The Original Sinners: The Red Years. Tiffany Reisz

knowing from the silence that Nora had already gone. Everything hurt, but he couldn’t care less. Had there ever been such a woman in all the world like her?

      Zach got into the shower with as much reluctance as he’d left his bed. The hot water burned his skin. He couldn’t remember when his body had been this raw from so much sex. He lingered in the shower, needing the heat on his sore and aching muscles. After getting out he toweled off and dressed carefully, cursing himself for behaving like an eighteen-year-old lad in his forty-two-year-old body.

      By midmorning he remembered Nora had unplugged his phone last night. He plugged it in and checked his voice mail. One message—most likely from work, he guessed.

      “Zachary, it’s me.” At the sound of Grace’s voice Zach’s hands went numb and his legs turned to stone. “I’m in New York. Not sure why.” Pause. “That’s a lie. I do know why. You don’t seem to be home. I stopped by and knocked but no one answered. I called Mr. Bonner. I may try what he suggested. Anyway, I’m only in town until tomorrow morning. I wish you’d get a bloody mobile. Never mind. I’m staying—”

      Zach grabbed a pen and scrawled the name of Grace’s hotel on his palm. He considered calling to see if she was there but didn’t want to waste a second. He threw on his coat and raced from his apartment. If the lift had broken the sound barrier on its way down, it still wouldn’t have been fast enough for Zach. She’d come by his flat? When? Probably when he was in the shower. Of all mornings to take an hour-long shower, he cursed himself again. Traffic was blessedly light, but it still felt like a lifetime passed before the taxi pulled in front of her hotel.

      Zach shoved money in the driver’s hand and raced into the hotel lobby.

      “Could you ring Grace Rowan’s room please?” Zach asked the hotel desk clerk.

      “I’m sorry, sir, but we have no one registered under that name.”

      Zach swore under his breath. Had he heard Grace wrong? Unless…

      “Try Grace Easton.”

      “Ah, yes. I’ll call her room for you.”

      Zach sagged with relief. The clerk dialed her room number. After what seemed an interminable amount of time passed, he hung up the phone. “I’m sorry, sir. She doesn’t seem to be in. Would you care to leave a message?”

      Zach decided his course of action that instant. “I’ll wait for her.”

      He found a seat in the lobby that afforded him a clear view of the entrance. He stared at the elegant revolving doors, trying not to let their endless spinning hypnotize him.

      Now that he was finally at her hotel his heart was still racing as if he’d run the whole way there. Why was Grace here? What on earth had she come for? He knew her. She’d always been brave enough to deliver bad news face-to-face. But he’d already heard the bad news. So why?

      It didn’t matter, he told himself. Whatever the reason he would get to see her. That was reason enough to wait in the lobby. Forever, if necessary.

      * * *

      Two hours after falling asleep with the combs in her hand, Nora crawled from her bed and showered and dressed in a daze. Numb from exhaustion, exhausted from shock, she entered the kitchen on feet made of lead. Wesley was there loudly opening and closing cabinet doors.

      “What are you looking for?” she asked between slams.

      “My coffee thermos. The blue one with the lid.” His voice sounded tight and strained.

      “Did you check the dishwasher?”

      Wesley stopped, wrenched opened the door of the dishwasher and yanked out the top rack.

      “Dishwasher,” he said, as much to himself as her. “Right. Of course. How could I have been so completely stupid?”

      Nora winced and sat down gingerly at the table. It hurt to be in the same room with him. Wesley leaned against the counter for a moment and just breathed.

      “Are you mad at me?” she asked in a small voice.

      “I want to be. I oughta be.” He shook his head. “No, I’m not mad at you. Just myself.”

      She nodded and met his eyes.

      “Are you sad at me?”

      He released a cold, empty laugh.

      “Yeah, I’m sad at you.” She could tell he was trying not to cry. She tried, too.

      “I’m sorry, Wes. I am. God, you said you wanted your first time to be with someone who knew what she was doing. Obviously when it comes to you I have no idea what I’m doing.”

      “I don’t care. There’s no one else I want to be with. But if you want to be with Zach…I just want you to be happy. That’s all that matters.”

      “Listen, last night with Zach—it was about the book. I went over to his apartment yesterday to throw the book in his face, to show him it was done. I was going to leave. He asked me to stay, to help him finish editing it. We got it all done in one night.”

      “I saw you when you came in. You didn’t just work on the book. I’m not completely stupid about everything.”

      “You aren’t stupid about anything. I am. I’m the one who forgot to call, who forgot we had plans. I was just so shocked that Zach had changed his mind…that he wanted to read the book. Wes,” she said and Wesley met her eyes. “He signed the contract. We celebrated.”

      “I thought we were going to celebrate.”

      “We still can. We—”

      “I wasn’t talking about dinner and a fucking movie, Nora.” Nora flinched at the sheer agony in his voice. “I wanted us to be together.”

      “Wesley…” she began but couldn’t find another word to say.

      “I’m sorry,” he said and ran his hands through his hair. “I didn’t mean to yell. This is…I don’t know. Last Sunday on your bed, Nora, I can’t even tell you how that made me feel.”

      “I never felt anything like what I felt with you, either,” she said and remembered that abject panic she felt when she and Wesley had come so close to making love.

      “Felt what?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked cold and tired. She wanted to wrap her arms around him until they both felt warm again.

      She laughed a little. “Performance anxiety.”

      “Performance anxiety? Nora, you don’t have to perform with me.”

      “I think that’s why I was so scared. I don’t know how to be with someone like you. I don’t know the rules to this game.”

      “It’s not a game.”

      “Then how will we win?”

      Wesley didn’t answer, just stared past her.

      “I guess that answers my question,” she said.

      Wesley took a deep breath. “I’ll try. I’ll try to be what you need me to be. I know I’m not like you, but I can try. It’s worth it if I can be with you.”

      “But it wouldn’t be you with me. It would be some version of you that was trying to be what I wanted. I won’t let you sacrifice who you are to be with me.” Wesley shook his head and headed for the door. “Wesley, please—”

      She started to stand up, wanting to go to him.

      “Don’t.” He raised his hand. She froze where she was. “Don’t apologize and don’t explain. I’ll live with this. I just need you not to talk about it.”

      “I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

      “Hey,” he said with false levity. “At least it’s not Søren.”

      Nora