“Oh my God.”
“It was the nineties,” he says, “and they were the biggest stars in the world at the time.”
“Do you interact with them? The guests who stay here, I mean?”
“Not often.” He looks down at the glass in his hands. “That sort of thing loses its appeal pretty fast. Besides, guests of that caliber aren’t here to talk to the staff.”
“You’re not exactly staff.”
“Oh,” he says, and there’s humor in his voice, “to a foreign president visiting for a UN summit, or to a young pop star with an entourage, I am very much the staff.”
“I guess I’ve never thought of it like that.” Isaac and his family are giants on the New York stage, and he’s a giant in the world of hospitality, but his name might not be one every household knows.
I look away from his dark eyes. The coffee table sports a few huge books, along with the vase of flowers.
“Look,” I say. “The Winter coffee-table book would look stunning on here.”
He chuckles. “Always working, Sophia?”
“It’s hard to turn it off sometimes.”
“I know all about that,” he says, and I know he means it. “Although, you might just have me beat here. You came to the hotel to spend a night off just for research.”
I run a hand along my neck. My hair is drying, and without a blow drier, it’s quickly becoming a frizzy mess, braid or no braid.
“Well, I wasn’t just here to do research.”
“You weren’t?”
I shrug. “Well, today is technically my wedding anniversary.”
His eyebrows rise. “It is?”
“Yes, and it’s the first since the divorce, and I didn’t want to sit at home. I figured that using the lovely spa you’d shown me and ordering room service would make the day… better.”
It had also been something to placate my mother and my sister. Both had called today, and I love them for their thoughtfulness. But there’s only so many questions about how I’m feeling that I can handle.You could come back home,had been said by both.
I’d sent them a picture of the spa area and told them I was treating myself. My mom had responded with six thumbs up and a heart emoji.
“I would have thought this particular hotel would be a difficult place to be,” Isaac says, “especially on an anniversary.”
I look down at my wine. “I’ve already been here for work, and that’s taken the edge off the memory. Besides, I can’t let him ruin the best hotel in New York for me, can I?”
“You know, I agree with that,” Isaac says. But there’s a frown marring his face, making the lines around his eyes deeper.
Maybe I’ve overstepped. Here I am, talking about myself and my divorce. Again.
I’m like a broken record.
I take a long sip of my wine, thesorryhovering on my tongue.
“Look,” Isaac says, and his voice is rougher around the edges. “About the thing we spoke about last week. In DC.”
“Oh?”
His eyes are steady on mine. “I suggested we go together to the benefit in a few weeks, where your ex-husband will be a guest, too.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. He must think I’m pathetically hung up on Percy, a man he’s made clear he doesn’t particularly respect.