It means I don’t have a choice.
Six
A strikingly tall woman meets me in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria and seems to identify me immediately. “Georgia?” Her clipped British accent matches the severity of her coppery-red hair pulled back in a tight knot at the back of her head. “Yael Miller. This way.”
Before I can reach to shake her hand, she’s already turned and taken two long strides toward the elevator bank.
I’m uneasy about the lack of information, but not overly so. Billy knows where I am, knows who I’m meeting. He wouldn’t send me into a shady situation. And it’s obviously important if he agreed to give me a twelve-hour extension on my deadline.
Yael Miller presses the button for the penthouse, and we ride in the elevator in silence. Finally, the elevator doors open and we step out into a small alcove with only a single door ahead of us. She swipes a keycard and opens it, gesturing for me to step inside.
I do, but she doesn’t follow me in. The door sweeps closed with a heavy whoosh, sealing me inside.
And then my heart falls from my mouth and straight through the floor. Standing in front of the windows, leaning back with his hands braced on the sill, and looking very much like he did on the elevator up to his room only two days ago is Alec Kim.
The first words out of my mouth are simple reflex: “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He straightens immediately. “Don’t walk out.”
My shoulders are angled away already, and I’m sure the instinct to flee is written all over my face. A sour thought hits me like a pill dissolved on my tongue. “Wait. Was that your assistant?”
“Yes.”
“The one who got me the underwear?”
Alec nods.
“Well, remind me to thank her on the way out. I’m sure she loves running that particular errand.”
“It was a first,” he admits.
“She must have been pretty displeased,” I say, looking around. “She didn’t say a word to me the entire ride up.”
“That’s just how she is.” His brows flicker up as he interprets my meaning another way. “There’s no jealousy happening. I don’t appeal to Yael in that way.”
I exhale slowly, looking to the side. I now have no idea why I’m here. Does Alec really have something to tell me about Jupiter? And if so, why did he give no indication that he knew something when we were together in Seattle?
“Well,” I say, staring at the art on the wall. It looks expensive. I don’t remember even noticing the art in his last suite. “I’m here. What did you want to tell me?”
He inhales sharply through his nose, nodding slowly. “The way you left the airport, I couldn’t tell for sure… but it’s hard to miss the anger in your tone right now.”
“I’m not angry, Alec. I’m annoyed. I shared a really intense night with someone who lied to me about who he was, and now I’ve been summoned—while on deadline—and I have no idea why.”
“It was intense for me, too,” he says, ignoring the rest of what I’ve said. “But we both know it wouldn’t have been anything like that if I’d told you more about myself.”
He might be right but, “Still shitty,” I say.
“You work for the foreign news desk at the LA Times and had no idea who I was, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for not telling you?”
My jaw drops. “You’re an actor, not a diplomat,” I say. “Is your ego really so huge?”
He groans, tilting his face to the ceiling. “Come on, you know that isn’t what I mean. I just—either be angry that I didn’t tell you, or be glad we had the night we had, but you can’t be both.”
“I can absolutely be both. But it’s moot anyway: what we had two nights ago was bullshit.”
He weathers this as if I’ve physically shoved him, and a thread of guilt tugs at my chest. “Why would I think I should clarify for you who I am?” he asks. “Why would it matter, at least at first? You were my sister’s childhood best friend. I let you use my shower. I figured that would be it, and if you didn’t recognize me as someone other than Sunny’s brother, it made no difference to either of us. But then we started talking, and then we were having drinks, and then we were holding hands, and the longer I didn’t tell you, the more I didn’t want to.”
“You asked me all about my life and then were deliberately vague about yourself,” I say. “At least tell me, ‘I want a night off from my reality,’ or, ‘I don’t feel like getting into it.’ Don’t give me half-truths that make me feel like we’re being equally forthcoming.”