Millie and Andrew begin an affair at the Plaza hotel

Millie and Andrew begin an affair at The Plaza Hotel after a taxi ride turns a tentative agreement to keep separate rooms into a kiss neither takes back. The encounter crosses the boundary between the married employer and the housekeeper he employs; by morning, Millie is imagining a life that would replace Andrew’s marriage to Nina Winchester, while Andrew is already insisting that their night cannot be repeated.

Circumstances and Approach

By the time of the hotel night, Millie has been living with the Winchesters for about three weeks. Her employment places her close to Andrew, but also makes the difference in their positions unmistakable: he is her married employer, and she is his housekeeper. The scene thus turns on more than attraction. For Millie, intimacy with Andrew carries the possibility of a different home and future; for both of them, acting on it breaches the boundaries of his existing marriage and their working relationship.

The trip to the hotel follows an evening during which both have been drinking. Andrew is too drunk to drive, and Millie is reluctant to get behind the wheel of his expensive car. A taxi offers a way back to Long Island, but Andrew instead has one take them to The Plaza Hotel. Millie agrees only on the condition that they have separate rooms. Her stated limit makes the next turn sharper: she is trying to hold the night within a boundary even as their decisions bring them closer to crossing it.

The Taxi and the Hotel

In the cab, Millie’s white dress rides up her thigh again. She reaches for its hem, notices Andrew looking at her legs, and calls attention to it. Before their conversation can go further, the taxi jerks to the right. Millie has not fastened her seat belt, and the sudden movement throws her against Andrew. He catches her before she strikes the window; with their bodies pressed together and his breath at her neck, he whispers her name and kisses her. Millie kisses him back.

The separate-room condition does not survive their arrival. They check into one room, struggle to keep their hands off one another while doing so, and kiss in the elevator. In the room, Millie abandons the effort to slow down for the sake of Andrew’s marriage. She has condoms in her purse, left over from when she thought something might happen with Enzo, and uses one with Andrew. The encounter is not presented as a reluctant mistake: Millie describes it as intensely good and recognizes that she wanted it, even while knowing Andrew is married.

Morning and Unequal Expectations

At sunrise, Millie lies beside Andrew in the queen-size bed, with the city visible through the large picture window. She watches him sleep and thinks about the night with pleasure. At the same time, she tells herself that it was a one-time encounter: Andrew is married, and she is his maid. That practical reading competes with a fantasy in which Andrew leaves Nina, chooses Millie, and brings her to live in his gated home.

The fantasy extends to the child Andrew badly wants. Millie imagines that she could give him a baby, while Nina cannot. She also recalls hearing women at a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meeting say that Andrew and Nina have an airtight prenuptial agreement. In Millie’s imagined future, that agreement would make leaving Nina financially manageable, and Andrew would still be generous to her. These are Millie’s hopes and assumptions, not promises Andrew has made: the contrast between her imagined future and the limits of the actual night is already present before he speaks.

When Andrew addresses what happened, he says he is not sorry and hopes Millie is not either. She confirms that she is not. He then says it cannot happen again. The exchange gives the encounter two different meanings: they acknowledge the pleasure they shared, but Andrew sets a limit that closes off the future Millie has begun to imagine. The night changes their relationship without resolving what that change will mean.

Later Stakes and Significance

The affair also sits against Millie’s precarious position outside the bedroom. She is on parole and knows that losing stable housing or violating her conditions could send her back to prison to serve the remaining five years of her sentence. She has already concealed from her parole officer that she was fired from her waitressing job and evicted. Those circumstances do not explain the attraction to Andrew, but they underscore the risks of her dependence on employment and a place to live while working in his household.

Later, when supermarket security stops Millie over a suspected shoplifting incident, her fear quickly turns to what might happen if the police are called and her parole is endangered. She imagines that Nina could use the situation to get rid of her and take revenge for Millie having slept with Andrew. The suspicion is Millie’s; the incident does not establish that Nina arranged it or that Millie stole anything. It does show how the affair becomes part of Millie’s interpretation of the danger around her, where personal conflict, her job, and her criminal-justice vulnerability converge.

As the beginning of an affair, the hotel night is a decisive crossing rather than a secure romantic beginning. The taxi’s sudden jolt brings Millie and Andrew physically together, but the morning restores the realities the encounter cannot settle: Andrew is married, Millie works for him, and their expectations are not aligned. Millie leaves the scene with both the exhilaration of a wanted intimacy and a vision of a future that Andrew has not agreed to share.