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By Root 446 0

finger-biting, twirling-the-ends-of-her-hair kind of attraction for him that had her fanning herself in a room not much warmer than a refrigerator. Despite her earlier talk with Linda—which she now remembered with renewed annoyance—this desire was as completely unexpected as it was undeniable, and she could not take her eyes off him as he paced back and forth in front of the room, lecturing and singing in what might as well have been Martian. Beyond her long-standing attraction for solidly framed men, she wasn’t exactly sure why he did it for her; he was probably thirty years older than she was—even older than Leo—and more than a bit trollish, with thick eyebrows, lumpy shoulders, and the perpetually surly leer of someone about to tell a dirty joke; but she could not deny the intensity of his bleak, serious eyes, or how his clothes were tight in all the right places, and she mentally undressed him a thousand times in an equal number of seconds.

When the class ended, she lingered in her seat for several minutes before she went to the front and carved out a position on the outskirts of a ring of students. She stared down at least two others—did they have the same idea?—who tried to insist they were in back of her, but she exerted her seniority to push them ahead. Finally it was her turn, and she plied him with a series of questions related to interpretation, agents, and possible career trajectory—the answers to all of which she already knew—as they walked out of the building.

They paused in the somber glow of the November sunset. “I don’t know why,” Maria remarked, “but this time of day makes me feel seasick.”

“Transitions are tough.” Ronald nodded. “Let me guess: you’re a night person?”

“I am,” Maria confirmed. “I’m always in a daze until three or four in the afternoon.”

“That’s not a bad thing for a singer, although it can be hell when you have a matinee.”

“Or a final dress,” Maria pointed out.

“Or a final dress,” Ronald agreed.

The conversation seemed to have reached a dead end, and as they stood on the corner of Broadway, Maria decided to move beyond this charade of pleasantries. “So where are you headed?”

“Back to my hotel for a few minutes, then I’m meeting some friends for dinner—”

“You don’t have an apartment?” Maria interrupted, determined to keep the conversation on point.

Ronald appeared to hesitate for a second, and Maria wondered if he was on to her, for his tone was perhaps a trace more seductive as he explained, “I always stay at the Callaghan.”

Maria suppressed a shudder. “What’s that like?”

“It’s not bad. I have a little suite with a kitchenette, and there’s a nice view of Central Park from the balcony.”

“I bet I’ve seen better,” Maria declared in a display of truth and confrontation as she thought of Anna’s apartment.

Ronald grimaced and scratched at his tooth, which gleamed through a slightly oily five-o’clock shadow surrounding his mouth. “It’s only two blocks away if you want to see for yourself.”

Maria looked at her watch. She was supposed to meet Anna in just over an hour. “Okay,” she said. “Lead the way.”

A few breathless minutes later they were at the hotel, and after what seemed like seconds after that they were on the elevator up to his suite. Then they were inside, and Maria heard the click of the door over the internal din of her racing heart. As she looked past the foyer toward the bed, where the floral print on the bedspread started to kaleidoscope, she wondered what she was doing here, and whether she should politely excuse herself and leave like a fellow guest of the hotel who happened to have stepped into the wrong room.

Ronald tossed his coat on a chair and invited her to do the same. “Um, I don’t—,” she began to say, hesitating.

“Don’t worry, I won’t bite.” He winked at her. “Unless you ask me to.”

“Cut the crap.” Maria looked back at him and frowned as she wondered how she could be so attracted to such a lecherous character, yet at this same moment she could not resist finding out what he really looked like under those ill-fitting clothes, and whether he was as good