Page 6 of The Kiss of Deception

“Hi.” He looks like a cartoon, tiny voice adorably shy and the cutest pink in cheeks as opposed to his navy-blue shirt.

Oh.

Oh.

“Can I take a pic with you?” he says.

For the first time in my life, I stutter. “I—Uh—Why—Uh—”

Why would he want a picture with me?

Looking around as though I’d find answers hanging from the chandeliers, I find more eyes studying me. An older woman’s head swinging like a pendulum catches my attention. Following her line of sight, I watch her eyes dart from my face to the wall-mounted TV.

Because my face is on that TV. Next to Miles Blackstein.

But he’s massive, and I’m tiny, and somehow, his whispered plea has become a kiss in full HD.

At least, according to some morning show’s gossip column, where it plays on loop.

As if on cue, my phone screeches again.

And I think it happens again.

I think I freeze when reality hits me with the magnitude of an earth-splintering earthquake.

I think my lips twitch and my head bobs, because the little kid huddles closer and smiles up at the flash from the hands of a woman I never saw approaching. It blinds me but I think I babble gratitude I can’t hear through the pounding in my head.

I look up at the screen.

I wasn’t even kissed, and I already know I’ve been fucked.

My fingers curl inside my hand, an iron fist falling repeatedly, relentlessly, on the white door adorned with four golden digits.

39-02

“Open up! I know you’re in there.”

I don’t care that I’m almost strident.

Two apartments inhabit the thirty-ninth floor of The Lucilla, a forty-four floor high-rise in Back Bay. I’m lucky, oh so lucky, to have inherited one of the doors.

I used to love it. Found, in the silence, the freedom of being me.

Until Miles Blackstein brought his life to the next door.

His arrival eviscerated the peace, and his presence became a vacuum that sucked every last sliver of serenity on this floor.

Working in the same world, with similar schedules and calendars meant our paths cross more often than any neighbors in the city have any business to.

“Blackstein!”

My impatience grows like weed around my fist. It itches with the need to hit something again.

When the door finally creaks open, even a sliver of the bright blue of his foyer crashes against the dull hallway where the only light pours from floor lighting embroidered where white walls meet the gray floors.

“Hello, love.”

Chapter Three

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