Private Relations Read Online Free Page A

none.
    Give top clothing designers a crack at interior decoration and it was amazing what they came up with. The king-size bed—like all the beds in the Hush guest rooms—sported the finest mattress money could buy, but the bed linens were unique to the Carnaby. Oh, and the designer had had fun there. Multicolored circles on the duvet and a lacy bedskirt gave a sense that the bed was dressed—and meant to be undressed. The circles were picked up in the carpet that Piper had had specially made to the designer’s specs. The initial impression was playful, but it was an adult playtime that the decor evoked.
    This was Kit’s favorite of the designer penthouses—which was the reason she’d asked for it for the first fantasy weekend. The rose-colored double Jacuzzi tub in the middle of the room had a Stella McCartney-designed screen that could be pulled across for privacy, or mere coquettishness, and faced a tall window overlooking Madison Avenue. It was one-way glass, so no one could see inside the suite, but from in here it waseasy to feel as though you were on display—which, according to Piper, was a powerful fantasy.
    Since Kit had sent a room attendant up here a couple of hours ahead of when their guest had been scheduled to arrive, the fireplace was already crackling beside the tub, the champagne was on ice. She knew without looking that twin luxury bathrobes hung from hooks against the wall and that a basket of the best Italian soaps and lotions sat by the tub.
    In most hotel suites, a living/receiving area would be the main room, with a bedroom or two opening off it. Not at Hush. In this suite, Piper had decreed that the bedroom should be the main room. Opening off this room was a full bathroom with an aromatherapy steam shower, another door led to an efficiency kitchen with an intimate dining area, and two other doors led to an office and a dressing room/lounge.
    Peter’s things were nowhere to be seen, so, neatnik that he was, he must have stowed them away in the dressing room.
    If she talked to him, she didn’t have to think about his things, or the air of relaxed sexuality that hung in this room like the scent of a favorite perfume.
    “I’m looking forward to hearing about all the places you’ve been. You wrote to me from London, as I recall.” She still remembered receiving that letter and steeling herself to read it—after she’d managed to tape all the pieces together. She never did find a couple of the bits she’d thrown around in a rage, so it sounded like a Dear Jane letter written by a kid flunking remedial English.
    I am so ry I h t you.
    I hop ne day you’ll give me.
    For a while, she’d make word jumbles of the pieces of paper, as though the letter were some kind of code puzzle and if she could crack it she could figure out what had gone wrong. Then she decided to stop wasting her time on failed love. Dwelling on the past was for historians and old people. Not for Kit, who had a career to build and a life to live. New York beckoned. No one knew her there, and in a city of over eight million, what was one more broken heart?
    She might have tossed the letter, but she had kept up with Peter’s career. She knew that he’d worked for an international marketing firm. After being based in their London office, he’d been transferred to Hong Kong, then Brazil and had just been hired by a good marketing firm in New York. Reading the business press was important in her job, so it wasn’t as if she could help seeing his name the odd time.
    “That’s right. It will be great to catch up.” He put a hand on her shoulder as he said it, a light, warm gesture that was gone before she could shrug it off. But she couldn’t shrug off a surge of feelings too complex and contradictory to name.
    “How do you like the hotel?” she asked as they left his room and walked toward the elevator. She was determined to keep things light and impersonal, to treat him the way she’d treat any hotel guest.
    “It’s