Page 7 of Spades

“Northwestern,” she says. “I got my bachelor’s and master’s degrees there.”

“In what?”

She eyes the teapot. “The tea is probably ready by now.”

“Of course.” I pour two cups, handing one to her. “You were about to tell me what you went to school for.”

She looks down, straight into her teacup. “I went there for…flute performance.”

I drop my jaw. “You’re a musician?”

She takes a sip of tea. “I was. I tried to do the audition circuit, got to the final round with a couple of regional orchestras, but I never landed a seat. So I decided to try nursing instead. I went back to school and got my associate’s degree. Now I work at St. Charles General, near the Loop. Been there five years or so.”

I take a sip from my own cup of tea. The liquid is nearly scalding. But it keeps my dick at bay. I’m damned uncomfortable.

“Do you still play? The flute, I mean?”

She sighs. “Not as often as I’d like. I’ll occasionally get a gig playing a wedding or church service. Not much to show for six years of university.”

“It’s got to be a tough industry to break into. Especially in an artsy city like Chicago.”

She nods. “It is. I just… Sometimes I wonder if I should have tried to make it work just a bit longer. I gave it barely a year before giving it up.”

“Do you enjoy nursing?”

She blinks. “Yes. For the most part, I suppose. It’s a steady paycheck, and I’m making a difference in people’s lives.”

I’m not convinced. She sounds the way I would have sounded if I had followed in my family’s footsteps into politics. But I won’t press further. I just met the woman, after all.

“It’s a very noble calling, nursing,” I say. “I hear you guys do all the work while the doctors get all the credit.”

She smiles. “It’s not quite that cut and dried. The doctorsdocontribute.” She takes another sip of tea. “As much as a solid ten percent on a good day.”

I laugh at that. Alissa is funny, in the dry, British sort of way.

She finishes her cup of tea. “Thank you so much for the cup of tea, Maddox. I should really be getting home.” She looks out the window of the shop. “Goodness. It’s dark outside already.”

“You have to love winter in Chicago,” I say. “Cold, dark, and icy. Makes you wonder why any of us choose to brave it year after year.”

She places her teacup back on the tray and looks at me with warm eyes. “I suppose it’s the people, Maddox.”

And in that moment, it takes everything in my body not to grab her, strip her naked, and fuck her silly right on the floor of the shop. Customers be damned, passersby be damned, my family name—if it’s even worth anything now—certainly be damned…

But I don’t. I can tell that Alissa isn’t that type of girl. At least, not on the first meeting.

I can get her there.

“May I offer you a ride home?” I ask. “It’s past closing time anyway.”

She grabs her jacket from the back of the armchair she was sitting in and puts it on. “I couldn’t ask that of you, Maddox.”

“You’re not asking. I’m offering. And it’s no problem. Do you live around here?”

“Off of Wilson and Clark, but I really?—”

I hold up my hand. “Please. I couldn’t in good conscience allow a young woman to walk home alone in the dark. Wilson and Clark is a five-minute drive from here tops.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “And you promise you won’t try to abduct me and keep me tied up to a bed in your basement?”

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