Page 42 of Caught Between Two Billionaires
Sutton pauses to look at a row of plaques that has the names of old families. The brass is tarnished and green now. This is what’s become of their legacy.
I walk past him to a great hall that contains books in rows and rows. The dust is dense here, without even the broken stained-glass windows to let in fresh air. It tickles my nose until I sneeze, disturbing the layer of gray on a book beside me. I touch the old cloth spines as I pass, taking away a smudge of dirt with my forefinger, leaving a trail where I’ve been.
The rows are even enough to follow, but the signage less clear. There aren’t any signs above each row to say what’s inside. You’d have to ask one of the long-gone librarians to find anything. I keep walking, gradually coming to understand the system for things. Fiction and nonfiction. Memoirs and reference materials. There’s a large section on history, which is super meta considering this building has become a slice of the past.
My finger touches books that haven’t been read in years, their pages silent in this tomb of a library. Books about the medieval times and the ancient Vikings.
There’s a section about Greek and Roman history. There are a few books I skimmed through in Smith College’s library. Ancient history doesn’t change that much.
One catches my eye. The Goddess of Egypt, it says, with a stylized painting that could only be Cleopatra. At least they’ve drawn her without the asp wrapped around her arm, but she has the classic heavy eyeliner and seductive pose. The Mona Lisa smile.
I flip it open, which sends a cloud of dust into my eyes. They’re watering by the time the page comes into focus. The text is small enough to need a magnifying glass, but a sentence in this random place jumps out to me.
It’s a testament to female power that she was able to create a shadow of her own beside two men of incredible ambition and renown.
Two men of incredible ambition. I have a little experience with that after last night, though I’m not sure how much of a shadow I create myself. I’m not sure I want much of a shadow, considering we know the tragic end that Cleopatra met. History wasn’t kind to women who held beauty and power. I’m not sure the present is much kinder.
“What do you think?” comes a low voice behind me.
I gasp in a mouthful of old air and cough. Sutton stands too close to me, his body warm and imposing, somehow making the aisle shrink. “I think you surprised me.”
“You fit here, which is strange.”
“Strange because I know how to read?” I ask tartly.
“Strange because you’re the epitome of the modern woman, but you look so comfortable in this stuffy old library. I think you’d fit in anywhere, wouldn’t you?”
“That comes from moving every few months,” I say, the words out before I can call them back. I don’t usually share that with anyone. Definitely not a man who thinks I’m beautiful and mysterious. “Not that I minded.”
He looks grave. “Are you going to settle down in New York?”
That’s where most of the people I know have moved. Or places farther away, like Milan or Bombay. Places to inspire an artist’s heart. I never told them that I long for something simpler. Something more like an old library that hasn’t been touched in forever.
“Maybe.” I snap the book shut and carry it to the front.
He follows, a little bemused. “You’re stealing a book.”
A gasp of outrage. “I wouldn’t steal. I’m checking it out, obviously.”
“Should I go behind the counter, then?”
“No one would mistake you for a librarian,” I say, glancing wryly at the elegant lines of his suit. How such a large man manages to move gracefully is something physicians can study. Something old Greek artists would have tried to carve out of marble.
I push aside a swinging wooden door to go behind the counter myself. There’s a time capsule back here, papers in stacks moved only by the wind from above. Old stools with the leather worn, probably old even when the library closed. What had the librarians done when they closed the doors? Had they mourned this place? Someone should have.
Sutton follows me behind the counter, his blunt fingers moving along a carving in the back wall. Leaves create a forest wall made out of mahogany. A place for a tired librarian to lean against between moving stacks of books around.
Finally I find the little cards that they would fill out to lend a book. There’s a place to write the full name and address of the person. A place to write the book information. An optional ten-cent donation check box. Sutton joins me, placing his hand on my waist—such a small touch. It shouldn’t make my heart race.
