"Is something wrong?"
"Nothing at all, dear." Mrs. Gavi's eyes were doing something that Emma, in the full year she had lived here, had never seen them do before: twinkling. It was brief and subtle, but it was there. "I was actually on my way up to get you. There is a gentleman downstairs asking for you."
Emma blinked. "A gentleman."
"Mm." Mrs. Gavi's expression remained composed, but she reached up and adjusted the collar of her cardigan in a way that suggested she was enjoying this considerably. "Waiting in the lobby. Very well-dressed." She paused. "Very." And then, because she was Mrs. Gavi and subtlety only went so far, she winked.
Emma's mouth curved upward despite herself. "Thank you, Mrs. Gavi."
She continued down the stairs at a measured pace, telling herself there was absolutely no reason to rush—that it was most likely someone from one of the agencies she had submitted to, or perhaps a delivery that required a signature, or any number of perfectly ordinary Saturday afternoon explanations for a gentleman waiting in the lobby of a girls' dormitory.
Then she rounded the landing, looked down through the banister railing to the lobby below, and her measured pace evaporated.
Chase Lopez was standing at the bottom of the stairs.
He was exactly as she had imagined him, and entirely nothing like she had imagined him, in the way that real people always are when you finally see them in three dimensions after constructing them from a voice. He was considerably taller than she had pictured, with an ease in the way he held himself that was not arrogance, but something quieter and more settled than that. The kind of man who didn't need to fill a room because he simply occupied his portion of it completely. He was dressed with the casual precision of someone who understood clothing: well-fitted dark trousers and a light shirt open at the collar. He was looking up the staircase with an expression of patient, unhurried attention.
When he saw her, he smiled. It was a real smile, not the professional, managed expression of someone in his position performing charm, but something that arrived on his face the way sunlight arrives—without calculation.
Emma continued down the last flight of stairs at exactly the same pace she had been using. She was very proud of this.
"Hello, Chase," she said when she reached the bottom, her voice composed and warm without giving away the fact that her heart had just made a very undignified decision about its own rhythm.
"Hello, Emma." He had forest-green eyes, she noticed. Dark and quiet, like looking into something deep. The kind of eyes that paid attention. He was watching her in a way that was neither invasive nor dismissive, but simply present, as though she was something worth looking at carefully.
"What are you doing here on a Saturday?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. One eyebrow lifted. She had always been better at delivering composure than she was at feeling it.
He held her gaze for a moment, and the smile deepened at one corner. "I'm here to ask you to lunch this afternoon." He paused. "If you don't already have plans."
Her heart did the thing again. She absolutely refused to acknowledge it. "I was on my way to get lunch anyway," she said, which was true—or close enough to true to work. "So, sure."
The smile became a smirk—not the unpleasant kind, but the kind that suggested he found her deeply entertaining in a way he wasn't going to apologize for. "Perfect," he said, and held the door open.