“I don’t get it,” Portia said. Her thin brows furrowed and Ledi saw the slight hunch of her shoulders. Unlike Ledi, who was perfectly happy on the sidelines, being out of the loop was something that made Portia uneasy.

“Eh, you had to be there,” she said as they touched down on the landing. She slipped her arm through her friend’s and headed for the exit.

Standing in the vestibule was someone dressed in a suit that made Jamal look like a beggar. Tan slacks with a crease so sharp Ledi would find her jeans fashionably slit if she walked too close. A dark brown suit jacket that tapered at the waist—oh.

The besuited woman was texting with a dreamy little smile on her face.

“Who is that?” Portia whispered. “That outfit is everything!”

“I don’t think she lives here,” Ledi whispered back. “But let’s jump her for those spats. I think I can fit into them if I cut off a few toes.”

When they pushed through the door the woman glanced up from her phone, taking hold of the door as they passed through, like their very own dapper doorwoman. Her gaze locked on Ledi, and for a moment Ledi was sure that she knew her from somewhere; the woman looked at her as if they were old acquaintances. She said nothing, but gave a nod of acknowledgment that made Ledi feel almost regal.

I really should wear this lipstick more often.

Then she was looking past Ledi and Portia, and her expression grew more reserved. “High—Hi . . . man,” she said to Jamal. She had an accent similar to his, but with the “something else” more pronounced. It was closer to the lyrical English of the women who braided Ledi’s hair every now and then. “I regret that I have distressing news about, uh, stuff. Things. You know.”

The smile she had sported while engrossed in her phone screen was gone.

“Stuff and things. Quite.” Jamal turned to Ledi and Portia and gave another of his little bows. “Well, ladies. I hope you enjoy the museum,” he said, then turned to talk to the fabulously dressed woman. His demeanor was suddenly serious. He seemed taller, more rigid, more in control.

Ledi liked this side of him, too.

“Bye!” Portia was a bit too enthusiastic with her farewell.

Ledi glanced back as she walked out of the building. She wasn’t jealous—she didn’t know him well enough for that. But still, curiosity bloomed. This woman was well acquainted with him, whereas Ledi knew nothing about him at all beyond the fact that he smelled good and didn’t want to disappoint his family. There seemed to be something more going on beyond the story Jamal was feeding her, though. It wasn’t that she wanted an excuse to see him again, or anything, but she had to make sure he wasn’t doing anything that Mrs. Garcia wouldn’t approve of in her apartment.

If she had to meet up with him again, she was just being a good neighbor. That was it.

Chapter 10

It appears that you’ve crossed the fiery gulf that lay between you and your betrothed?”

Likotsi’s voice echoed in the vestibule. She pulled out her trusty tablet from a perfectly aged leather satchel, swiped in her passcode, and began scrolling, but her eyes lifted from the screen to him every few seconds to let him know that she was awaiting a response.

“Things are amicable between us,” he said, thinking of their dinner yesterday. Thabiso had rarely cooked for himself—when he had, on a whim, he’d had the backing of the entire palace kitchen staff. With Naledi it had been fun. Intimate. He wished he had been able to impress her with his skills, but he had shown his deficiency yet again, and she hadn’t heaped invective on him.

After she’d left, he’d sat alone at the dining table and wished for a knock at the door that never came. And that he could bypass the messy part of his plan, the telling-her-who-he-really-was part, so that they could move to the stage where his lips moved against hers and his hands traced the shape of her body.

He’d tried not to let his mind stray too far in that direction, but even the food inspired lustful thoughts. Although gourmet cuisine made up much of his diet when he was abroad, the simple chicken thighs were the most delicious thing he’d tasted in recent memory. As he’d savored the citrusy sage sauce, he’d wondered whether Naledi’s essence itself weren’t mixed in, giving it some extra, addictive quality that had him licking his fingers. Thoughts of her “essence” had led to a night sleeping on his back, painfully hard but unable to pleasure himself in Mrs. Garcia’s frilly pink bedroom without feeling like even more of a pervert.

He’d looked up the term gaslighting instead, and then layaway and foster child, and a deep sense of sadness had spread through him as he thought of Ledi alone in her apartment, with not even memories of her family to keep her company. He’d rarely ever been alone—if his busy but attentive parents hadn’t been with him, then a nanny, or advisor, or tutor, or coach, and eventually Likotsi, had been around. His lack of privacy had always been a bother to him, but now—without romanticizing his past—he could see that it had been a privilege. One he hadn’t asked for, but benefited from nevertheless.

He’d thought of the smiling little girl in the picture from their betrothal, then imagined her in an enormous country like America—and a huge and frightening city like New York—all alone, shuffled between people who knew nothing of her homeland.

In Thesolo, when a child was orphaned, they were placed with relatives, or with a family who could not conceive, or in one of the communal orphanages that tried very hard to reproduce the feeling of a family and usually succeeded. He’d looked at the high brick buildings outside the window, and the dirty concrete sidewalks. Manhattan did not seem like an easy place to be an orphan.