If I Had You by Heather Hiestand

Author:Heather Hiestand [Hiestand, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

After Ivan had made his suggestion and she’d agreed, the party became torture. Alecia’s first priority was making sure her borrowed recordings were played, so that she could take them with her when she left. Ivan found her a plate and Boris gave her a mouthwatering selection of his culinary specialties. Then, while Ivan talked to a thin man in his early thirties, introduced to her as Vera’s fiancé, she sat with the married lady on the sofa. Actually, the woman was a widow, the sister-in-law of a man named Anatoly, who she never heard speak to anyone during the hour and a half she stayed at the party.

Vera had come up to her after about twenty minutes. Her English wasn’t as good as Ivan’s, but they talked about music and Alecia felt like she’d done well, though she didn’t feel as if she’d made a friend. Vera seemed nervous and vague.

Then, very soon, Vera had unwrapped her presents and settled into the business of serious dancing with Sergei, who probably stayed so thin by vigorous exercise. She’d never seen two people move their feet so fast when they danced. Boris asked her to dance once, but the Russians gave her a wide berth. Ivan was kept too busy pouring drinks to dance more than once with her either. When he signaled her, she put Sybil’s records back into the carrier bag and slipped out with him.

“I have a taxicab waiting,” he said, as they went down the stairs.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had left.”

“The music had you swept away.” He grinned at her as they went out the door of the greengrocer’s shop.

“I need my own record player.”

“You’d never leave your room,” he teased.

“I would.” She grinned. “To buy more records.”

The taxi was at the corner and they scurried toward it. The temperature had dropped dramatically. Alecia could see her breath in the night air. Ivan kept his arm around her the entire way to the hotel, only letting her go when they walked into the Grand Russe.

The temperature change upon entering made her teeth begin to chatter. “It will be quite warm in the basement,” he promised. “We’ll get the keys and then take the service lift up to the seventh floor.”

“I can’t wait. What’s the Piano Suite like?”

“Very musically oriented. It’s done in white and gold, with photographs of American musicians on the walls. Pure luxury.”

She followed him through a door off a corridor by the Reading Room that she’d never noticed before, and through another door that he needed a key to unlock. Then they moved into an industrial part of the hotel, down a flight of plain wood steps, the walls painted white but marred by many scrapes and even a little dirt along the baseboards. A low hum from electrical equipment picked up volume as they stepped down. Ivan unlocked another door and they walked through.

“You shouldn’t be here, so stay close,” he told her. They went into a long, rectangular room with rows of hooks, shelves above, for employee belongings.

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