career or subject a non-profit organization to awkward questions.
It explained everything: all the noises, the bizarre carousing at all hours. It explained to Saskia what had happened but not why it had stopped.
She made no further progress on her blog that day. Long hours passed, afternoon stretching into evening. Once, Suzy knocked on her door, cheerfully calling to her. Saskia pretended to not be home. Just one more secret had been all she wanted. Now she had more of them than she knew what to do with. At her worst, she wondered if Suzy and Kayla wouldn't mind a guest sleeping on their couch and running a blog out of their apartment's den. She did not think she could stay here anymore underneath that.
The soft click from above that signified a door unlocking snapped her out of her funk. De Lucca's footsteps trod through his apartment amid sounds of him settling in. Seized by an uncharacteristic impulse, Saskia exited her apartment before she could lose her nerve.
She almost did lose her nerve when, after knocking on Fabio De Lucca's front door, he opened it, glaring at her with all the perfection and disdain of an arrogant Greek god. The man's expression quickly changed, however, once he realized who stood before him. Astonishment flooded his perfect brown eyes. His delicious lips trembled almost imperceptibly as his stentorian voice uttered a single word: “You...”
“Yes. Me,” said Saskia, her confidence boosted. In her fist she held up the letter. “And you've got some explaining to do.”
“Give me that!” De Lucca clutched for it desperately, but Saskia pulled it out of his reach. “I don't know why you're worried about me knowing it,” she taunted. “I've already heard it all. I hear everything you do. Now you're going to tell me why you do it. I think you owe me that much.”
Saskia had not expected him to drag her right out of the hallway and into his domain, nor had she counted on his sheer physical strength. In his grasp, she saw the lithe muscles pulsing underneath his dress shirt. Underestimating his speed and strength had been a mistake. He released her, but transitioned the motion, enabling him to lock the front door's deadbolt and sliding chain without stopping. She was now locked in with a potentially dangerous man. This only served to incense her. She had managed to keep hold of the letter. Now, she whipped her cell phone out with her other hand.
“The police are going to love this, you sonofabitch. Kidnapping, assault. Even in New York, that's got to get a response. You want me to call them? Or do you want to let me go, right after you tell me what kind of freak show you're running up here every night that's keeping me from ever sleeping, of course.”
De Lucca casually strolled to a wine chiller that stood against one wall of his sparsely furnished living room. Saskia thought he was going to go all James Bond villain on her and offer her a drink. But no, he just casually leaned against it, folding his hands in front of himself. “Actually, I do invite you to call the police. By all means, please do call them. I would welcome that. Tampering with another person's mail is a federal crime, you see.”
This information made Saskia falter. In her eagerness, she had not even considered the legalities. “It was delivered to my mailbox.”
“Which charged you with a legal obligation to return it to either the intended recipient – me – or to the United States postal service. You disobeyed that obligation. Oh, and then you just come up here intending to blackmail me? Tsk, tsk.”
“What? No. No! You're keeping me awake at night. It's driving me crazy. So I got