Look At Me. Cara Lockwood

       CHAPTER ONE

      CHLOE PARK STARED at her laptop as she sat at her kitchen table in her roomy north Chicago condo. She fanned her face, desperately trying to get a breeze from her open window. Outside, the June heat pushed the temperature up beyond eighty-five degrees and the noon sun beat mercilessly down on her brick building. Soon, she’d have to break down and call someone to repair her AC, but not yet. Not with her bank account hovering near zero until the end of the week when she expected the arrival of her next freelance check. Chloe tried once more to focus on a work email, but the high-pitched squeal of a truck’s old brakes drifting in through her open window broke her concentration. She tried to ignore it, focusing on her screen and the last few sentences she’d need to write before she could hit Send. Then came the sound of metal clanging against metal.

      “Really?” she asked her apartment, feeling as though everyone were conspiring against her to get no work done. She had at least five client social media accounts to update and a proposal to send out to a new corporate client who needed freelance social media updates now. But she couldn’t focus on any of that. Chloe abandoned the email, frustrated, as she swiped a bit of sweat from her brow. This heat! Ugh. She hated it. And the noise outside didn’t help, but she also knew if she closed that window her condo would turn into a brick oven. The clanging was replaced by the voices of men, made louder by the echo effect of the small alley.

      She lived in a small building of just five units, each stacked on top of the other in an old factory renovated for condos but originally built in the 1920s. She lived at the top of their building, on floor four, in between an office building to the south and to the north a condo building that was being gutted and repurposed.

      Unable to resist any longer, she grabbed the can of Coke from her table and went to her window, glancing out to see a small white moving truck in the alley beneath it, and one mover who struggled to slide a heavy metal ramp out from the open back.

      New neighbor? she wondered, and immediately knew which one. Had to be the building across the street, the one she’d seen construction crews head in and out of as they gutted it and redesigned the three-flat. The building was made of solid brick with a faint Herron and Co. logo on the side. No windows faced her, except three on the top floor and a single lone window on the second. Those had been the old offices of the executives running the company. She heard it had once been a cold storage facility back in the early 1900s. This explained the garage doors below narrow enough to fit the horse-drawn carriages that came to pick up deliveries, and the first floor, which was entirely bricked in. Someone told her a condo owner decided to renovate the fourth floor back in the 1980s, adding in windows that looked out on the alley between them. Still, the old icehouse was one of many reasons she loved Chicago, where new lived beside old, modern beside antique and old buildings like this one found new life.

      The neighboring building was big enough for three condos, but as far as she knew, the entire building had been empty since she’d moved in eight months ago. There’d been construction crews coming and going, and the rumor from her downstairs neighbor—a Realtor—was that the entire building was being converted into one massive home: no doubt for one very rich couple or a very rich family of ten, since the three-story brownstone could easily hold ten bedrooms and five bathrooms. From her floor, she could see straight into the top floor of the building, where she saw a spacious living room with dark-stained pine floors and had a full view of the expansive rooftop deck: covered in wood, complete with a built-in fire pit and benches. Last week, gardeners had arrived with potted plants, and so the entire deck was in bloom with white and yellow flowers.

      Now she studied the movers. None of them looked up. Chloe had gotten used to not being seen from her vantage point. People just didn’t glance up beyond the second floor of her building. Chloe sank into the little bench at her bay window, sipping her soda and watching the men work. Because it was so hot, Chloe could only bear to wear a tank top with thin straps and a pair of old gym shorts. She hadn’t bothered putting on makeup, because she worked from home and the humidity would just melt it off anyway. She’d swept her dark, nearly black hair up in a hastily made ponytail, but didn’t care. She doubted the movers would be looking up. She felt invisible on her perch. She took another sip, watching the burly workers below as they waited to unload their cargo. They seemed not able to get in.

      Then a brand-new Maserati roared up to the back of the building, steered by a man in his early 30s. He parked in the alley, not caring about a proper parking space. She guessed a man with a Maserati could afford a parking ticket. He popped out of the driver’s seat, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts. Hang on. Hello. Tall, built like a linebacker, with muscles she could see from where she sat. What was he—a boxer? A fitness trainer? No trainer she knew could afford a Maserati.

      He ran a hand through a thick head of dirty-blond hair as he dropped his phone in his pocket. He instantly started directing the movers.

      She glanced at his flat stomach hugged by his skintight shirt and thought: Bet he’s gay. She didn’t know any straight guys who worked that hard on their abs. And she knew next to no rich men who did. After all, why bother, when their wallets could speak for themselves?

      But...if he is straight...mmm, mama. He had just the right amount of blond goatee covering his chin. She saw no ring on his left hand. Then he grabbed keys from his pocket and opened the back door. Could he be...the new neighbor? He certainly acted like it. And the Maserati fit the profile of someone who’d just bought a whole building for himself.

      She willed him to look up, to see her, but he didn’t. Not that he would.

      No one bothers to see me up here. The benefits of being invisible meant that she could spy with abandon.

      The new neighbor was gorgeous, with a capital G. And had more money than God if he was going to live in that building all by himself. Lincoln Park real estate was anything but cheap. Just ask Chance the Rapper, who lived two streets over. Not that money alone really spoke to Chloe. Sure, she wouldn’t mind having more of it, but her Korean dad and Irish mom raised her with Midwestern values. They told her to work hard, keep her head down and not be flashy.

      A strand of her nearly black hair fell into her face. She blew it off her sticky forehead and fumbled with her tank-top spaghetti strap that kept falling off her shoulder. She watched as the new neighbor directed the movers, as they unloaded the truck—a big gray sectional coming first, as they maneuvered it into the open door across the way.

      At least I’m not moving a couch wearing a jumpsuit in this heat, she thought, fanning herself and taking a sip of her now-lukewarm soda.

      A few minutes later she saw them maneuver the same couch into the third-floor living room. She realized then she could see the entire living room, the fireplace, a bit of