Chapter 2 - TEA AFTER MIDNIGHT
“I left the business,” Naomi said.
Cole glanced toward the kitchen. “Does Mrs. Bell know what happened?”
“She knows I can do the job.”
“Keep it that way.”
He walked off before she could decide whether that was advice or a threat.
She was tired of letting Philadelphia choose every room she entered.
At midnight, she went downstairs for water.
Thirty-four-year-old Ethan Whitmore sat at the kitchen table in rolled-up sleeves, staring at an untouched sandwich.
“Please tell me you know how the kettle works,” he said.
“It's a kettle.”
“That's what everyone keeps telling me.”
She filled it. He pushed a second mug toward her.
“I'm off duty,” she said.
“Then you can say no.”
That made her pause. She sat.
“Chamomile?” he asked.
“You trying to sleep?”
“Trying to stop thinking.”
“It isn't that good.”
He laughed, and the kitchen felt less enormous.
Over the next few nights, they talked about small things. Bad coffee. The Red Sox. Ruth's conviction that every illness could be fixed with soup.
Then Ethan said, “Have you ever agreed to something because disappointing people seemed worse?”
Naomi turned her mug between her palms. “How big a something?”
He looked at the engagement announcement lying beside his phone.
“That big.”
“Does Vanessa know?”
“She thinks I'm nervous about the wedding.”
“Are you?”
“I'm nervous about the marriage.”
Naomi let the silence sit.
“You aren't going to tell me what to do?” he asked.
“Would you listen?”
“Probably not.”
“Then let's save ourselves the trouble.”
The following afternoon, Vanessa saw the two mugs drying beside the sink.
By dinner, Naomi had been assigned every fireplace in the east wing.
By morning, she was ordered to clean the library after a foundation meeting.
“Loose papers go in that box,” Ethan told her. “Anything addressed to me, leave on the desk.”
A cream envelope had slipped beneath an armchair. His name was written across it. The flap stood open, and a page had slid halfway out.
Naomi saw a date she would never forget.
May you like
Below it were five words.
PHILADELPHIA — REVISED PROTECTIVE TRANSPORT PLAN.
