“I'll pick you up at noon.”

“Noon? Where is that?” He sounded confused.

“Twelve o'clock,” she clarified, and he laughed.

“Ah bon, midi. D'accord.”

“D'accord?” It was her turn not to understand.

“D'accord is ‘okay.’ ” She liked the way he said “okay.” She liked everything about him, which was the worst of it. She showered and put on a red sweater and jeans, and grabbed her pea coat out of her closet. She knew that with him, she didn't have to get dressed up. And she told herself they were doing just a little harmless tourism. It didn't hurt anything. They could have fun seeing the sights together, and he'd be gone in a few days.

He hopped in her car when she picked him up, and he had a camera in his pocket. He was wearing jeans, a black sweater, and a black leather jacket, and he looked like a rock star with the diamond earring and the spiky hair. She tried to say as much to him, and he laughed.

“I cannot sing,” he said, pretending to strangle himself, and they headed toward the Golden Gate Bridge. He hung out the window and took photographs of the city as they went across. It was a crystal-clear day, and when they got to Tiburon, he was delighted with Sam's. He managed to explain to her, using both languages, that he had been taking pictures since he was a little boy. His parents had died, and he was raised by an older sister whom he loved very much. He had been married at twenty-one, and he had a son ten years old, but the boy lived with his mother, and Jean-Pierre almost never saw him because he and the child's mother were on bad terms.

“That's very sad,” Paris said. He showed her a photograph of an adorable child, who looked undeniably French. “Where do they live?”

“In Bordeaux. I don't like at all. Good wine, but very small.”

They managed very decently to talk about her children, and the divorce, the work she did with Bix, and the fact that Peter had left her for another woman. He told her that he wanted to take a lot of photographs in the States, and he liked San Francisco a lot.

After that they went to Sausalito, and they walked around, and then he asked her if Sonoma was very far away.

“Not very,” she said, looking at him. “Do you want to go?” They had no plans, and it would take less than an hour to get there.

“Maintenant? Now?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.” He looked pleased.

They drove past the vineyards, and roamed around, and then went on to the Napa Valley, and were there by dinnertime, and they stopped at a little bistro for dinner where everyone spoke French, and Jean-Pierre was thrilled. He and the waiter had a long conversation, and they headed back to the city around nine o'clock. They were back in San Francisco at ten-thirty, and had had a terrific day.

“What do you do tomorrow, Paris?” he asked when she dropped him off.

“I work,” she said ruefully. But it had been a nice day. “What are you doing?” She was going to invite him to the office, to show him around, but he said he was going to Los Angeles in the morning. He was going to drive the van. “Will you come back?”

“Je ne sais pas. I don't know. If I come back, I call … je t'appellerai.”

“D'accord,” she said, and he smiled.

“Sois sage,” he said as he looked at her, and she looked puzzled. “It means be very good behaved. You know, be a good girl.” It was odd, Paris realized, when she was with him, she didn't feel the difference in their age. She wondered if it was like that between Richard and Meg. But this was ridiculous. Jean-Pierre was fifteen years younger than she. And he was only there for a minute. It was fine to drive around with him for a day, playing tourist, but she couldn't think of him as a romantic possibility. And he probably wouldn't come back anyway. He kissed her on both cheeks, and hopped out of the car, and she waved as she drove away. When she glanced in the rearview mirror, he was standing outside the hotel, watching her.

And all that night, she was haunted by him. All she could think about were the things they had talked about, and the expressive look on his face. And the French words he had taught her seemed to dance in her head. She was still feeling dazed the next day, as though she had taken a drug and was hung over. Being with him was some kind of strange aphrodisiac she couldn't have explained to anyone. He was such a powerful presence, in an almost sexual way. She could suddenly understand for the first time in her life why older women had affairs with younger men. But that wasn't going to happen to her.

She and Bix worked on a number of projects, and she was aware of a sense of malaise all day, as though some part of her were causing her body to be too big for her skin. She felt raw and uncomfortable all day. And it was crazy, but she actually missed him. She was determined not to give in to it, and she didn't call him on the cell phone he had rented, although he had given her the number. She went to bed early that night, and worked hard again the next day.

She felt better by Wednesday, and Meg called that night about their Thanksgiving plans. They were going to be with their father that year, and with her for Christmas. She never asked Meg how Rachel was doing with her pregnancy, because she didn't want to know. She had never asked if Peter was happy about it, if it was an accident, or planned. She couldn't bear to think of any of it, and Meg very discreetly never volunteered anything her mother didn't ask. She sensed just how painful it was for her, particularly since she was alone.

On Thursday as she drove home from the office at eight o'clock, her cell phone rang. She assumed it was either Bix or Meg. No one else ever called her on her cell. She was just pulling up in front of her house as she answered, and as she did, she saw him sitting there. It was Jean-Pierre both calling her, and sitting on her front steps.

“Où es tu?” he said in French, and she knew what it meant. It meant “Where are you?” She stopped the car, and smiled at him, embarrassingly pleased that he was there.

“I'm right here,” she answered, and got out of her car with the phone in her hand. She walked up the steps, and was going to kiss him on both cheeks, but he took her in his arms and kissed her searingly on the mouth. And she responded before she could stop herself. She never wanted it to stop, and didn't want him to go. It was as though she was being swept away on a tidal wave of sensuality, and for a moment she felt crazed. She had no idea what she was doing, why, or with whom. She hardly knew him, but all she did know was that she didn't want it to stop.

“I miss you so much,” he said simply, looking like a boy again, although he acted like a man, in all the important ways. “So I come back from Los Angeles. I go to Santa Barbara yesterday. Like Bordeaux. Very beautiful, and very small. Too quiet.”

“I think so too,” she agreed, and her heart pounded as she let them both into her house. He had gotten the address when he called her office and said he had proofs to show her. He followed her inside and looked around, nodding approval, as he took off his leather jacket. It looked as though it had been through the wars. “Would you like dinner?” she asked as he smiled and nodded, and went to look at the view, and then, while she was cooking, he took photographs of her. “Don't, I look terrible,” she said, brushing a lock of hair off her face. All she had was soup she had heated, cold chicken and salad she made for them, and she poured them each a glass of wine, while he put on some music. He seemed very much at home, and he came to kiss her from time to time while she organized dinner for them. It was harder and harder to keep her mind on what she was doing.

They sat down at the kitchen table, and talked about music. He had very sophisticated tastes, and was very knowledgeable about classical music. He said his mother had been an artist, and his father a conductor. And his sister was a doctor in Paris. A heart surgeon. He had an interesting background. He asked her what she had studied in school, and she told him economics, and he said he had studied political science.

“Sciences Po,” he said, as though he expected her to know it. “It is a very good school. And you? You did more high studies?” She knew what he meant.

“Graduate school. I have an MBA.” He didn't understand, and she said it was a very respected business degree, and he nodded.

“I understand. We have a very good school for that. HÉC. It is like Harvard Business School for us. I don't need that to take photographs,” he said, and laughed. And after they ate, he kissed her again, and she had to fight back a wave of passion that seemed to overwhelm her. This was crazy. She couldn't just let animal instinct overpower her. Nothing like this had ever happened to her, and she finally looked at him in dismay.

“Jean-Pierre, what are we doing? We don't know each other. This is crazy.”

“Sometimes crazy is good, no? I think yes. I am crazy to you.”

“For you, or about you.”

“Yes, that.”

“I feel that way too, but in a few days you'll leave, or sooner, and we'll be sorry if we do something foolish.”

He touched his heart and shook his head. “No, then I will always remember you. Here.”

“Me too. But maybe later we will be sorry.” She was worried about what they were doing or might do. He was nearly impossible to resist.

“Why sorry?”

“Because the heart can be very easily hurt. And we don't know each other,” she said sensibly, but he disagreed.

“I know you very much. I know many thing about you. Where you go to school, your children, your work, your marriage, your tristesse … your sadness…you have lose very much… sometimes we must find,” he said as he remembered something he wanted to share with her. “You know the book, The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry? There it say, ‘On ne voit l'essen-tiel qu'avec le coeur ’ … you only see the important thing in life with the heart … not the eyes. Or the head. It is a very wonderful book.”

“I read it to my children. It is very sad. The little prince dies in the end.” She looked touched. She loved the book.

“Yes, but he live forever in the stars.” He was pleased that she knew the book. It told him that she was a very special woman, as much so as he had thought. He had seen it in her eyes when he took photographs of her. “You must always see with the heart. And after, you will live forever in the stars.” It was a lovely thought, and it touched her.

They spent hours talking that night, and although she sensed that he would have liked to stay, he didn't ask her and she didn't offer. He didn't want to press her, and spoil what they had.

The next day he called her and then showed up at the office, and Bix looked surprised when he walked in.

“Are you still here, Jean-Pierre?” Bix asked with a smile of welcome. “I thought you left on Sunday or Monday.”

“I did. I go to Los Angeles.” He made it sound like a French city, and Bix smiled. “And then I come back yesterday.”

“How long will you be here?”

“Maybe a few week,” he said as Paris came out of her office and saw him. And something passed between them, as they looked at each other, like an electrical current of industrial voltage. Neither said anything, but Bix saw it immediately. He invited Jean-Pierre to stay for lunch, and the three of them ate sandwiches and drank cappuccinos in the room where they made presentations to clients. And afterward Jean-Pierre thanked them and left. He said he was going to visit Berkeley. He never said anything obvious to Paris, but he managed to communicate to her without words that he would see her later. And after he left, Bix stared at her.

“Am I imagining things, or is there something going on between you two?” He looked stunned, and turned to Paris, as she hesitated.

“No, there isn't really. We spent the day together on Sunday. I took him to Sausalito and Sonoma. And he dropped by last night. I'm not that foolish.” Though it was sorely tempting, and she knew that if he stayed much longer, it would get harder and harder to resist him. But however attracted to him she was, she had managed to keep her resolve so far.

“I would be,” Bix said, looking at her. “That foolish, I mean. Hell, Paris, he's adorable, and you don't owe anyone any explanations.”

“Yes, I do. I owe myself one. He's a kid. He's fifteen years younger than I am.”

“It doesn't look that way. You look like a kid yourself, and he's older than he looks. Hell, if he were giving me looks like that, I'd grab him. He's a hottie.”