Falling In Read Free Page B

Cautiously, she walked to the dense, stout columns making up the wide granite railing. The balcony was the size of a regular guest room.
    As she stepped to the edge, her heart raced. Wisps of hair came loose from her bun and whipped across her face in the blustery, uncontained wind. From such heights there was neither rhyme nor reason to the breeze, nothing barricading or stifling its power.
    Overwhelmed by the magnitude and quite aware of her insignificant part in this grandiose world, Scout quietly panted, her heart somewhere in her feet as she tried to fathom the height, scale, and intentional point of power she occupied in those brief seconds. It was a completely unfamiliar feeling, staring down at the tiny people bustling about their lives on the pavement below.
    Scout tried to imagine the person entitled to stand in such a position of supremacy, but her mind came up short. She had no image of reference for such an omnipotent being. All guests of Patras were wealthy, but whoever stayed in this master suite was a king.
    She saw the guest as a master of the world in her mind, yet he or she remained faceless, and without detail. Power was the only characteristic she was sure of.
    A sudden stab of unease had her stepping back from the edge. Never had she felt so out of place. Wealth to this degree was beyond her comprehension and she was defenseless against it, outnumbered and small, meaningless. She suddenly wanted to be done with this place.
    Scout quickly returned to the warmth of the room and pulled the heavy doors shut behind her. Like a trespasser on the run, she sought her supply basket and headed toward what she thought to be the supply closet.
    Get done and get out.
    There were three bathrooms in the master suite, each one more lavish than the last. She began with the largest one and quickly worked in a clockwise motion around the restrooms until the marble fixtures shone like jewels. Next she made the beds, fluffed the pillows, refreshed the soaps and towels, and dusted the furniture.
    When Scout went in search of the vacuum, she accidentally found a clothing closet. The sheer volume of clothing baffled her. Suits. All men’s suits. A large silk robe the color of onyx hung on the inside of the closet door and as she leaned close she could smell a delicious trace of some sort of masculine fragrance in the material.
    There were so many clothes. Over twenty pairs of expensive shoes, shined to a point that she could see a distorted reflection of herself in each toe. She added large feet to the powerful, faceless guest occupying this space.
    It occurred to her that this was more than just a hotel room, more than just a temporary penthouse. This was the apartment of some very wealthy long-term guest. She wasn’t sure what gave away the resident’s permanent status at Patras, but once it crossed her mind that this guest was more than some wealthy mogul passing by, she became certain of it.
    The suite didn’t smell like the other rooms in the hotel. It had a warm unique scent of its own. There was an astounding amount of lived-in subtleties she’d first overlooked, the amount of papers tucked here and there, the clothing, the wooden hamper in the master bath. She wasn’t sure what to do with that.
    Curious about the mysterious resident, Scout wandered to the large desk in the sitting room. She debated organizing the papers that seemed to have floated thoughtlessly to the floor in no particular order, but her better judgment told her to let them be.
    There was a calendar with notes jotted in every square. She tried to read the thickly scrolled handwriting, but it was in cursive and she was hopeless with those peculiar, curly letters.
    Her fingers grazed the shiny pewter letter opener. It reminded her of a dagger. She lifted it, testing the heavy weight in her hand and smiled when she discovered a pearl set in the hilt and something engraved beneath the gem. She wasn’t sure what the one loopy