She crawled into bed and stared through the darkness at the picture of the beautiful brown-eyed boy that sat on her night stand. Even without the benefit of sight, she could see him. She knew every line, every plane of that face.
“I miss you, Maury,” she whispered.
“God, I miss you.”
*****
Every day for the next four days, Sadie swore to herself that she was not going to go to the Palace. She couldn’t imagine what she’d been thinking when she’d agreed to go, but now that she was in her right mind, she could see that she’d made a mistake.
She would just have to tell her friends that she had changed her mind. She would apologize, offer to pay them back whatever ungodly amount of money they had coughed up and that would be that.
And all during those four days of swearing oaths only to herself and finding excuses to give to her friends, she never once even glanced at the key that she had set on her kitchen counter.
Not once.
So no one could be more surprised than she when she found herself sliding into her car at six on Saturday night, the key snug in her pocket.
Shielded from the world by her tinted windows, she assured herself that she was only going because Stella and Angelina had spent money on this. She told herself that she was going to go, check things out, and leave after a few minutes.
Her revised plan firmly decided, she followed the directions given to her by her friends. After almost an hour’s drive, she was on the very outskirts of town, surrounded by river to the north and deep forest to the south, east and west. And in the middle of it all, looming over the entire landscape like some displaced sentinel, stood a wide, stately chateau.
It was large – larger than any mansion she had ever seen, including her parents’.
As she drove in through the wrought iron gates at its entrance, she marveled at the fact that she had lived here her entire life and had never even known this place existed.
How could she not have known about this? And more importantly, how did Angelina and Stella know when she didn’t?
Making a mental note to interrogate them about it later, she pulled the car up to the front of the chateau. A man in a valet uniform came rushing out a moment later, and as soon as her car had been whisked away, a doorman came to usher her in through the massive double doors of the estate.
Once inside, she was escorted into a room just to the side of the grand foyer. There, behind a tall, oaken desk sat an older gentleman, looking very proper in his suit and tie.
As Sadie stepped up to the desk, she tried to shake the feeling of having just fallen down the rabbit hole.
“Ma’am?”
Realizing that the man had been speaking and she hadn’t been paying attention, she shook her head to clear it. “Oh, umm . . . yes?”
“Will you be stepping into the lounge, or do you already have a key?”
“Oh, I . . . ” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the key, holding it up for the man’s inspection. “I have a key.”
“Excellent!” the man exclaimed. “May I?” And with that, he took the key from Sadie’s hand and placed it somewhere behind the desk. A moment later, he held up another key, one which looked identical to the one she’d been ignoring for days.
“The actual key, ma’am,” he said as he presented it to Sadie.
Sadie took it, peering at it. “The other one wasn’t the real thing?” she asked.
The man gave an indulgent smile. “The real keys never leave the building.” Then he waved yet another young man in uniform over. “The page will take you to your companion’s room. If there is anything you require for your stay, please ask your companion. He will make certain that all your needs are met.”
Sadie, feeling a little too overwhelmed to form a complete sentence, merely nodded.
The man designated as page led her through the foyer and toward the elevators. As they walked, they passed a room filled with men, women, music and laughter. From Sadie’s vantage point, it had the look and feel of a cocktail party.
Curiosity got the better of her and she asked, “What’s in there?”
“That,” said the page, “is the lounge area. That’s where one finds a companion for the evening.”
“Oh.”
“But yours is already upstairs waiting for you.”
“Oh,” she repeated, taking one last look at the room.
The page then directed her into the elevator, which they rode in silence up to the third floor. From there, she followed the page down a softly lit hallway until they reached their destination. Sadie, so busy trying to take everything in that she wasn’t watching where she was going, almost collided with the other man when he stopped in front of one of the doors.
“Your companion’s room, ma’am,” the page said with a flourish and a wave of his hand.
Sadie eyed the door, then the key in her hand, then the door again.
“Ma’am? Aren’t you going to go inside?”
“I…”
The man looked at her knowingly, as if he could somehow access Sadie’s private thoughts and see to the reason for her hesitation. “You did come all this way. You might as well see what’s inside.”
“I guess it won’t hurt to just go inside, right?”
“No. It won’t hurt, ma’am.”
Sadie nodded, then moving quickly so as not to change her mind, she placed the key into the lock, turned it, and gave the door a little shove.
She looked toward the page to see his reaction, but the man was already gone, now nothing but a shadow in the hallway.
She turned back to the open, waiting door.
Forward or backward.
Now or never.
Taking a deep, bolstering breath, she stepped inside the room, barely noticing when the door shut with a soft click behind her.
She stood in a spacious bedroom, decorated in masculine shades of blue and gray. The furniture in the room was dark mahogany, yet the glowing candles placed strategically around the room bathed it all in golden light, softening it and giving it a delicate air. It was an interesting contrast and Sadie couldn’t help but be impressed.
Now, the only thing that seemed to be missing was her companion for the evening.
‘Which was just fine with her,’ she thought as she made to move backward. She had come and she had seen. So what if she hadn’t conquered? And now she could leave and go on with the rest of her life.
But just as she was about to open the door, a figure emerged from the flickering shadows to stand in the honeyed light.