Eleven
Amber approached the mansion slowly, letting herself take in the details highlighted by the last light of the setting sun — the rows of columns, the elegant balustrades on the upstairs balcony, the slender shapes of the Italian cypress in pots that flanked the main entrance off the loggia. Maybe she was torturing herself by trying to commit all this to memory, rather than push it aside as an interlude that never had any chance of lasting, but she wanted to keep this house and the man who lived in it in a secret place in her heart, like the hidden compartment in the jewelry box her parents had given her as a Christmas present when she was a little girl. That way, when no one was looking, she could open the little drawer and pull out the treasures inside, only they wouldn’t be rings
