“You are not thinking of buying a house in Singapore, are you?” Emmy asked later.

  “No, I’m not,” I replied, kissing her hair as she snuggled closer to me on the couch in the parlor. “I don’t expect to spend enough time in Singapore to justify it, after all. Besides, I don’t necessarily want too much connection to that place.”

  “Why not? It seems that you have a good relationship with Mr Han.”

  “I think I do, but I don’t want to find myself too deep in his pocket, if you know what I mean. I want him to owe me as much as I owe him… And I suspect that if we did buy a place there it’d be a sign that we’re throwing our lot in with him a bit more than I’d like,” I explained.

  “I can understand that,” Emmy said, sipping her wine. “When will you go over there next, and what will he expect you to do?”

  “I’m thinking September maybe, after we’re done here in New York. As for what he wants me for… I’m not super clear on that, but what he says is that he wants me to help train his elites. Reading between the lines, I think he means ‘beat the snot out of them to take them down a peg,’ or something like that.”

  “Why would he want that?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Again, this is just me speculating, but I think he wants to show them that they need to be able to deal with unexpectedly strong adversaries,” I said.

  “You are unexpectedly strong,” Emmy said, her voice husky as she pulled my arm around herself, up under her breasts. “Delightfully strong.”

  “Does my strength delight you?” I asked in a deep, growly voice.

  “Yes, my beloved Beast, it does,” Emmy said, squirming a little bit.

  “Do you enjoy it when I pin you down and have my way with you?” I growled.

  “I enjoy it very, very much,” Emmy confirmed. “I would not complain if you did that to me now.”

  “It would do you no good to complain, anyhow,” I said, continuing with my deep, growly voice. With that, I scooped her up and onto my lap, eliciting a squeak of surprise. “Because I will eat you, my tasty little morsel!”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Oh, yessss,” I said, diving in and nuzzling her delicate dancer’s neck.

  One thing led to another and soon enough I had my face between her breasts and my hand well up her skirt, while she made very feeble attempts at fending me off.

  “No! Stop, please!” she cried out quietly, pushing with no real force at all against me. We both knew the game well, and both enjoyed it.

  “Om nom nom!” I growled as a slipped Emmy’s shirt off her shoulder and gently touched my teeth to her satiny black skin.

  “Oh, no! I am being eaten alive!”

  “It is your own fault for being so very yummy!” I declared. “Too yummy for me to ever resist!”

  “Oh, curses on my delectableness! Woe be to me for my scrumptiousness!” Emmy wailed, but not too loudly. We didn’t want to disturb Mia, Luisa or Jeremy, after all.

  “Sweet like the most delicious of candies,” I growled as I slipped her shirt off over her head. “The smoothest of chocolates, the tenderest of delicacies!”

  “What kind of delicacies?” Emmy asked as I tossed her shirt to the side.

  “French tart, of course,” I replied, and we both laughed.

  “Bien s?r,” she agreed. “What other kind could I be?” she said, exaggerating her Parisian accent.

  I had slipped off the couch and was down on my knees so I could slide her skirt up around her hips. She lifted herself up so I could pull her lovely silk panties off and resume my nibbling on her inner thigh. This was what we both desperately wanted, after all. She wanted to be consumed every bit as much as I wanted to eat her up.

  I savored her nectar just as much as I reveled in the feel of her delicate flesh under my tongue. I held her hips, lifting them up off the sofa as I rose up, letting her upper body dangle below, draped across the silk of the upholstery. I knew that her orgasms were more intense when I held her upside-down like that, and I wanted this one to be an earthquake.

  I knew all the things that Emmy liked and did them just enough to bring her close but not close enough to the edge, mercilessly easing off at just the right moments to prolong the build-up, despite her vocal protests to just finish her off.

  When I finally took her tiny little bud between my lips and swirled my tongue around it in just the right way I was rewarded with a monster of a climax, rendering Emmy completely limp and unable to move at all, aside from the shuddering aftershocks that ran through her body.

  “That was incroyable,” she said after a few minutes, during which time I’d divested myself of my own clothes. “I do not think that I could take that very often, but tonight… that was perfect.”

  “We’re not done yet,” I said, climbing on top of her, parting her legs with my own. I lowered myself down, using my weight to pin her to the couch.

  “I needed this,” she sighed as she wrapped her legs around mine. “The feel of you like this- it is perfect.”

  “I needed this, too,” I agreed.

  A few days later I got an unexpected text from Ashley Thompson. “R U in LA?” she sent.

  “No, why?” I responded.

  “London?”

  “Nope. Guess again,” I shot back.

  “Palo Alto?”

  “that was three guesses. You lose.” I texted.

  “That must mean U R in NYC”.

  “If you had started with that you would have gotten it in one.” I sent back.

  “I have a job interview in Manhattan on Monday. Will you be there this weekend?”

  “You want to come visit?”

  “I need to see this place u have been talking about for years. Where I should have been spending my summers.” she texted, with three little fire emojis for emphasis.

  “Ashley to the white courtesy phone in the Friend Zone”, I replied.

  She sent a question mark all by itself, then the three dots of a text being written appeared. I waited, and soon enough her message came through. “A girl can hope, can’t she?”

  “Dream on- dream until your dream comes true,” I was about to send, then deleted it. That might send the wrong message. “Dream on”, was what I finally wrote.

  “Anyway, can I see your place? Finally meet Emmy?”

  “Sure. She’d love to meet you. When are you arriving in NY, and by what method? Where are you staying?”

  Once we hashed out the details, I told her that our driver would pick her up at the airport. “His name is Wally. He’ll bring you straight here, unless you want to check in to your hotel first.”

  “No, straight to your place is good”, she replied. “Y do you have a driver? You always drive yourself in Palo Alto”.

  “NYC is not a driver’s paradise.” I texted back.

  “Makes sense”, she agreed.

  When I got home that evening I told Emmy about the exchange and asked if she minded that I’d invited Ashley to visit.

  “I have wanted to meet her for a very long time,” Emmy said, a mischievous smile on her face. “It will be good to get to know the girl that you have told me so much about.”

  “Yeah… No trying to set me up with this one, alright?” I cautioned her.

  “Why not?” Emmy asked, the devilish grin only getting wider. “We all know that she is very sexually attracted to you, after all. Is she ugly?”

  “No, she’s far from ugly,” I said. “She’s nowhere near as beautiful as you are, but then, nobody is.”

  Emmy smiled at that, but continued. “You care for her. You cannot deny it.”

  “No, I won’t try to deny that. I like Ash alright, but as a friend. I just can’t imagine any circumstance where I could have any sort of, um, romantic relationship with her.”

  “You could with Katrina?” Emmy asked.

  “Honestly, I wasn’t sure. Our time together showed both of us that we had fun together, but that’s all. Neither of us really fell in love, if you understand what I’m trying to say. I think I understand what you’re trying to do, and I guess I appreciate where you’re coming from, but Em… what happened with Angela coming into our lives… that was, um, organic, I guess. It happened on its own. I don’t want anybody besides you in my life- I don’t need or even really want an Angela replacement, or if you’re going even farther, a replacement for you, either,” I said, metaphorically ripping off the band-aid. “Em, you’re enough for me. I gave it a shot with Katrina, but- and I’m not going to say I didn’t have a good time with her- there was no spark. I have no spark for Ashley, either. I do have more than a spark for you- I have a bonfire for you. You alone, Em.”

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  “But Leah-”

  “No buts. It’s you and me. Yes, I loved Angela. I loved her a lot. A whole lot, and I miss her every day- same as you do. Her coming into our lives was a bolt of lightning from the blue, and isn’t going to be repeated because lightning never strikes the same way twice.”

  Chastened, Emmy’s shoulders drooped. “I want you to be happy,” she said softly.

  “I am happy,” I told her, pulling her tightly into my embrace. “You make me happy.”

  “I won’t always,” she said, almost in a whisper.

  Michael invited us to dinner at his and Vivian’s house the day before the whole family (plus Addison, Jassie’s best friend) were going to go off to Colombia for a month. I’d protested that they had too much to do and didn’t need to add entertaining us to their agenda, but Michael insisted.

  “It was Vivian’s idea,” he told me. “She and Jassie ganged up on me.”

  “Well, in that case, I guess we have to come over,” I laughed.

  “Of course, I’ll be the one cooking,” he grumbled, but we both knew he didn’t mind.

  “Will you be cooking daikons?” I asked.

  “Possibly,” he said with an easy smile. “They’re good in just about everything.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard,” I agreed.

  Amused, I returned to my desk in my corner office up on the old ironworks’ third floor. It normally had a lovely view of the weedy empty lot separating our compound from the East River, but the rain was dumping down so heavily I could hardly see across the street. Sipping the coffee that one of the interns brought me, I thought about Michael and his family going to Cartagena for four weeks. It was the rainy season down there and was going to be hot and extremely humid. On the positive side, that meant fewer tourists, right?

  They were going to stay in the house Emmy still hadn’t seen and I’d made it clear they should enjoy the place and use it as if it was their own.

  I hoped that the five of them would have a good time in Colombia. Michael had a lot of work on his plate, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t enjoy the evenings, or that Vivian and the rest of them couldn’t do things on their own during the days.

  I’d talked to Jody to make sure that the girls always had somebody with them to keep them safe and to translate for them, and he said he’s assign a detail. I didn’t want the visit to turn into any sort of disaster for the family, after all.

  Dinner at the Kaplan-Chu household was nice. It was crowded with the three of them (plus Addison) and Emmy, Jeremy and me, but we crowded around the dining table and had a good time anyway. The big, blank wall that Vivian and Jassie had complained about now had a giant rendition of the map of the New York subway system that was so familiar to every local. Jassie and Addison had proudly explained that they’d done the actual painting, based on Vivian’s idea. Jassie showed pictures of the process on her phone, from masking off the wall to laying out the design and finally painting it.

  “It took us almost two weeks at the start of summer break,” Addison explained. “My parents were a little pissed that I didn’t go straight back home after the school year ended, but I think they liked the idea that we were working on an art project?” she said.

  “We had to rent scaffolding,” Jassie added. “It was cool, but I was sooooo happy when it was done!”

  “Seriously!” Addison agreed.

  “I like it,” Emmy said, looking up at the fat blue, orange, green and red lines meeting at various stations.

  “We had been talking about what would be very New York, and it hit me,” Vivian said. “What’s more New York than the classic Massimo Vignelli subway map from the Seventies? A few of our neighbors have seen it and everybody just loves it,” she added.

  “I helped,” Amy said, not wanting to be left out of the conversation.

  “What part did you work on?” Jeremy asked her.

  “I wrote some of the station names,” she said. “Look- see where it says ‘South Ferry’? I did that. A lot of the others, too,” she said proudly.

  “Amy was a big help,” Jassie said, reaching over and ruffling the little girl’s straight black hair. “It would have taken us a lot longer without her.”

  Back at home, Emmy asked Jeremy what he thought of Vivian and Amy.

  “Vivian is a very lovely woman,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “She’s smart, and clearly adores Michael. Amy is what everyone wants their daughter to be- charming, intelligent, and cute. I enjoyed spending the evening with them.”

  “Does it bother you that Michael is in a relationship with a day walker woman?” Emmy probed.

  Puzzled, Jeremy asked, “Why would it?”

  Emmy smiled and said, “There’s no reason it should. Jeremy, if you find yourself attracted to a day walker woman, know that we give our blessing. It is important to find love where you can in this world.”

  Ashley showed up right in time for lunch on Saturday. We were just saying hello with a hug when Jeremy announced that lunch was being served in the kitchen downstairs.

  I hung Ashley’s summer rain jacket up in the coat closet and we left her suitcase there in the front hall, then went through the butler’s pantry and down the stairs.

  “This is ridiculous,” Ashley declared when she got her first look at the enormous commercial-grade kitchen. “No house has a kitchen like this.”

  Leading her over to the large farmhouse table, I said, “This one does.” I introduced her to Jeremy and Luisa, who were setting the food on the table. Mia and Emmy joined us in a few moments, and Wally a couple of minutes later.

  “Just dig in,” I told Ashley. “We aren’t formal around here. Wally, could you please pass the oil and vinegar?”

  Ashley seemed fascinated by the fact that all our employees were eating with Emmy and me, but she managed to have enough of a filter to avoid blurting out any questions about the subject, at least not directly.

  “So, um, Jeremy, you and Louisa made lunch? It’s amazing!” she said. “You’re the family cooks?”

  Laughing, Luisa said, “No, neither of us are officially the cooks. I’m the household manager and Tiny is Emmy’s bodyguard. The cooking thing is just… Well, it just sort of happened. When I was hired cooking was part of my duties, but not the main thing. Tiny here just sort of got into cooking as a way to pass time while he recovered from the stabbing.”

  “Stabbing?” Ashley asked, puzzled.

  “Atlanta,” Mia said.

  It took Ashley a moment, but she put two and two together. “Oh, my God,” she said. “When Angela…”

  “Jeremy was severely injured in that attack while defending Emmy,” I said. “He came close to giving his life to save hers.”

  “I would do it again,” Jeremy said.

  “I know that you would, Jeremy,” Emmy said, resting her hand on his massive shoulder. “And for that you will always have my gratitude.”

  “Jeremy was bored while recuperating and I suggested he should take up a hobby, so he started cooking,” I explained. “He’s turned into quite a good cook.”

  “Still not nearly as good as Luisa,” Jeremy said, trying to deflect the attention. “She’s much better than me.”

  “Jeremy has been taking classes while they’re here in New York,” Luisa said, her pride in his accomplishments clear. “Just twice a week so far, but he made an amazing pesto sauce for last night’s fettuccine. The pasta was excellent, too.”

  “The pasta machine makes it so easy!” Jeremy said, smiling at the memory. “We’ll need to get one for Los Angeles.”

  After lunch, Emmy excused herself to return to her studio while Mia and Wally cleaned up. Jeremy and Luisa left to go shopping for the weekend’s groceries, so it was just Ashley and me on the tour of the house.

  Since we were already in the basement, I led her down the secret stairs in the pantry to the wine cellar. May as well start at the bottom and work our way up, after all.

  “This is incredible!” Ashley said, looking around at the racks and racks of bottles. I helped myself to a Coke from the fridge, and offered one to Ashley, who accepted. Sitting at the ancient table, she opened her can and took a sip. “I don’t wanna stay down here too long, ‘cause it’s fuckin’ freezing in here, but I just gotta soak up the atmosphere.”

  “Soak it up all you want,” I said, sitting down opposite her. I told her how the wine cellar had been an unexpected surprise that nobody knew existed when we bought the house.

  Ashley just shook her head in disbelief. “Can I take a picture of this? My dad would friggin’ love this.”

  “Sure, go ahead. Take any pictures you want, but no posting them on any sort of social media. You can show them to your parents or friends, but they can’t ever appear online anywhere,” I cautioned her.

  Ashley looked as if she were about to question this, but then didn’t. She took out her phone and shot a short video as she panned around the room. When she pocketed her phone again she said, “O.K., we gotta get going. I’m freezing my tits off. See?” she said, pulling her shirt tight across her chest so I could see how poky her nipples had gotten.

  “Don’t ever change, Ash,” I laughed.

  I led her out the other door, up the long flight of steps and into the library at the front of the house.

  “What? No way!” she exclaimed when I closed the bookcase behind us, making the passage vanish. “Are you serious?”

  “Pretty cool, right?” I asked.

  “That’s so cool it makes me sick!” Ashley agreed. She looked around the library, her eyes wide. “God, this room!” she said, pulling her phone out for more video. Amused, I watched her. I took the chair by the antique lamp so when she panned her phone that way I was sitting as if I’d been there all along.

  “When we bought this house all these shelves were holding were fake books. Just, like, props that looked like books, but were really just cardboard boxes, if you can believe that.”

  “Fake books? What’s the point of that?” Ashley demanded, plopping herself down on the antique sofa.

  Shrugging, I said, “The previous owner didn’t read really use this room, is my guess.”

  “I would,” Ashley announced, picking up the photo book of New York that was on the coffee table. “This room screams ‘I’m better educated and more refined than you are’ to any visitors you bring here.”

  Laughing, I said, “That wasn’t my intent.”

  “No, it wouldn’t be for you. You’re like, the one person who wouldn’t play games like that. Hell, it probably never occurred to you.”

  Remembering the two detectives that visited after that armed tweaker so long ago, I said, “Well, I guess I did use this room like that once.”

  “Really? Ashley asked, setting the book back down.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t do it intentionally,” I said, standing up to indicate we should continue our tour.

  “These paintings- they’re all originals, right?” Ashley asked, looking around on the second floor gallery.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “This over here is the living room that we never use,” I said, showing her into the space. “We’ll use it when we have a formal party or something, but we haven’t done that yet.”

  “It’s really different than your living room in Los Angeles,” Ashley said, wandering over to the windows to look down on the street.

  “You haven’t been to our place in LA,” I protested.

  “No, but you get to see it in all those Downfall Karaoke videos on Youtube,” Ashley said, turning back to exit the room. “I’ve seen all of those a ton.”

  “Huh,” I said, surprised.

  “This is the parlor,” I told her after leading her to the other end of that same floor. “We use this room all the time,” I added, setting my empty Coke can on the bar top to deal with later. “If it’s just Emmy and me, we like to eat breakfast and lunch here in the sun room.”

  “Leah, I gotta tell you, this house is a fucking dream. I’m sure your place in LA is amazing, too, but this house…”

  “Our place in LA is very different,” I said. “I really like both of them, but they’re nothing alike.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t imagine there are any places like this in LA,” Ashley said, looking out through the trees at the East River.

  “No, there aren’t,” I agreed. Leading her back to the gallery, I hit the button to call for the elevator. At Ashley’s puzzled look, I said, “The next few floors are just bedrooms,” I said. I hit the button for the sixth floor after pulling the grate closed. “This is the original elevator car, but we had all the machinery updated to modern standards,” I explained. “It used to take forever and feel real rickety, but it’s nice and smooth now. That’s Emmy’s recording studio,” I said, pointing to the door at the end of the short hall. “The red light means she’s recording or doesn’t want to be disturbed, but we can watch, if you’re interested.”

  “What do you mean, ‘if I’m interested’? I’ve never seen any freaking rock stars recording their music before. Of course I want to see!”

  “Alright,” I said, amused. I led her into the production booth where we could look through the soundproof glass and into the little studio.

  Emmy was sitting on a stool, an acoustic guitar in her hands. She was playing some of her classical guitar, her head bowed as the notes flowed from the strings under her fingers. After a few minutes she started singing, her voice soft and melancholy.

  “What’s she singing?” Ashley whispered, listening intently to the music from the studio monitor speakers.

  “No clue. I don’t speak Arabic,” I replied, not bothering to whisper.

  “I thought Emmy was from France?” Ashley asked, her voice still hushed.

  “She is, but she speaks a lot of languages,” I said. “She can’t hear us in here,” I said. “You don’t need to whisper. These rooms are soundproof.”

  “Can we go?” Ashley asked me, tugging my arm. “I kinda feel like we’re intruding or something.”

  “This is my home office,” I told Ashley, showing her the room at my end of the hall. “The desk and chair were here when we bought the place, but I liked ‘em, so they stayed.”

  “This is exactly the desk I imagined you’d have,” Ashley said, smiling. “You know, this house isn’t what I expected, but at the same time, it doesn’t surprise me you have a place like this. This place is pure class, pure freaking money. Not like, ‘in your face’ money, but solid money, money that knows it doesn’t need to show off.”

  Ashley went around the desk and sat herself down in my leather chair. Leaning back and resting her arms on the arms of the chair, she nodded. “Yep. This is you for sure.”