Party Crashers

"The other night at the High Museum too?"
    She nodded and flushed to her knees. "You must think that's terrible."
    When he uncovered his mouth, he was laughing. "No, it's just that I hate these events—I can't imagine crashing one for the fun of it."
    Said the prince to the peasant girl. Cheeks burning, she straightened and walked past him. "I was just leaving."
    "Wait—did you drive?"
    She nodded.
    "Valet?"
    She shook her head, thinking he probably valeted his car at the mall. "I'm in the parking garage." The cheap seats.
    "May I walk you to your car?"
    She remembered her earlier experience and swallowed her pride. "Yes."
    He seemed surprised, but fell into step next to her. His stride was one and a half times hers, but he paced himself, then held open the door. He had loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his snowy shirt. He was so handsome that she couldn't look at him, and she couldn't not look at him, which only made her feel more like a groupie.
    "Am I taking you away from your sister?" she asked.
    "No, I was just seeing Della off. I'm living at the hotel for now."
    "Oh." Her mind spun at the thought of that bill.
    "You can see why I need to find a place to live."
    She looked up. "You still want to work with me?"
    He grinned and pushed open the industrial door leading into the garage. "Are you a good real estate agent?"
    "Yes," she said as she passed under his arm. "Actually, I'm a broker."
    "So you work for yourself."
    "Yes. I'm hoping to open an office after the first of the year. For now, I'm working out of my apartment. I can give you a client reference list." She stopped at the elevator and pushed the up button.
    "No need," he said. "Anyone who is willing to work two jobs must be trustworthy."
    In response, she fidgeted with the blunt ends of her wig. The man made her forget things, like how chaotic her life had become. And how numb her feet were.
    The elevator doors opened and she walked inside, thinking when he followed how strange that since Monday, their paths had crossed so many times. She could say it was kismet, and Leann would chastise her for being gullible.
    "I assumed your family already had a broker that you worked with." She punched the button for the third floor.
    "We do," he said simply.
    "Oh." So he was going out of his way to give her his business. Hmm.
    "Did you have a good time tonight?" he asked.
    Strangely, she had—before the run-in with Roger LeMon, of course. She nodded. "Actually, I did, earlier in the evening. It's obviously rote to you, but I thought it was fascinating to see all those important people in one room and to mingle as if I were one of them." She stopped, suddenly embarrassed at what she had revealed about herself—as if Beck Underwood would be interested in her private inadequacies.
    A frown flickered across his face. "As far as I'm concerned, you're just as important as anyone in that room."
    She tried to joke her way past her lapse. "You probably say that to all the girls."
    But he didn't laugh. "No, I don't. But then again, I find myself saying things to you that I'd never say to other women. And I'm not quite sure why that is."
    He seemed to be studying her, his eyes filled with a curiosity she'd seen before. He was trying to figure her out. Silently she willed him to see what no one else could see—that she was a common woman looking for an uncommon connection, for a sign that life was more than random physical interactions. She waited, her breath coming in little spurts.
    His lips parted, and just when he seemed on the verge of saying something, the elevator chimed its arrival at the third floor.
    The elevator door opened and she walked toward her car, embarrassed that the Chevy was so...unremarkable, and irritated with herself that she cared what he thought. Their footsteps echoed against the concrete, and for some reason she liked the sound of it—their own pattern.
    She closed her eyes briefly, reminding herself that there was no "their" anything. A "their" necessitated a "they," and there was no "they."
    She walked up to the car and glanced in the backseat before unlocking the door. Empty. She turned back and smiled. "Thank you for...everything."
    "I only walked you to your car," he said mildly. In the glare of the fluorescent lights, he looked tired. Which meant she must look like something from a crypt. In a wig.
    "I mean thanks for earlier, for covering for me when Sammy was on the verge of recognizing me."
    "No problem," he said, hands