Locked with Him

Frontmatter

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Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Table of Contents

With Her Billionaire

Locked with Him

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Letter from the Author

Other Books by Ellen Dominick

Copyright

Locked with Him

 
If on a winter's night a traveler
by Italo Calvino.

I picked up the slim book, brushing the dust off its cover. A train rushed towards me in the illustration, billowing smoke behind it. This was an original 1981 edition. Signed by Calvino himself. I was lucky to even be touching it.

The pages flopped open in my hands and that smell of paper and ink hit me in the face. How many times would I have read it then? Five? Six?

It didn't matter. One of the perks of being a librarian was that you never needed a library card.

The stacks were so quiet that I could spend my days reading book after book, undisturbed. It was like having an unlimited pass to all the literature I could ever want.

The sharp sound of stiff, crisp pages hung in the air. No one ever wanted the books that were down here. Everyone hung out upstairs, where the popular books were shelved. That's where dozens of copies of
Hunger Games
,
Lord of the Rings
, and
Harry Potter
were shelved.

But down here? I only ever saw anyone if they were lost. Normally some young kids looking for the bathroom. Every now and again there would be a nerdy graduate student, looking for some obscure tome. If they were guys, they'd never be able to look me in the eyes. If they were girls, they ignored me and tried to navigate the maze of the stacks on their own. Good luck with
that
.

Of course, most of the time they never thought I was the librarian. I guess brown skin and books are not supposed to mix. Sorry for not being skinny, pale, and bespectacled.
 

I gently pressed the book open, trying not to crack the spine. I smoothed the pages down, passing my hand over the paper. It was time to start reading.

"You're still here, Penny?"

I jerked my head up. Right when I was getting started…

"Oh, hi Linda," I said. I started to put my head down again when I finally processed what she said. "Wait, why
wouldn't
I be here?"

I grabbed my phone off my desk and checked the time. It was nowhere near closing hours.

"You don't know?" Linda asked. Then, after a moment she hit her forehead with her palm. "You've been cooped up down here
all day
haven't you?"

"Yeah, and?"

"It's only supposed to be the worst freak blizzard in the last 50 years. It's supposed to snow over 3 feet!" Linda said. "Almost everybody's already gone home. I figured you were gone, but I wanted to come and check. Good thing I did."

Linda glowered down at me, with her hands on her hips. She was already decked out in her coat and snow boots. Obviously, she was ready to get out of here.

"So," Linda said," you coming?"

"Go on ahead without me. I have to check for stragglers anyway," I said. "You know how they get lost down here."

Linda lingered.

"You sure?" She said. "I don't need to read on the news tomorrow morning that you got trapped in here all alone."

"Don't worry about me, I'm a big girl. And don't you have to go pick up your little sister from school? She shouldn't be out in this weather."

"Fine," Linda said. "But pinky swear that you'll be careful."

"Pinky swear? What are we, in elementary school?"

"No, but I know you won't beak a promise."

She was right. Linda knew me for all of my life. All twenty-two years. I didn't break promises.

"Fine," I said.

We hooked our pinkies together and hugged.

"See you after the storm," Linda said.

I waved goodbye as she walked down the long corridor of the stacks and went upstairs.

The large doors slammed, echoing throughout the library. Then I was alone again. Just me and the books.

I leaned back in my chair and stretched my arms wide. Honestly, I wasn't in a hurry to get back home. My tiny apartment was okay, but it wasn't anything compared to the rows and rows of books surrounding me in the stacks.
 

There, the walls were so thin that I couldn't sleep because of my neighbors bumping and grinding throughout the night. Here it was so quiet I could miss a snowstorm. Which would
you
prefer?

Still, no one wants to get caught in a blizzard. So I had to make my way home. I stood up and walked to the farthest edge of the stacks.

That area was
really
deserted. We were lucky to have it. It had old first editions and even original manuscripts, all open to the public. Not that it mattered, because I hadn't ever seen a library patron back there even
once
.

Not only was it in the deepest, darkest, furthest corner of the library, but you needed special permission to go there. That meant you either had to go through the head librarian, or
me
.

Of course, the automatic shut off lights that sometimes left you completely alone in darkness and the floating cobwebs that maintenance never cleaned it didn't help with its popularity. Neither did the ancient architecture that didn't get renovated with the rest of the library. Something about "maintaining authenticity." It was all enough to make you feel like you were walking into the middle of a horror movie

 
So when I saw him there, I almost screamed.

He was standing in the dark, using his smartphone to peer at the pages of the book in his hand. I should have just called out to him. I should have just told him that the library was closing due to inclement weather conditions. But I didn't.

There was something different about him. He didn't look like the other shy guys who came down here. He was tall and wore a crisp blue dress shirt that peaked out from underneath his sweater. The fabric looked soft as it hid what seemed to be well formed muscles. I wanted to touch it.

But what was even more interesting was what he was reading. The Marquis de Sade's
120 days of Sodom
.

I tried to peek over his shoulder, but I could only see that he was reading in the original French. The paper looked worn. How old was that edition? And anyway, how did he get down here without me knowing?

"A crazy story, isn't it?" He said. "Imagine being locked up in a castle with those guys for
months
. It probably wasn't hard to get people to have orgies with four rich men. Of course, things get pretty dark after that."

He spoke without turning around. How had he even known that I was there?

"I went to the Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits to see the original manuscript. The scroll is 39 feet long, and the writing is so tiny I had to use a magnifying glass to read it.

"So when I found out that your library has one of the few first editions published by Iwan Bloch, I had to come. I got permission from your head librarian. She told me you'd be here."

He turned around, and looked me straight in the eye. His gaze sent a shiver down my spine.

"Have you ever been to see the original in Paris, Penelope?"

At first, I couldn't even find the words to answer. Of course I'd never been to the Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits. I was just a librarian, and not even the head! What kind of money did he think I had to go gallivanting off to
Paris
?

"No," I said. "I haven't."

"You should," he said, "you'd love it."

Something about his voice wrapped around me and almost made me forget why I was there. It tugged at me, drawing me in.

"Look Mr…."

"Matt. Call me Matt."

"Okay, Matt," I said. "The library is closing. I just came to make sure no one was left behind."

"What?" He said. His eyes grew wide. "Why are you closing?"

"The forecast says there's going to be some kind of blizzard coming, so we have to close early today."

Matt's face fell. He closed closed the book in his hand and nearly returned it to the shelf. But then he stopped.

"I know it probably doesn't matter to you, but I've been planning this trip for a long time. I wanted to spend the whole day here," he said. "Do you think you can give me just a
little
bit more time?"

Something about the tone of his plea hit me. Of course, it didn't hurt that he was actually a good-looking guy interested in books. I didn't want to admit it, but I didn't mind spending just a
bit
more time with him. Still, we weren't supposed to stay.

I hesitated.

"How about this? I bet there is a book in here that even
you
didn't know was on the shelves," he said.

"Yeah, right," I said. "I've looked at every book here more times than I can count."

"But you haven't noticed this one, " Matt said. His voice was insistent. "If you're right, I'll be out of your hair. And if
I'm
right I get to choose my reward."

I crossed my arms over my chest. Who did this guy think he was?

"And what's that?" I asked.

Matt smiled and grabbed my hand. "First, lets see who's right."

Before I knew it, we were off and running. Matt tugged me down the winding corridors of the stacks, turning left and right, looking for a destination I couldn't figure out.
 

Instead of resisting, instead of pulling away, I felt something different. My heart raced in my chest. We were probably the only people in the entire library, and we were running around like the kids. It felt…
fun
.

Finally, we stopped. Matt looked around, scanning the shelves for something. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to find it. I'd been here enough times to know that there wasn't a revolutionary surprise hiding amongst the books.

"Here!"

Matt pulled out a small, unassuming book from the shelf. It didn't look like much. Sure, it was old, but that was all.

"
Tamerlane and Other Poems,
" Matt said.

"
This
is the surprise you had?" I said. "I've seen that book a thousand times. It's pretty old, but it's just an anonymous print."

Matt turned the book over in his hands, opening it to the title page.

"'By a Bostonian,'" he said. "But what's important is
which
Bostonian, and it happens to be a very famous one. Mr. Edgar Allen Poe.

"He printed it when he was just eighteen. Just 50 copies, and they sell for $600,000. Only twelve are known to still exist, all in private libraries. Well, twelve plus this one."

Matt turned to me with a smile on his face.

"Guess that makes thirteen, huh?"

No way
. After all this time, how could I have missed that? How could
all of us
have missed it? A discovery like this would be enough to make this library famous. Or rich. Or both!

I grabbed the book from him, careful not to damage the old paper. If he was right, it wasn't the sort of thing just anyone should be handling.
 

"I have to report this to the head librarian," I said.

"But shouldn't she be gone?" Matt asked. "You know, with that forecasted blizzard and everything."

Shit. The blizzard!

"We need to get out of here," I said.

 
I started to rush towards the exit of the stacks before I even finished talking. I pressed the book against my chest and tried to keep myself from running.

"I just hope the storm isn't already too bad," I said.

We rushed through the darkness and up the stairs where Linda had left. The staircase was long and a little dangerous in the dark. All I could hear was the sound of our footsteps climbing.

"Sorry I kept you back," Matt said. " I wasn't trying to get you in trouble. I just was happy to talk to someone about these things."

"What things?"

"Books."

I didn't want to admit it, but I felt the same way. Even the other librarians didn't care as much as I did. Talking to him made me feel less of a nerd. I felt like he actually
cared
about all these bound stacks of pages with words scribbled on them.

"I just hope it's not too bad out there now," I said.

"Yeah, we wouldn't want to get stuck in the library together," Matt said. "Although, that doesn't sound like the most terrible idea."

I blushed and didn't answer. My heart beat raced so loudly in my ears that I could hear it. He meant it would be fun to be locked up with the
books
, right? That must be it.

We finally made it to the top of the long staircase, and I pushed the door open. Cold air hit me, making my whole body shiver. For a moment, I was blinded by the bright light streaming in through the windows.

Then, when I saw it, I froze. I had expected snow, maybe even a lot, but not
this
much. Snow blanketed everything that I could see, making the entire landscape stark white. There were no cars, no people outside. Nothing. Just snow.