Chapter 13

It was love at first sight, and as soon as I stepped into the penthouse that was to be my home for the next couple of weeks, led on in by Elijah, a tension I had not even been aware of unfurled in me and I relaxed, taking in everything with the wide-eyed disbelief of a toddler.

The apartment boasted several floor-to-ceiling windows (an architectural quirk that I had now started to associate with Elijah), custom-designed furnishings in dark wood and a European-style wet bar. In the living room, a 60-inch LCD flat-screen played a rerun of some French soap, and even though it was on mute I could make out what was being said to a reasonable degree because the subtitles had been turned on.

Everywhere I looked something waited for me to marvel at, and even though it hadn’t even been up to five minutes since I arrived, already I’d had to hold myself back from running my hands over everything as I choked down on little noises of awe.

“I hope you’