“Is this the hotel?” Daniel questioned. “If it is, it doesn’t look much like a hotel.”

“Let’s hold our evaluation until we have a little more data,” Stephanie responded in a playful tone.

The light changed and the taxi leapt forward like a racehorse out of the gate. The driver only had one hand on the steering wheel as he accelerated through the turn. Daniel steadied himself to keep from being thrown against the car door. After a big bounce over the junction of the street and the hotel’s driveway, and then another sharp left-hand turn beneath the hotel’s porte cochere, the driver braked hard enough to put significant tension on Daniel’s seat belt. A moment later, Daniel’s door was pulled open.

“Welcome to the Four Seasons,” a liveried doorman said brightly. “Are you checking in?”

Leaving their luggage in the hands of the doorman, Daniel and Stephanie entered the hotel lobby and headed toward the registration desk. They passed a grouping of statuary fit for a modern art museum. The carpet was thick and luxurious. Smartly dressed people lounged in overstuffed velvet chairs.

“How did you talk me into staying here?” Daniel questioned rhetorically. “The outside might be plain, but the interior suggests this is going to be expensive.”

Stephanie pulled Daniel to a halt. “Are you trying to suggest that you’ve forgotten our conversation yesterday?”

“We had a lot of conversations yesterday,” Daniel muttered. He noticed the woman who had just walked by carrying a French poodle had a diamond engagement ring the size of a Ping-Pong ball.

“You know what I’m talking about!” Stephanie proclaimed. She reached up and turned Daniel’s face toward her own. “We decided to make the best of this trip. We’re staying in this hotel for two nights, and we’re going to indulge ourselves and, I would hope, each other.”