Shared Room Temptation

The email from Christine in HR had been perfectly clear: two rooms, adjoining if possible, at the Meridian in Lyon. I'd forwarded it to Amélie in accounting, who'd booked it, who'd confirmed it, who'd sent me the reservation numbers in a neat little table with green checkmarks beside each line.

So when the clerk at the front desk told me there was only one room under my name, I laughed. Not a real laugh. The kind you make when the universe is testing your patience and you want it to know you're not amused.

"Check again," I said.

She tapped at her keyboard. Behind me, the automatic doors kept opening and closing, letting in gusts of cold October air and the sound of taxis. My shoulder ached from hauling my laptop bag through two airports. I'd been awake since four.

"I'm sorry, monsieur. The system shows one reservation. A suite. King bed."

"A suite."

"Yes. The Montgolfier Suite. It's one of our best."

I turned around. Léa was standing six feet behind me with her rolling suitcase and her coat folded over one arm, and she was doing that thing she did, the thing I'd noticed in meetings and tried not to notice, where she tilted her head slightly and let her hair fall to one side. Dark hair, thick, always looking like it had just been touched by wind even indoors. She was twenty-eight, twenty-nine maybe. I'd never asked. I was forty-three and her employer and I made it a policy not to know things like that.

"There's been a mistake," I said to her.

"I heard." She didn't look upset. That was the first thing that struck me. She looked, if anything, like someone who'd just been handed a gift she'd been expecting.

"One room. One bed."

"I can sleep on the floor," she said. "Or the couch. Suites have couches."

The clerk slid two key cards across the counter. I took them both because I didn't know what else to do with my hands. Outside, Lyon was gray and wet, the kind of city that looked better in photographs than in person, and I had a meeting at eight the next morning with a client who'd already rescheduled twice. I didn't have time to find another hotel. It was fashion week or a football match or something. Every place within walking distance was full.

"Fine," I said. "We'll figure it out upstairs."

The elevator was small and mirrored and smelled like lavender. Léa stood beside me with her suitcase between us. I watched her in the reflection without meaning to. She'd worn a gray dress under her coat, something soft that clung in ways a business dress probably shouldn't. I'd noticed it in the car from the airport and had made a point of looking at my phone instead. Now there was nowhere else to look.

"I'm sorry about this," I said. "It's my assistant's fault."

"Amélie?"

"Yes."

"She's very organized."

"That's the problem. She's so organized she probably booked this on purpose to teach me a lesson about checking things myself."

Léa smiled. "What lesson?"

"That I should check things myself."

The elevator opened onto the fifth floor. Our suite was at the end of the hall, past a window that looked out over the Saône, dark water and yellow lights. I unlocked the door and we both walked in and stopped.

The room was large. Larger than my apartment in Paris, probably. There was a sitting area with a velvet couch, a desk, a minibar, a bathroom the size of a small bedroom. And there was the bed. One bed. King size, white linens, positioned under a skylight that showed the rain streaking across the glass.

"Okay," I said. "I'll take the couch."

"Don't be ridiculous. You're the one who has to be sharp tomorrow."

"I'm also the one who's your boss."

"All the more reason you should sleep well." She set her suitcase on the luggage rack and unzipped it. "I'll take the couch. I sleep anywhere. Really. I once slept on a park bench in Barcelona."

"Was that by choice?"

"Not entirely." She pulled out a toiletry bag and disappeared into the bathroom. The door clicked shut. I stood in the middle of the room with my bag still on my shoulder, listening to the water run, and tried to remember the last time I'd shared a hotel room with anyone. Years. Since my divorce, definitely. Since before my divorce, if I was honest.

I put my bag down and opened the minibar. Beer, wine, tiny bottles of vodka. I took a beer and sat on the couch and checked my email. Nothing important. Christine from HR had sent a reminder about the annual review cycle. I deleted it.

When Léa came out of the bathroom, she'd changed. The gray dress was gone. She was wearing a silk robe, dark green, tied at the waist, and her hair was loose around her shoulders. She walked past me to her suitcase and bent over to dig through it, and the robe shifted, and I looked away so fast I nearly spilled my beer.

"I forgot my pajamas," she said. "This is all I have."

"That's fine."

"Is it?"

"It's fine."

She straightened up and looked at me. There was something in her expression I couldn't read. Not quite a challenge. Not quite an invitation. Something in between, like she was waiting to see what I would do.

"You know," she said, "I've been wanting to talk to you. Alone. For a while."

"About work?"

"Not about work."

I took a long drink of beer. The rain kept coming down on the skylight. Somewhere in the building, a radiator hummed. I was aware of my own heartbeat in a way I hadn't been in years, and I was aware of her standing there in that robe with her hair down and her feet bare on the carpet, and I was aware that I was her boss and she was my employee and that this was the kind of situation that ended careers, or started them, depending on who you asked.

"Léa," I said.

"Yes?"

"Whatever you're doing, you should stop."

She tilted her head again. That same gesture. "What am I doing?"

"You know what you're doing."

"Do I?" She walked over to the couch and sat down beside me. Not close. Not far. Close enough that I could smell whatever she'd put on in the bathroom, something floral and warm. "Tell me what I'm doing."

I set the beer down on the side table. My hand was steady. That surprised me. "You're trying to get a reaction out of me."

"Is it working?"

"No."

She laughed. Low, quiet, almost to herself. "You're a terrible liar."

"I'm a very good liar. I've been doing it for twenty years."

"Then why is your face red?"

I touched my cheek. It was warm. I hadn't noticed. The room was warm, that was all. The radiator. The beer. The lack of sleep.

"It's hot in here," I said.

"It's not."

She reached over and put her hand on my knee. Just her hand, nothing else, but it was enough. I looked at it. Small hand, short nails, a thin gold ring on her index finger that I'd never noticed before. I should have moved her hand. I should have stood up and said goodnight and slept on the couch and fired her in the morning, or transferred her, or done something that a man in my position was supposed to do.

Instead I sat there.

"Tell me to stop," she said.

"I already did."

"Tell me again."

The rain kept falling. The room kept humming. And I didn't say anything at all.