We both felt that spark. For a split second I thought I’d got a shock off the panel on the elevator wall, but then it registered that I’d touched his hand, not the panel. I jumped back and pushed my hands into my coat pockets. I didn’t dare look at him. We both stood in silence, then realized the elevator hadn’t moved. Neither of us had pressed the button.

He gave a nervous laugh and when I looked furtively at him his face was scarlet.

“The office is shut for New Year’s, so I’ll see you on Wednesday,” he said formally as we exited the building.

“Okay. Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year,” he said, and there was another moment, then, when we stood looking at each other. “Let’s hope it’s a good one.”

•   •   •

I felt so tender toward Harry as I remembered our first meeting. I picked up my phone to send him a message to tell him I understood if he couldn’t get away that night, but managed to stop myself. We’d agreed right from the start that we would never do that. We used only the office messenger system to communicate, never our own phones, though Harry would call the office landline if he was driving and wanted to chat at the end of the day. It would have been too easy to be discovered if we contacted each other at home. And I knew that if Harry was likely to get in touch in the evening, I’d sit there waiting for his message, yearning for it. I wouldn’t be able to have my phone out of my sight. He’d be the same, he’d said. I didn’t even have his number on my phone; I couldn’t bear the thought of Tom finding a text or a voice mail message there, of thinking—knowing—something was going on.

So in all that time we didn’t swap numbers. We would talk on the office phone, send internal messages throughout the day, but most of all we’d just talk face-to-face. His office was next to mine; we could see each other through the glass. That afternoon, though, we’d entered each other’s numbers onto our phones and he made us memorize them, too, just in case.

“In case of what?” I’d asked.

“In case I’m so eager to get to the hotel that I crash the car,” he’d said. “Think of it—the car crashes, the phone’s destroyed. I’ll need to get the ambulance guys to call you.”

I’d gone back to my desk to do some work, and he called me on the office phone several times over the next few hours, just to tell me my own mobile number. I was no better; I did the same. We were both giddy with excitement. Apprehension, too.