I slipped into the closet without thinking about why I was skulking around my own condo and why I wasn't walking right into the kitchen and breaking up the romantic little scene. But seeing Nora in that state of obvious arousal, but also with unusual confidence and self-assertion to the point where she evidently decided she could enjoy a little harmless flirting without her husband seeing or knowing, amazed me. No doubt Cory's hard body and damaged bad-boy demeanor inspired Nora. But I had inadvertently set up the opportunity for her to be home alone when Cory came to look at and pick up the antique chair. I was supposed to be still working my way through an airport elsewhere, not home on an earlier flight.