BABY

THIS AGAIN

Blackthorn came into view through the mist looking exactly as it had when I first arrived. Polite. Quiet. Innocent in the way certain liars mastered young. I slowed at the drive and cut the engine, letting the wipers drag one last time across the windshield before silence settled in. The house stared back with curtained windows and white trim, giving nothing away. Maybe that was the game.

Maybe Simon was just an arrogant man with boundary issues and an overdeveloped sense of hospitality. Maybe I was bored, under-slept, and too attracted to trouble to be trusted with my own conclusions. Both things could be true. I sat there a moment longer and came to a decision that felt irresponsible enough to interest me. Fine. I was going to figure out what the f**k his problem was.

Not dramatically. Not by calling the police with a story that began he folded my cash neatly. Not by storming through halls accusing people of crimes inspired by mood lighting. I’d get close. Play nice. Maybe even apologize for the hallway scene. Men like Simon always revealed themselves fastest when they believed they were admired. And if nothing else, I needed a distraction. A little vacation chaos.

I got out, grabbed my bag, and walked into the foyer with a smile prepared and sharpened. “Simon?” I called. Nothing. The house answered with silence and old wood settling somewhere overhead. I checked the kitchen. Empty. Dining room. Empty. Front desk unattended. No radio playing. No smell of coffee. No sign of the man who had managed to occupy most of my thoughts with less than twenty-four hours of effort. Annoying.

I stood in the center of the foyer, listening to the hush, then laughed softly to myself. Maybe absence was the healthiest thing he’d offered me. I carried my bag back outside, climbed into the car, and opened my phone. Hotels near me. A newer place twenty minutes east had rooms available. Clean photos. Generic carpets. No mystery. Perfect. By dusk I was walking through the bright lobby of the Lakeside Grand with my overnight bag on one shoulder and boredom beginning to return.

Then I saw him. Silver at the temples. Tailored suit. Wedding ring. Expensive watch. Alone at the bar with a tumbler of something amber and the posture of a man used to being forgiven. He looked up just as I looked over. And smiled first.

I smiled back automatically, the way doors open when they’ve been used too often.

He was late fifties, maybe early sixties, handsome in the expensive-maintenance way some men aged when money kept consequences moisturized. Strong jaw softening at the edges, tan earned somewhere warm, wedding ring bright enough to suggest either devotion or carelessness. The watch alone could pay my room for a month.

Interesting. I adjusted the strap of my bag and let my gaze slide away as if I hadn’t noticed him at all. Men like that hated being unseen almost as much as they hated hearing no. By the time I reached the front desk, I could feel his attention following with all the subtlety of perfume.

“Checking in?” the clerk asked.

“Trying to,” I said.

Behind me came the scrape of a barstool and the measured footsteps of confidence crossing carpet. Right on schedule. “Forgive me,” the man said warmly at my shoulder. “I couldn’t help noticing you looked like someone deciding between adventure and a bad hotel coffee.” I turned slowly, arranging surprise where amusement had been.

“That obvious?”

“Only to trained eyes.”

I glanced at his ring, then back to his smile. “Then your training should’ve included discretion.”

He laughed in the pleased, expensive way men did when they mistook resistance for chemistry.

“Fair enough,” he said, extending a hand I had no intention of taking. “Grant Holloway.”

“Condolences,” I replied.

His laugh came again, fuller now. Good teeth. Confident eyes. The kind of man who believed charm was renewable energy.

“I deserved that,” he said. “And you are?”

“Checking in.”

The clerk coughed into a smile and focused very hard on the computer.

Grant glanced at my overnight bag, then at the rain streaking the front windows. “Traveling alone?”

“Depends who’s asking.”

“A man offering better coffee than whatever they’re serving in the lobby.”

“I don’t drink coffee with married men.”

His eyes flicked down to the ring as though seeing it for the first time in twenty years.

“Separated.”

“Congratulations on the paperwork.”

That earned another laugh, but something more honest slipped in beneath it: interest sharpened by challenge.

He stepped slightly closer, lowering his voice.

“Let me try again. Dinner. No lies, no pressure, no assumptions.”

I tilted my head as if considering.

In truth, I’d already decided yes the moment I saw the watch.

Grant laughed so loudly two people near the elevators glanced over.

“Seven o’clock,” he said. “Restaurant downstairs.”

“That sounds optimistic.”

“You already said yes.”

“I said maybe.”

“You smiled.”

“I have range.”

He touched two fingers to the brim of an invisible hat and stepped back toward the bar, looking pleased with himself in the way men often did right before expenses began. I watched him go, then turned toward the elevators with my key card between two fingers. The clerk leaned forward slightly.

“Ma’am,” he said in the low voice of someone risking policy, “that man tips terribly.”

I stopped.

Then slowly looked back toward the bar. Grant was already checking his reflection in the dark television mounted overhead. My smile sharpened.

“Thank you,” I told the clerk sincerely.

The elevator doors opened behind me with a soft chime. By the time they closed, I had gone from maybe dinner to absolutely not for free.

My room was on the ninth floor, modern in the sterile way hotels often confused with luxury. Gray carpet, white sheets, chrome fixtures, art selected specifically to offend no one. After Blackthorn, it felt less safe than empty.

I set my bag on the luggage rack and checked the bathroom, the closet, under the bed out of habit I pretended not to have. Nothing but fresh towels and expensive neutrality. The silence here was different too. No settling floorboards. No distant pipes. No feeling that the walls were listening. I should have liked that. Instead, I found myself noticing what was missing.

No smell of coffee. No old radio crackling somewhere unseen. No man downstairs who irritated me into alertness. I dropped onto the edge of the bed and glared at myself in the mirror across the room. “Absolutely pathetic,” I informed my reflection. My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Unknown Number. I stared at it for one ring too long before answering.

“Yes?”

A pause.

Then Simon’s voice, calm as folded linen.

“You forgot your lip gloss.”

I sat up so fast the mattress protested.

For one stupid second, relief hit before anger did.

Then both arrived together.

“How did you get this number?”

“You wrote it on the registration card.”

I had.

That irritated me almost as much as the fact he’d noticed.

“You called to discuss cosmetics?”

“I called because you left something behind.”

“I also left an inn with boundary issues.”

A quiet exhale moved through the line. Not quite a laugh.

“You checked into the Lakeside Grand,” he said. “Ninth floor, if the clerk respects symmetry.”

Every muscle in my body went still. I looked automatically toward the hotel room door, then the curtained window, then the mirror, as if one of them might confess.

“How would you know that?”

“The parking lot was empty,” he said. “Your room key was missing. You dislike unfinished exits. The Lakeside is the only vacancy east with same-day openings during rain.”

He paused just long enough to let the next sentence choose violence.

“And you always pick height when you feel watched.”

“That is insane,” I said.

I hung up on Simon and stood in the center of the room with my phone still in my hand, pulse louder than it had any right to be. He had a talent for getting under my skin in under a minute, which was rude considering how attractive he made it look. I needed a reset. Something shallow. Something expensive. Something that didn’t involve mysterious innkeepers and the strange urge to impress them.

So I grabbed my purse and headed back out into the rain.

The boutique two blocks over smelled like perfume and bad financial decisions. Perfect. I moved through racks of dresses with purpose, fingertips sliding over silk, satin, lace, anything that looked capable of making a man generous. In the end I chose black. Sleek, fitted, low enough to imply confidence without shouting for it. The kind of dress that suggested trouble had excellent posture.

Back in my room, I ran a bath hot enough to steam the mirror blind. I soaked until the tension left my shoulders and the city lights outside blurred into something softer. Then I stood in the bathroom wrapped in a towel, taking my time with every detail. Foundation. Lashes. Lip liner. Gold shimmer at the collarbone. Hair curled loose and glossy over one shoulder. By the time I stepped into the dress and fastened my heels, I looked like someone who made poor choices look aspirational.

Grant was waiting in the lobby exactly where men like Grant always waited, checking his watch as if punctuality were seductive on its own. He looked up, smiled wide, and stood too quickly when he saw me.

“There she is,” he said.

“There who is?” I asked.

“The reason I got here early.”

I let that land, then took his arm like he’d earned something. “Careful,” I said as we walked toward the restaurant. “Compliments this polished usually come with hidden fees.”

Dinner turned out better than Grant deserved.

The restaurant glowed in low amber light, all polished glass and soft jazz pretending nobody there had ever lied. Grant ordered wine with the ease of a man who liked being seen ordering wine. I let him choose everything, which thrilled him more than it should have.

Men often confused control with chemistry.

I gave him my full attention in measured doses. A laugh here. A longer look there. Fingers brushing his wrist when I reached for the bread basket. Questions about his work that allowed him to admire himself aloud while I nodded like an investor in his ego.

He owned three car dealerships, complained tastefully about taxes, and mentioned his “complicated separation” twice before appetizers arrived. The ring remained on his finger the whole time, shining with the confidence of unfinished business.

“And what about you?” he asked once the second glass of wine warmed his voice. “What’s your story?”

“I’m between versions,” I said.

He loved that answer so much I nearly charged him for it. By the main course he was leaning closer with every sentence, lowering his voice as if intimacy were something you could create by volume alone. I let my knee brush his under the table and watched the thought of me rearrange his evening in real time. By dessert, he was calling me dangerous like it was praise. I smiled and let him keep thinking he’d discovered something.

By the time coffee arrived, Grant had crossed into that warm, expensive confidence rich men often mistook for magnetism. His tie was loosened half an inch. His laugh came easier. Every story now featured him as hero, victim, or irresistible inconvenience. I made sure to seem entertained by all three.

“You know what I like about you?” he asked, leaning in.

“How brave you are saying that without permission?”

He laughed hard enough to touch my hand. “No. You’re not impressed by any of this.”

He gestured vaguely to the restaurant, the suit, the watch, the cultivated ease of a man who believed luxury was personality.

“And yet,” I said softly, “you keep trying.”

That hit him exactly where I intended.

His eyes sharpened. The game became more interesting to him the second he thought he might lose. Men who had too much money often lacked hobbies. When the bill came, he signed without looking at the total. I noticed the black card, the steady hand, the way he tipped carelessly. Old habits of attention never really left me. Outside the restaurant, he offered me his arm again.

“Nightcap upstairs?” he asked.

I let the silence stretch, pretending to consider morality like it had voting rights.

“Lead the way,” I said.