Chapter 4 — Mistaken Identity
1219 Words
The envelope appeared on a Tuesday.
Sophie found it lying face down outside the supply room, half tucked beneath the edge of a floor mat. She bent automatically and picked it up before she’d fully registered what it was.
Tidying had become reflex years ago.
It was thick cream paper, expensive enough to feel expensive. Not the kind bought in multipacks from supermarkets. The sort chosen from somewhere with soft lighting and unnecessary ribbon.
She turned it over.
Written neatly in dark ink were two lines:
Miss Claudia Ashworth
Apartment 34A, Cole Tower, EC2
Sophie frowned.
Resident post usually came through the front concierge desk, not the service corridor. This had either been misrouted or mishandled.
She glanced at the tablet in the supply room.
No delivery note.
No logged request.
No instruction.
Which meant only one thing.
Take it upstairs.
At six-fifteen she wheeled the trolley onto floor thirty-four with the envelope tucked under her arm.
The corridor was unusually quiet.
No piano from 34D.
No food delivery smell from 34B.
Even the air felt paused.
She considered simply leaving the envelope outside 34A and getting on with her shift.
She was reaching the door when it opened.
A woman leaned out, phone to one ear, one hand gripping the frame. She was around thirty, maybe a little older than Sophie, with immaculate hair and the polished kind of beauty money often assisted. Camel coat over a fitted dress. Diamond studs. Makeup so well done it barely looked like makeup at all.
She was speaking quickly into the phone.
“—if he changes the reservation again, then he can tell me himself because I’m not rearranging my—”
She stopped when she saw Sophie.
Her eyes took in the trolley, uniform, posture.
“Are you the new girl?” she asked.
The tone wasn’t rude.
Worse, in some ways.
It was casual categorisation.
“Evening staff,” Sophie replied evenly. “I found this downstairs.”
She held out the envelope.
The woman’s expression changed for a fraction of a second when she saw the handwriting.
Possession. Irritation. Something harder to name.
“That’s mine.”
She stepped forward and took it.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The woman retreated inside and almost shut the door.
Almost.
Sophie turned back to the trolley.
Work first. Feelings never.
She moved to the far end of the corridor and began dusting skirting boards.
A few minutes later, another door opened.
Not an apartment door.
The stairwell.
Sophie paused.
No one on floor thirty-four used the stairs voluntarily.
Footsteps approached.
The man from 34A emerged, jacket over one arm, phone in his hand. He was reading something on the screen and didn’t notice her at first.
He crossed to his apartment and pushed the door open.
From inside, the woman’s voice:
“Alex.”
He stopped halfway in.
“You’re early,” he said.
“You said seven.”
“I said around seven.”
Sophie lowered herself to crouch beside the skirting board and wiped a section already clean.
She wasn’t hiding.
But she also had no wish to become visible inside someone else’s domestic tension.
“There was a letter,” the woman said.
“What letter?”
“I’ll show you.”
The door shut.
Silence returned.
Sophie sat back on her heels.
So.
Claudia Ashworth knew him as Alex.
Useful information.
Meaningless information.
Still, it filed itself away.
She resumed working.
Twenty minutes later, 34A opened again.
This time Sophie was in the middle of the corridor with nowhere to retreat and no reason to.
Claudia came out first, shrugging on her coat, phone already in hand.
She pressed the lift button without looking up.
Then Alex—Alexander, apparently—stepped out behind her.
He saw Sophie immediately and stopped.
There was a brief shift in his expression.
Not surprise exactly.
More the look of a man who had forgotten other people continued to exist when he wasn’t directly dealing with them.
“Evening,” he said.
“Evening.”
Claudia glanced up.
Her gaze moved from Sophie to Alexander and back again.
“This is the new cleaning staff,” he said. “Thirty-four.”
“We met,” Claudia said lightly. “She brought me my letter.”
Her eyes lingered on Sophie longer this time.
Assessing.
Comparing.
Entertaining herself.
Then she smiled.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
The words floated into the corridor like perfume.
Light enough to deny meaning.
Sharp enough to carry one.
Alexander said nothing.
His face gave away nothing.
Sophie met Claudia’s gaze calmly.
“Have a good evening.”
Then she turned back to her trolley.
The lift arrived.
They stepped inside.
Doors closed.
Silence.
Sophie stood still for one beat.
Then another.
She was not embarrassed.
People had spoken around her before, over her, about her, as though service workers became part of the décor once they put on uniforms.
Customers in cafés.
Managers in offices.
Visitors who assumed hearing and dignity were optional extras.
It wasn’t new.
What was new was the irritation that rose sharp and immediate in her chest.
She buried it where she buried everything else.
Then kept cleaning.
At eight-fifty she was near the lift lobby doing a final mop when the elevator doors opened again.
She expected Tomasz.
Instead, Alexander stepped out alone.
No Claudia.
No tie now. Jacket folded over one arm. Expression composed, but thinner somehow, as though patience had been used up elsewhere.
He saw her.
“Still here.”
“Ten minutes.”
He nodded.
But instead of going to his apartment, he remained where he was.
Sophie continued mopping.
She could feel him deciding whether to speak.
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
She stopped.
“You don’t.”
“For what Claudia said.”
“It’s fine.”
She said it plainly, not kindly, not cruelly.
Just true enough to end the subject.
He looked at her for a moment.
Then asked, unexpectedly:
“What’s your name?”
Simple question.
No arrogance. No performance.
Just belated recognition that she had one.
“Sophie.”
He held her gaze.
“Alexander.”
She gave a small nod.
He turned toward his door.
Hand on the handle.
Then paused.
“Sophie.”
“Yes?”
“The mirror at the far end.”
She glanced that way.
“The frame’s loose,” he said. “Has been for two weeks. I logged it with maintenance. No one came.”
A beat.
“If you’ve got the right screwdriver, it’ll take thirty seconds.”
Then he went inside.
The door closed.
Sophie stood there staring after him.
Then she crossed to the mirror.
Pressed lightly on the frame.
It shifted.
She snorted softly.
Of course it did.
From the trolley she found a small screwdriver, tightened the lower bracket, adjusted the angle, and stepped back.
Straight.
Secure.
Done.
She should have felt nothing about the exchange.
Instead, something inconveniently warm settled in her chest.
Not attraction.
Certainly not.
Something smaller.
Recognition, perhaps.
The surprising comfort of being spoken to like a person.
She packed away her tools.
Took the trolley downstairs.
And reminded herself all the way home that she had come to Cole Tower for money.
Nothing else.
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