Rapunzel in New York

One brow twitched. “You’re not coming?”

Both her own shot upward. “Uh … no, you’ll have to manage by yourself.” Who knew, maybe the man had assistants for that, too.

“You’re going to play hardball on this court order, aren’t you? Well, don’t come crying to me if I pull out something I shouldn’t.”

What? Tori frowned after his retreating figure. Then, as she heard the exaggerated ziiip, her frown doubled and she muttered, “What, Mr. Corporate America isn’t a door-closer?”

Seconds later she heard another metallic ziiip and she realized her mistake. Heat flared up her throat. The man wasn’t peeing. He was measuring—with a steel tape measure. Probably the ledge window.

Of course he was.

And she’d just come across as the biggest moron ever to breathe. Things were off to a great start.

Just fabulous.

Nathan turned out of West 126th Street onto St. Nicholas Avenue and wove his way through the late-afternoon pedestrian traffic heading for the subway. It didn’t matter that it was nearly evening—activity levels at nearby Columbia University didn’t drop until much later, which meant the streets around it were perpetually busy during class hours. Even a few blocks away. He’d spent a lot of time out on these streets as a kid—more than most—so he knew every square inch.

Something about Tori Morfitt really got his people antennae twitching. What was a young, beautiful woman—a wildlife photographer—doing living alone in his shabby building, with no job or family that he could discern, spending her time hanging out with birds?

In a world where he tended to attract compliant yes-men—and oh-yes women—encountering someone so wholly unconcerned about appropriateness, someone who wore their heart so dangerously on their sleeve was a refreshing change. When she forgot to be angry with him she was quite easygoing: bright, sharp, compassionate. And the immediate blaze of her eyes as he’d suggested the webcam had reached out, snared him by the intestines and slowly reeled him in.

No doubt his interest would waver the moment he uncovered her mysteries, but for now … There were worse ways of spending time—and community service—than with a lithe, healthy young woman who liked to spar verbally.

He pulled out his phone as he walked.

“Dean,” he said the moment his attorney answered his call.

“Hey, Nate.”

“Forget the appeal, will you?”

“Are you serious?” He could almost hear the frown in his friend’s voice—a full two-eyebrow job. What he was really asking was, Are you insane? “I can get you off.”

“I’d rather see it out, Dean. It’s a principle thing.”

“You sure you can afford the moral high ground right now? We have a lot on.”

His friend’s gentle censure merged with the noise of the traffic. “I’ll fit everything in. You know that. It’s been a long time since I had anyone to get home to.” He jogged between cars across the street and joined the salmon-spawn crush on the subway stairs. “Who’s going to care if I pull some late ones at the office?”

“You’re superhuman, Nate, not invincible.”

“I don’t want to lawyer my way out of this. Call it strategy—a good chance to get a handle on the lay of the land at Morningside, tenant-wise.”

A good chance to get a handle on one particular tenant, at least.

Dean took his time answering. “Wow. She must be something.”

Nate instantly started feeling tetchy. If he had to face an inquisition he might as well go back to Tori’s. “Who?”

“Your jumper.”

“She wasn’t jumping.”

“Don’t change the subject. This is about her, isn’t it?”

Nate surged forward as he saw the subway car preparing to move off. “This is about me remembering where I came from. How things were done before the money.”

Dean sobered immediately. “The building’s getting to you, huh?”

Nate shouldered his way between closing subway doors and leaned on the glass partition. “I just don’t want to buy my way out of this.”

“So you keep saying. But I’m not convinced. You worked hard all your life precisely so that you could have access to the freedom money buys.”

“Yeah, but I’ll do my hundred hours and then walk away knowing I did it the right way.” Knowing that she knew it.

Dean thought about that. “Your call, buddy.”

“Thank you. You can withdraw the appeal?”

“Consider it done.”

Nate signed off and slid his phone back into his pocket.

One hundred hours with Tori Morfitt and he got to keep the moral high ground. A win-win. His favorite type of outcome.

He had some guilt about the effort they were about to go to in setting up the webcam but, at the end of the day, it was his effort to waste. He’d be doing most of the work. And it wouldn’t be totally pointless. His plans to redevelop the building site wouldn’t kick off for months so they’d get one good season out of the webcam, at least.

Of course, it meant spending more hours in the building where he was born than he particularly wanted to, but he’d control that. He’d managed the feelings his whole childhood, how hard could it be now? Memories started to morph from the gray haze he usually maintained into more concrete shapes and sounds.

He went for his phone again and dialed his office rather than let them take root in his consciousness.

“Karin, I’m heading back. What have I missed?”

As always, work did a sensational job of shoving the memories to one side. It had served him well for fifteen years and it didn’t fail him now as the subway rattled him back downtown to his own world.

CHAPTER THREE

“ARE you sure this is safe?”

Twenty-four hours later, Nathan was hanging out Tori’s window again, watching her fit the stone block he’d brought with him into the corner of the ledge opposite the nest box. It was artfully hollowed out, and comfortably housed a small black camera, the lens poking discreetly out the front. The peregrines would notice nothing unusual when they returned after an evening’s hunting and the camera would be protected from New York’s wilder weather.

“It’s safe. I’ve been much higher than this,” Tori said through tight lips, not because she was frightened, but because she didn’t like to talk about climbing. Sometimes she didn’t even like to think about climbing. It made her feel things she was better off suppressing. She shifted her weight, wedged her scaling boot more firmly in the corner, and slid the block fully back into position.

“Better you than me,” he murmured.

“Not good with heights?” she teased lightly.

“I love heights. My company’s forty floors up. It’s falling to my death I’m not so wild about.”