It was 2pm, and Amanda King gripped the key to Room 1405 of the Watergate Hotel in her right hand until it bruised her palm. Unless you counted her purse, it was all she was carrying, and she felt like every eye in the lobby was on her. A single woman, checking into a downtown hotel mid-afternoon, without luggage. She could well imagine what they were thinking. She'd never done such a thing, unless you counted that time she'd checked into a flop house with Lee under an assumed name, trying to help him solve a string of murders in the intelligence community.
Lee. It never failed. All her mental roads these days led back to Lee. He was the reason she was here, but not because he would be joining her for some afternoon delight. Not that it wasn't an appealing thought …
She sighed. No, she was here to get away from Lee, and all the disruptive feelings that came with him. She needed someplace neutral, someplace not clouded by his nearness. Someplace where she could think. Or not think, as the case may be. And that was what brought her to the Watergate.
Hanging the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, she dropped her purse to the bed and kicked off her heels. After a moment's consideration, she shed her skirt as well, unbuttoning the tails of her blouse and sinking onto the eider down. Seconds later, she was up again, fumbling with the mini bar lock and considering its contents. Uncharacteristically, what she wanted was a good, stiff drink. A few ice cubes in the crystal highball, and she emptied in the entire mini bottle of Dewars. Scotch on the rocks. Lee's drink. The Agency should be proud of their best man. He was following her around everywhere without any effort at all.
Back in the bed, she took a few small nips, feeling the comforting burn reach her stomach. She was ready to admit defeat. There was no shaking him, so she might as well let her thoughts run loose. At least here, locked away from the world, she wouldn't embarrass herself as she swooned over her partner. Because there was the crux of the problem. The reason for her escape. She was falling for Lee.
She tried to put her finger on the moment when she'd lost control. When the slippery slope she'd been on since meeting him had turned into an avalanche. When he cancelled a date to an embassy party with Leslie, the polite and "perfect" translator, to stay home and cook her steaks? No, she was already tumbling downhill by then, letting him catch her in his arms after the bomb blast as natural as breathing. When he'd confided in her about the truth of his undercover operation during which he feigned being burned out, just so that he could apologize again for his ungentlemanly behaviour towards her? Again, her refusal to give up on him, even after the shocking contact of his palm with her cheek, told her she was already more than a little off-balance, destabilized by his concern and trust. Even during their earliest days, when he vacillated between condescension and over-protectiveness, she had felt, at her very core, that he was worthy of her time and attention. And not just because he was so easy on the eyes.
But lately … Lately, what she had previously dismissed as grateful affection and a mild matinee idol crush had morphed into something far more potent and ominous and all-consuming. It simmered just below the surface like a low grade fever, until she was in Lee's presence, at which point it pulsed through her like a beat for which her pelvis was the drum.
She suddenly found herself wishing she could peel off the layers of assumptions and conditioned behaviour like a discarded skin, revealing the person she knew lay beneath. Her body felt hardly able to contain her newfound recklessness. She was kinetic with it, her increasingly unreliable will and force of habit the only barriers to its bursting forth. It left her feeling restless and misdirected, a trajectory looking for a target. She couldn't say whether Lee was the cause or the effect, but she was trapped in a continuous feedback loop that made her whole body crackle like static.
And then today, it had all come to an unexpected head. She wasn't too certain what had started it. One minute, she had been reading over his shoulder, watching his elegant finger tap out a series of logical deductions on the sheet of paper and listening to the low music of his voice. The next, he was giving her a look so searing it burned a hole straight through her to the other side. Her fever spiked, and she knew she had about thirty seconds to get to the door, or the avalanche would sweep her away. And the Amanda King that everyone thought they knew would never be heard from again.
Ahh, there it was. The nugget of truth at the middle of this maelstrom of feeling. What if she gave in to the rush of the avalanche, and lost sight of herself? She had enough intuition to know that whatever transpired between herself and Lee, it was going to be life-altering, on one level or another. He cast such a large shadow over her life as it was, she could only imagine what it would be like if they …
But maybe a shadow was the wrong imagery. She brightened in his company, transformed by the magic of his tenderness. Instead of being buried by the enormity of him, perhaps he was the key to unlocking this new self she felt struggling to climb to the surface.
A quiet knock, and she knew who it would be. He had no need for homing devices or other intelligence gadgets. She was broadcasting on all channels, and he'd simply followed her signal.
One last sip of scotch for courage, and she walked slowly to the door.