Ten Past Nine

At the top of Prescott Tower, sixty-two floors above the glittering streets of Manhattan, a man stood alone at a giant window and watched the city light up for the night. Rain had fallen all afternoon. Now the streets below shone like black glass, and the yellow taxis slid across them like little bars of gold. Far off, the Empire State Building glowed red and white against the clouds. It was a beautiful view. The man at the window had stopped noticing it years ago.

His name was David Prescott. He was thirty-eight years old, tall and sharp-jawed, with dark hair that never seemed to be out of place and grey eyes that could make a grown man forget his own name. He owned three companies, a fleet of black cars, and a house so big it had its own elevator. People in the business world said he never smiled. They also said he never forgot a mistake. Both things were mostly true.

Behind him, the office door opened without a knock. Only one person in the whole building was allowed to do that.

"Evening, sir," said Gregory Hale. Gregory was forty-five, round-faced and calm, and he wore a navy suit that was always a little rumpled around the elbows, as if he had spent the day bending over other people's problems. He had been David's assistant for eleven years. Some people called him David's right hand. Gregory preferred to call himself "the only employee who isn't afraid of him."

David did not turn around. "Gregory, what time is it?"

Gregory checked the silver watch on his wrist, though he already knew the answer. "Ten past nine, sir." He let out a long breath. "Here we go."

David finally turned. He loosened his tie, slid his hands into his pockets, and said the same thing he had said every night for months. "Bring someone."

Why did he do it? The whole building had a theory, and most of them were wrong. Only Gregory knew the real reason, and it came down to a single name.

Victoria.

Three years earlier, David had loved a woman named Victoria Lane. She was the kind of woman who walked into a room and made every head turn, with golden hair, a laugh like silver bells, and a way of looking at David as if he were the only man alive. He had given her everything. He gave her trips to Paris and Tokyo. He gave her a diamond bracelet that cost more than a small house. Most of all, he gave her his time, which was the one thing he had never given anyone else. He had been ready to give her something even bigger, and the little velvet box had been sitting in his desk drawer for six weeks.

Then he learned that Victoria preferred options. That was the word David always used afterwards, with a smile that never reached his eyes. She had options. And one of them was going to cost him far more than a diamond.

When it was over, he made himself a promise. Never again. No woman would ever get close enough to hurt him like that. But a man cannot sit alone in a mansion forever without going a little strange, so David built himself a rule. Every night, one guest. Every night, a different woman. Every night, nothing real.

Gregory stepped farther into the office and set a thin black folder on the desk. "I found someone for tonight, sir. Well, I found a few people. The agency sent me their top three, and I narrowed it down."

"I don't need a speech about it."

"You'll get one anyway. It's included in my salary." Gregory flipped the folder open. "Option one is a lawyer. Option two is a model from Brooklyn. And option three..."

He stopped. His eyes had dropped to the third page. For a moment his face did something David had rarely seen it do. It went quiet and a little sad.

"What about option three?" David asked.

"Her name is Hannah Carter." Gregory slid the page across the polished desk. "She's twenty-six. She works nights at a diner in Queens, and she picks up extra shifts as a home helper whenever she can. She isn't really part of the agency. A friend of mine gave me her name."

David glanced at the photograph, and then he looked again. Hannah Carter had brown hair tied up in a messy knot, a tired smile, and eyes that seemed to be laughing and worrying at the exact same time. The picture looked like it had been taken at work. There was a coffee pot in her hand and a smudge of something on her apron.

"Why her?" David said.

"Because of the last line of her file." Gregory's voice was careful. "Her mother is very sick. She needs heart surgery, and it has to happen in less than two weeks. The surgery costs eighty thousand dollars, and Hannah doesn't have it."

"How bad is it?" David asked.

"Not bad." Gregory hesitated. "Hannah. I mean, Hannah isn't bad. The situation is..."

"Gregory."

"Okay. Pretty bad."

David looked at the photograph for a long moment. He told himself it didn't matter. He told himself she was just another name in just another folder, and tomorrow morning she would be gone like all the others. But something about that smudge on her apron kept pulling at his eyes.

"Well, this is either brave or unbelievably stupid," David said at last.

"Probably both, sir."

Gregory closed the folder. "She doesn't even know yet. If I find her, I'll tell her the truth. A man wants her company for one evening. She can say yes. She can say no."

"Wait," Gregory said, studying his boss's face. "Is that why you're miserable?"

"I am not miserable."

"Sure."

"I'm not."

"Sure," Gregory said again, and this time he was almost smiling.

David waved a hand without looking back. "Go. Find your diner girl. And Gregory, make sure she understands one thing."

"That she can leave at any time?"

"That nobody forces anyone in my house."

Then he was gone, and David was alone with the rain and the city lights. He didn't know yet that the night ahead would be different from all the nights before it. He didn't know that one tired waitress, one broken promise, and one very expensive envelope were about to change the whole shape of his life.

He only knew that, for the first time in three years, he was curious.