It was her idea.
Dinner on the fifteenth had been perfect—quiet, intimate, the river doing its slow-burning thing below them like it had all night to seduce the city.
But Patricia Bloom wasn't done with the evening yet. She looked at him across the candle stubs, wine glass empty again, and said with the casual confidence of someone who'd already decided the night wasn't over: "Let's go upstairs."
The sixteenth floor was the VIPP bar. Black marble floors so polished they reflected the gold-leaf ceiling like a dark, upside-down sky. Floor-to-ceiling windows framing the same glittering Hell River view, just one story higher, so the city looked smaller and more conquerable. Backlit wall of spirits glowing amber and copper behind smoked glass shelves.
Black velvet chairs with gold frames that probably cost more than most people's cars.
A place that treated drinking like high art and priced it accordingly.
