completely unguarded.

I feel it everywhere.

In the brass, we look like a before-and-after photo. Her, flushed and bright and twenty-something. Me, silver at the temples and forty-three years of bad decisions in a black suit.

She's younger than me. Fourteen years, maybe.

I should care more than I do.

"You're staring," she says.

"You're worth staring at."

"Is that a line?"

"I told you. I don't do lines."

I didn't come up here tonight wanting anything. Now I want to know what she sounds like when she stops laughing. When she says my name, if I ever give it to her.

I won't.

She asked for one night.

I'll make sure it's one she never forgets.

The doors open on the top floor.

I keep a suite up here for nights I don't want to go home.

She walks into it like she's walking into a room she has to win.

Chin up. Shoulders back. The red dress swaying.

Then she stops at the windows.

Some of the armor slips.

"Oh," she breathes.