“They're indicting him this afternoon.”

“And the girl? His cousin? What part did she play in all this?” Other than destroying their marriage. He had really been set up by pros, and he'd been a complete fool, and he knew it.

“I don't know about her yet.” He looked away from Alex. “She says she's not responsible, that she didn't know. I still think she knew when she came in, and then chose to stay out of it once she got here. Or maybe she didn't. Maybe she knew it all,” he said, running his hands through his hair as she watched him. He had paid a high price for his affair. He had paid with his business, his reputation, his money, possibly his life, if he wound up in prison. But she still wanted to help him. He was still her husband.

She went to the phone then, and called Phillip Smith, one of their senior partners. He specialized in tax fraud and SEC violations. It was similar enough. This was right up his alley, and he promised to be down in five minutes.

“What about you? Will you stay on it too?” Sam asked pathetically, and Brock wanted to hit him. She wasn't his any longer. He had done enough to her for one lifetime, but in spite of everything Alex still felt loyalties to him, if only because of their daughter.

“I wouldn't be any good to you,” Alex told Sam honestly, “this isn't my area of expertise.” And in spite of feeling sorry for him, she didn't want to get too directly involved with him.

“Will you consult on it? Be an associate? Alex …please …” Brock turned away. He didn't want to see this. Sam was doing a number on her, and she felt obligated to help him.

“I'll see what I can do. But you don't need me, Sam. I'll see what Phillip Smith says after you talk to him.” She spoke to him very gently. And Brock was annoyed to see that, no matter what she said, and what Sam had done to her, there was still a bond between them.

“I do need you,” Sam said urgently in an undertone, as the senior partner arrived and Brock got called away for a few minutes.

She made the introductions and shared her notes with Phillip Smith. He nodded and frowned, and then sat down next to Alex, across the table from Sam.

“I should leave you alone,” she said, and stood up, looking down at Sam. He looked suddenly like a pathetic figure. He seemed broken by what had happened.

“Don't go.” He looked up at her like a frightened child and she was suddenly reminded of how she had felt when they told her she had cancer, how alone and afraid she had felt, and how he had refused to be there. He'd been out chasing Daphne, and letting criminals destroy his business, while he left Alex to puke her guts out.

“I'll be back,” she said quietly. She didn't want to encourage him to become dependent on her. This was going to be a complicated case, and she was sure it would go to trial. It would take months, if not years, and she wanted to be careful not to make too much of a commitment.

And when she got to her office, Brock was pacing the room with a look of fury.

“That whining sonofabitch,” he complained, glaring at her, as though it were all her fault. “He hasn't done shit for you for a year, if he ever did before that, which I doubt, and now he shows up crying because he's about to go to jail. You know, you really ought to let him. It would do him good. It's really perfect. His fancy piece of ass and her cousin set him up for embezzlement and fraud and then he comes crying to you to save him.” He was so furious, he couldn't stop pacing. It was almost as though he had been betrayed, and not Alex.

“Relax, Brock,” she tried to calm him down, “he's still my husband.”

“Not for long, I hope. What a slime bag. He sits there in his expensive suit and his ten-thousand-dollar watch, having just walked off a yacht in the South of France, and he's all surprised that his partners are crooks and he's been indicted by the grand jury. Well, I'm not surprised at all. I think he was probably in on it from the beginning.”

“I don't,” she said calmly, sitting at her desk while he paced, hating her husband. “I think it probably happened pretty much the way he said. He was playing around and not paying attention, and they screwed him. That doesn't excuse him, he should have been watching what was going on. He had a responsibility, but he was playing, and hiding. And they were very busy while he was snoozing.”

“I still think he deserves it.”

“Maybe.” She wasn't sure what she thought yet. But after her one-thirty appointment left at two-fifteen, Sam was still talking to Phillip Smith, and a little while later they asked her to join them again. She went without Brock this time, which seemed simpler. She realized she'd been wrong to ask him in the first place. It was unfair to ask Brock to be objective.

“Well?” she said, as she sat down with them, and Sam noticed in spite of himself that her figure looked more natural again, and then he forced himself to think of his problems. “Where are we?” she asked, focusing entirely on business. She was like a doctor with a patient, dispassionate and professional.

“Not in a very good place, I'm afraid.” Phillip Smith explained. He didn't pull any punches. He felt that Sam had a large degree of exposure, and that the grand jury indictment would most likely stick. In fact, there was a risk of additional charges. He felt sure that the matter would go to trial and what would happen in front of a jury was unpredictable. Sam had a good chance of losing. Particularly if the jury didn't believe him. The strongest thing he had going for him was the fact that he really hadn't known what had happened, until very late in the day. Phillip Smith felt that the partners would go down with Simon, but there was a faint chance of saving Sam if they could separate his case from theirs philosophically, and build up the sympathies of the jury. His wife had cancer, he was half out of his mind with worry over her, taking care of her, not paying attention to his business. He had trusted his partners, and in fact, he had not knowingly committed any crimes, he had been the pawn of Simon and his partners.

All of which sounded fair to her legally, but it seemed suddenly unfair to her that he should use her as his defense, when he had done so little for her. She understood it, it was a legal ploy, but it still irked her.

“In your opinion, will that fly?” Phillip asked her bluntly. He knew they were separated, and he wanted her reaction.

“It might,” she said cautiously, “if no one looks too hard. I think most people knew that our marriage was falling apart, and that Sam was less than supportive.” Sam winced at her honesty, but he couldn't deny it. He said nothing to the two attorneys.

“Did people know he wasn't being ‘supportive' of you?”

“A few. I didn't advertise it. But I think Sam's life was fairly ‘involved' at the time.” She looked directly at him and he didn't expect what was coming. “He has been rather conspicuously involved with someone else since last fall, or at least since well before Christmas.” Sam looked stunned as she said it, but was surprisingly calm. He had never realized how early she knew about Daphne.

Phillip Smith looked at him very coolly. “Is that true?” Sam hated to admit it to him, and it shocked him to realize that Alex had known then. But he knew he had to be honest, as awkward as it was in front of Alex.

“Yes, it is true. It's the woman I told you about. Simon's cousin, Daphne Belrose.”

“Is she implicated too?”

“Not yet, but she's afraid she will be. She's talking about going back to England the minute anything happens.”

“That would be very foolish,” Smith said in stern tones, “it will make her an immediate fugitive, and they could very well extradite her from England. What is your situation with her now?”

“I'm living with her,” he said, feeling like a complete jerk, “at least I was until this morning.”

“I see.” He nodded, taking it all in. “Well, Mr. Parker, I'd like some time to digest this, and let's see what the grand jury does. When do you testify before them?”

“In two days.”

“That gives us some time to decide on a course of action.” He didn't look pleased with the case and he didn't look as though he liked Sam, but he was willing to take the case for Alex. There was no question in his mind, it was going to be an interesting one, and a big one. Phillip Smith left them alone in the conference room then, and told Sam he'd call him in the morning. He told Alex he'd call her. And the two were left alone, to face each other. It was the first time they'd been alone since before the summer.

“I'm sorry. I didn't know how much you knew,” he said, looking genuinely pained, and unusually humble.

“I knew enough,” she said sadly, not wanting to talk about it with him. There was no point any longer. No matter what the remaining bond, or the child they shared, their marriage was over.

“I think you're in deep water, Sam. Very deep water. I'm sorry all of this happened. I hope Phillip can help you.”

“So do I.” And then, with an expression of real unhappiness he looked across the table at her. “I'm sorry about dragging you into any of this, embarrassing you in any way. You don't deserve this.”

“Neither do you. You deserved a good kick in the ass,” she smiled sadly. “But not this hard.”

“Maybe I did,” he said miserably, consumed with guilt for everything he'd done to her. “When did you find out about Daphne?” He wanted to know now.

“I saw you come out of Ralph Lauren with her just before Christmas. The way you looked together said everything. It wasn't very difficult to figure the rest out. I guess, like you with Simon, I didn't want to see it. It was too painful, and I had too many other things to worry about.” It had been devastating, but she didn't say it. He knew just by looking at her, and he wished he could have turned the clock back, and changed things. But it was way too late now.

“I think I lost my mind for a while. All I could think of was when my mother died and what it had been like. I somehow got it into my head that you were her and you were going to die and take me with you, like my father. I panicked. Kind of like an insane déjà vu. I stopped thinking clearly and all my childhood rage at my mother came back on you. I was truly crazy. I suppose the affair with Daphne was crazy too. It was my way of hiding from reality. But I hurt everyone in the process. I don't even know what to think now. I don't know if she set me up, or if it was real. It's a terrible feeling. I'm not even sure I know her.” But he knew Alex, and how badly he had hurt her. And he hated himself for it. He knew now that he would pay for it for a lifetime.

“Maybe things happen the way they're meant to, Sam,” she said philosophically. It was too late for them, but at least he had come to his senses finally, and he also understood why he had hurt her. It had all been wrapped up in his terror of losing her, as he had his mother.

“I imagine you want out now,” he said, reading her perfectly, but as she looked at him, so vulnerable, so hurt, so scared, his future so uncertain, she couldn't bring herself to press him.

“We can talk about it after you sort out your problems.” It didn't seem fair to dump that on him now, too. Despite Brock's eagerness for the divorce, there was really no great hurry. A month or two wouldn't make that much difference.

“You deserve so much better than I gave you,” he said miserably. For a moment he was going to say more but wisely made no move to approach her. He appreciated her graciousness, and didn't want to abuse it.

And she couldn't disagree with what he was saying to her. But she understood it a little better now. And fortunately, she had had Brock to get her through it.

“Maybe you didn't have a choice,” she said fairly. “Maybe you couldn't help it.”

“I should have been kicked. I was such a damn fool.”

“You'll get out of this, Sam,” she said gently. “You're a good man, fundamentally, and Phillip's a damn fine attorney.”

“So are you, and a good friend,” he said, fighting back tears as they stood across the conference room table from each other.

“Thanks, Sam,” she said with a smile. “I'll keep track of what's happening. Call me if you need me.”

“Kiss Annabelle for me. I'll try to see her this weekend, if I'm not in jail,” he said ruefully, and she smiled at him from the doorway.

“You won't be. See ya.”

She went back to her office, and Brock was waiting for her. He was pacing again and very anxious. He knew she'd been in the conference room with Sam again. Liz had told him. And he'd seen Phillip leaving.

“Did you tell him?”

“More or less. He said he imagined I wanted a divorce, and I said we'd talk about it when he sorted this mess out.”