"You answer to Kate?"

Uncharacteristically intimidated, the New York librarian could only gesture to her name badge and nod up at the imposing patron looming across the desk.

"Ah, Kate Farrow," the man gave a slight bow, his black hair falling momentarily across his face.

Kate found her voice. "Are you after anything in particular, Sir?"

The patron cocked his head to one side, his unnerving green eyes suddenly sharp. "You address me as Sir?"

"Unless you'd like to introduce yourself?"

The man paused. He'd been warned under extremely unpleasant circumstances never to reveal his true identity. He smiled, somewhat bitterly. "You may call me Luca." He waved an arm towards the shelves. "And these are this great city's books?"

She shrugged.

He laughed. "And from these books you humans seek to gain the wisdom of the ages?"

Kate's eyes narrowed, her intimidation turning a corner towards irritation. "Again, sir…"

"Please, call me Luca."

"Luca. Is there anything specific that you're after? Are you a member of the library?"

"Er, no."

"No, nothing specific, or no, not a member."

"Not a member. And… and as for what I seek," he paused, dropping his chin to his chest. "I seek interaction, conversation," he raised his eyes and she caught a timid smile, so out of place on one so tall and striking. "Companionship."

Kate folded her arms across her chest. "Sir…"

"Please. Luca."

"Sir, I'm sorry. I can help you become a member of the library but you'll have to look elsewhere for companionship."

"Well then," he boomed, "Let me become a member. What must I do?"

Kate groped under the desk, fishing for an application form and turning up a stubby pencil. "You'll need to fill this out and provide three acceptable forms of ID. There's a list on the back."

The man looked somewhat baffled. "Eye? Dee?"

She looked up at him from under her lowered brows. "List on the back."

He attempted what he hoped was a sweet sort of smile. "Ah, of course. On the back." He stood and looked at her.

She raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, so just bring that back after you've filled it all out."

"Ah," he nodded.

She pushed the pencil stub towards him. "Perhaps take it to that table over there?"

He looked in the direction she pointed, looked back at Kate and then nodded decisively, gathering up the form and pencil. "I shall return."

"Excellent." No sooner had the enormous figure folded himself into his chair, than Kate regretted not sending him up to the silent study space on the second floor. She could feel the heat of his green gaze on her. "Why is it that only the lunatics pick me for companionship?" she muttered.

At last her supervisor appeared and Kate made her excuses, disappearing down to the stacks for as long as she thought she could justify. By the time she returned, the man had gone, leaving a small tower of books in his stead. She glanced at the titles as she returned them to the nearest trolley. Curiously, it was a pile of her most favourite novels, plays and collections of poetry.

"You okay?" her friend Tash asked, appearing from a bank of shelves behind her. "Can I join the next round of musical statues?"

She shook her head as Tash took the pile from her. "Umm, I don't think you'll be needing to borrow this particular bunch of books. Haven't you pretty much got the signed first editions of all of these?"

"I wish," she laughed. "Someone else must just have excellent taste." She looked into Tash's face to find her wide-eyed, staring into the distance over her shoulder.

"Check out this incredibly dashing guy!" Tash whispered, trying not to move her lips.

Kate looked above her at the polished elevator doors and was not entirely surprised to see the reflection of her imposing stranger striding back into the library, his black leather coat and scarf perfectly defining his impressively large frame.

"Kate Farrow!" he boomed, still a good distance away. "I have returned with the identification you requested."

Tash turned her raised eyebrows on her friend.

"Just another nutjob," Kate whispered.

Tash sighed. "When will the attractive guys turn out to be single and looking for a librarian?"

"I think he is single and looking for a librarian. In this instance that's what makes him a nutjob," she replied making her way slowly back to the desk.

Luca towered over the desk, beaming as if he'd just dropped a freshly slain wild boar onto the brown laminate and intended to feed the clan with it throughout the winter.

Kate reached across the desk for the papers and found her fingers arrested and raised to the man's lips.

"I enjoyed perusing some of your literature earlier," he murmured, placing a soft kiss on her knuckles. "I especially warmed to your Shakespeare. He seems to make words truly come alive, does he not? 'My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee The more I have, for both are infinite.'

"You've never read any Shakespeare before?" Kate enquired politely, hoping not to perturb the enormous madman who still had hold of her hand.

A nervous glance flitted across his face. "Er, no. I undertook my education elsewhere."

"Is there anywhere in the world you can get away with not reading Shakespeare these days?"

"Not in the world, no." Luca laughed without conviction. "But somehow I seem to have managed it."

Kate managed to extricate her fingers from the large man's grip and slide his papers across the desk towards her so that she could get on with processing them and hopefully move him along.

The first document was a birth certificate that identified him as Luca Avazcard, born in Chichester, Sussex, England. That explained the accent.

The second and third documents were his gas and electricity bills. Kate gasped. He lived in her building.

"Does everything appear to be in order?" Luca inquired airily.

She looked more closely at the apartment number. He was on the same floor. Could this be the mysterious resident with the internal balcony exactly opposite hers? Her balcony was her haven - where she did all her reading. How else would he have known how to assemble exactly that pile of books? She kept her head bowed, mentally scanning through her options. Run. Call the police. Scream. Call her brother. Set off the fire alarm. Run. Hide. Run.

Suddenly, the man's large hand appeared before her eyes, sliding his papers back towards him.

She looked up, as boldly as she could manage, conscious that she was trembling.

She was surprised to find Luca wearing a sheepish expression. "It appears that you have caught me out, Kate Farrow, but let me assure you, I am no danger to you. I mean you no harm."

Kate looked so violently sceptical that Luca took a step back and raised his palms as if in surrender.

"It is true. I confess, I have been observing you on your balcony for some months now."

Kate glared back at him. Owning up was unnerving but somehow less unnerving than a denial would have been.

"It was wrong of me to follow you today, forgive me."

"Why did you do it?" Kate demanded.

Luca seemed to slump. He looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice to almost a whisper. "I have been utterly alone for almost a year."

"What has that got to do with me?"

"Kate, you have no reason to trust me, I understand that. But I came to this city against my will, and my loathing for the place and the people burned all throughout my first winter months here. It was consuming me." He paused. Then he smiled gently. "And then came the spring, and you began to venture out onto your balcony. You tended your plants and read your books and drank your tea and seemed to take real pleasure in things - in life. It began to occur to me that perhaps I could learn from your example."

Kate's eyebrows could not gain any more altitude. "You want to learn how to enjoy life from me? You're perhaps crazier than I first thought."

Luca nodded. "You think me mad. Of course you do. So I fear no further loss when I tell you that it was only at first that I thought to become an apprentice of sorts to you." He paused, looking intently into her eyes. "Now I think of you as the most luminous creature I have ever beheld, and, believe me, I have seen some real luminosity in my time. Kate, simply observing you has taught me all I need to know about life on this planet, and you have converted me to it, against my very firmest objections."

Kate opened her mouth to speak, thought twice and closed it again.

"It's true, I am your neighbour. And as your neighbour, for I believe that word has been infused with a certain weight in this world, I would never allow any harm to come to you, let alone inflict it myself. I hope you can believe me."

Kate found herself oddly compelled, perhaps by his heartening recognition that he'd been inappropriate, perhaps by his contrition, perhaps the deep green of his eyes, the intensity of his gaze or the beauty of his compliment, to keep listening.

"And I have no claim on your good will, but I have an enormous favour to ask you. Will you at least hear me out?"

While her internal safety monitor angrily shook his head, Kate nodded hers.

"You will?" he beamed, his eyes wide with surprise. "I do not deserve your merciful kindness." He bowed obsequiously.

She couldn't help a small smile. "Well? How can I help?"

He cleared his throat. "My older brother, with whom it could not be said I have a warm relationship, is coming to town. I am to dine with him and his lady love, and, for a variety of reasons, I don't imagine that it will be a particularly enjoyable experience."

Kate nodded.

"In truth, he's coming to check on me as might a jailer making his rounds. I am only just beginning to understand the extent to which I have disappointed my family and the longer I spend here, the more I realise the injustice of my behaviour, the depth of my transgression." Luca fixed his deep green eyes on her with a greater intensity. "Just seeing you each day has made me realise that there is a lot to love on this earth."

It took Kate a while to find her voice. "Luca," she began.

"Yes?"

"Imagine you were the father of a twenty-five year old daughter."

"Me?" Luca seemed delighted by the notion. "A father?"

"Yes, of a twenty-five year old woman."

"Being twenty-five qualifies someone as more than a mere babe?" he laughed.

Kate glowered mildly at him. "I'm twenty-five."

Luca's shock was palpable.

"How old did you think I was?"

Even he could work out that it would be unwise to venture an answer.

"Come to think of it, how old are you?"

This was a question to which he simply could not provide an honest answer. He shrugged.

"Anyway, if you were my father, how would you feel about me agreeing to go out with you after you've just confessed to watching me on my balcony for months and then stalking me to work?"

Luca smiled wanly. "It's true. I have not behaved in a manner worthy of you. Your father would surely forbid you to see me." He suddenly broke into a cheeky grin that would have unnerved his brother for different reasons than those for which it unnerved Kate. "But isn't defying our fathers one of the secret pleasures of life?"

Kate couldn't help but grin back at him. Everything in her screamed No! but she said, "Yes."

Luca chuckled at her solidarity.

"I mean, yes," she repeated. "I will go to dinner with you."

Luca's face glowed with delight. "Shall I come to your door?" he asked, barely containing his excitement. "I know where to find it," he laughed.

Kate hesitated. "Why don't you meet me here." There. At least she'd improvised a little nod in the direction of just-in-case-he's-a-serial-killer.

"Of course," Luca nodded. "At seven?"

"Luca?"

"Mmm?"

"Is this a dressy sort of a dinner?"

He looked confused.

"I mean, what should I wear?"

He hit her will the full wattage of his smile. "I adore you in your pyjamas each morning. I cannot imagine attire in which you would appear less than perfect."

"Here," she whispered, sliding something across the desk.

He took it, brushing her fingertips with his own in a way that she found a little too distracting. "What is this?"

"Your library card, Sir," she replied, smiling.

Luca slipped the card into the breast pocket of his white button-down shirt and held his hand over it. "I will treasure it," he whispered. "In me, this library has found a most devoted champion."

Kate giggled nervously.

"Tonight, then?"

"Tonight."