“How about I'm sorry? I owe you a lot of those, don't I?” She was speaking softly and she sounded so vulnerable it nearly killed him. He wanted to scream at her not to do that. It was too easy to remember all that she had once been to him, and too hard, all at the same time. He just couldn't. It would kill him.

“You don't have to say anything, Sally,” he said, sounding like the husband he had once been to her, the man she had known and loved, and whom she had nearly destroyed. Whatever had happened in between, they were still the same people, and they both remembered, the good times as well as the bad ones. “It's all behind us.”

“I just want to see you. Maybe we can be friends again,” she said, sounding hopeful.

“Why? We have friends. We don't need each other.”

“We have two children. Maybe it's important for them that we establish a bond again.” Amazingly, that hadn't occurred to her for the past six years. Only now. That it suited her current purpose, whatever that was. Whatever it was, Matt knew it would be good for her, and surely not for him. Her intrinsic narcissism always controlled her. It was all about her needs, and no one else's.

“I don't know …” He hesitated. “I don't see the point.”

“Forgiveness. Humanity. Compassion. We were married for fifteen years. Can't we be friends now?”

“Is it too rude to remind you that you left me for one of my best friends, moved thousands of miles away with my children, and haven't allowed me to have contact with them for the past six years? That's a lot to swallow, even between ‘friends,’ as you put it. Just how friendly is that?”

“I know…I know… I've made a lot of mistakes,” she said sweepingly, and then she put on the voice of the confessional, which was exactly what he didn't want with her. “If it's any consolation, Hamish and I were never happy. There were a lot of problems.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” he said, feeling a chill run through him. “I always had the impression that you were very happy. He was very generous with you, and your children.” And he was basically a good guy. Until he ran off with Sally, Matt had always liked him.

“Generous, yes. But he never really ‘got it.’ Not like you did. He was kind of a good-time guy, and he drank like a fish, which finally killed him,” she said unsympathetically. “We had no sex life.”

“Sally, please… for chrissake. I don't want to know that.” Matt sounded horrified and grim.

“Sorry, I forgot what a prude you are.” Socially perhaps, but never in the bedroom. And she knew that about him. She had missed him. Hamish told the filthiest jokes on the planet, and loved looking at lots of tits and ass, but he was just as happy going to bed with a porn video and a bottle as with her.

“Why don't we just stop here? There's no point in this. You can't run the film backward. It's all over. It's done. End of story.”

“It's not done. It never was. And you know it.” She had hit a nerve that was so raw, it still made him jump. It was what he had been hiding from for a decade. No matter what had happened or how bad it had been, he had always loved her. And she knew it. She could sense it still. She was a shark with a radar screen, and unfailing instincts.

“I don't care. It's over,” he said gruffly. And the tone of his voice, almost hoarse, shot the same chemicals through her, it always had. She had never gotten over him either. She had cut it off, sliced their life away like a limb she no longer wanted, but all the nerves around the stump were still raw and throbbing and alive.

“Don't have dinner with me. Have a drink. Just see me, for God's sake. What difference does it make? Why can't you do that?” Because he didn't want to hurt anymore, he reminded himself, but he felt an irresistible pull toward her and hated himself for it.

“I saw you yesterday, in the lobby.”

“No, you didn't. You saw Hamish's widow, his two kids, and your daughter.”

“That's who you are, isn't it?” he said miserably, not wanting a different answer from her.

“No, it isn't. Not to you, Matt.” The silence between them was deafening, and he groaned. She made him feel insane. She always had. Even after she left him. She could always do that to him. She knew where all the chords were, and the raw nerves, and she loved playing with all of them.

“All right, all right. Half an hour. No more. I'll see you. We'll bury the hatchet, declare ourselves friends, and then for God's sake, get the hell out of my life before you drive me crazy.” She had done it. She had gotten to him. She always did. It was the nemesis of his life. The purgatory he'd been living in, and that she'd condemned him to when she left him.

“Thank you, Matt,” she said softly. “Six o'clock tomorrow? Come to the suite. It'll be quiet and we can talk.”

“I'll see you then,” he said coldly, furious that he had given in to her. And all she could do was pray that in the next twenty-four hours, he wouldn't cancel. She knew that if she saw him, even for half an hour, everything might change. And the worst of it was that, as he hung up the phone, Matt knew it too.





24

MATT DROVE INTO TOWN AT FIVE O'CLOCK THE NEXT day, and arrived fifteen minutes early. He walked around the lobby, looking like he was stalking it, and at precisely six o'clock he was standing outside her suite, and rang the bell. He hadn't wanted to be there, but he knew that once and for all, he had to confront this. If he didn't, it would haunt him forever.

She opened the door looking serious and elegant in a black suit, black stockings, high heels, and her long blond hair was as beautiful as her daughter's. She was still a spectacular-looking woman.

“Hi, Matt,” she said easily, and offered him a chair and a martini. She remembered that he had always loved them, although he no longer drank them. But this time he accepted.

She made one for herself too, and sat down on the couch across from him, and the first few minutes were inevitably awkward, but the martinis helped them. And predictably, it didn't take long for either of them to feel the chemistry between them. Or she did, what Matt felt was subtly different. He couldn't identify the differences yet, but he knew that somehow, at the core of his feelings for her, there had been subtle mutations, and he was relieved.

“Why didn't you ever remarry?” she asked, playing with her olives.

“You cured me,” he said with a smile, admiring her legs. They were as good as they always had been, and the short skirt gave him an impressive view of them. “I've been living like a hermit for the past ten years. I'm a recluse…an artist …” He made light of it, and had no desire to make her feel guilty. It was his life now, and he was comfortable with it. In fact, he had come to prefer it to the life they'd led.

“Why do you do that to yourself?” she said, looking concerned.

“Actually, it suits me. I've done what I wanted to in the world. I've proven everything I want to prove. I live on a beach and I paint… and talk to stray children, and dogs.” He smiled to himself, thinking of Pip, and thought of Ophélie suddenly, who in her own way, was far more beautiful than this woman. They were infinitely different in every possible way.

“You need a life, Matt,” Sally said gently. “Do you ever think of going back to New York?” She had been thinking of it. She had never liked Auckland, or New Zealand. And now she was free, to do whatever she wanted.

“Never. Not for a minute,” he said honestly. “Been there. Done that.” Thinking of Ophélie, even for a minute, had somehow helped him return to his senses and maintain distance from her.

“What about Paris or London?”

“Maybe. When I get tired of being a beach bum. I'm not there yet. When I do, maybe I'll move to Europe. But now that Robert will be here for the next four years, I'm more motivated to stay.” And Vanessa had told him she wanted to go to UCLA in two years, or maybe even Berkeley. He wasn't moving anywhere for the moment. He wanted to be near his children. He had been cheated out of them for long enough, now he wanted to soak up every moment he could with them.

“I'm surprised you're not bored with all that, Matt. The life of a recluse. You were pretty jazzy in the old days.” And the art director of the biggest ad agency in New York, with a lot of powerful, important clients. He and Sally had chartered planes and houses and yachts to entertain them. But he no longer had a hunger for it, hadn't in a decade.

“I guess I grew up at some point. It happens to some of us.”

“You don't look a day older.” She tried another tack, since the others weren't working. She couldn't see herself living in a beach shack with him, that really would have killed her.

“Well, I feel it. But thank you, you don't either.” In fact, she looked better than ever, and a little more weight suited her and gave her a slightly more voluptuous figure. She had always been too skinny in the old days, although he had liked it. “So what are you going to do now?” he asked with interest.

“I don't know. I'm trying to figure that out. It's all so fresh.” She hardly looked like a grieving widow, and wasn't. She looked more like a liberated felon. Unlike Ophélie, who had been ravaged by the death of her husband. The contrasts between the two women were enormous. “I've been thinking about New York,” she said, and then looked at him shyly. “I know it's a crazy idea, but I've been wondering if …” Her eyes looked deep into his, and she didn't finish. She didn't need to. He knew her. And that was the issue. He knew her.

“If I'd like to go with you, and try it for a while, see where things go…if we could put it all back together, turn back the clock and fall in love all over again… God, that would be an idea, wouldn't it? …” He filled in for her, looking pensive, and she was nodding. He had understood her. He always had. Better than she knew. “The trouble is… that's all I wanted for ten years. Not overtly. I didn't torture myself daily, you were married to Hamish, there was no hope for us… and now you're not, he's gone… and the funny thing is, Sally…I realize now that I couldn't do it. You're beautiful, just as beautiful as you always were, and with another couple of martinis, I'd fall into bed with you and figure I'd died and gone to Heaven…but then what? You're still you, and I'm me… and all the reasons it blew to smithereens before are still there and always would be…I probably bore you. And the truth is, much as I love you and maybe always will, I don't want to be with you anymore. The cost is too high to me. I want to be with a woman who loves me. I'm not sure you ever did. Love isn't just an object, a purchase, a sale, it's an exchange, a trade, a gift you give and receive…I want the gift next time…I want to get it, and give it …” He felt remarkably at peace as he said it to her. He had had the chance he wanted for ten years, and found that he didn't really want it. It was an incredible feeling of liberation, and at the same time of loss…of disappointment, victory, and freedom.

“You always were such a romantic,” she said, sounding slightly irritated. Things weren't going the way she wanted.

“And you weren't,” he said, smiling. “Maybe that's the problem. I believe in all that romantic drivel. You want to get on with it. Bury one guy, and exhume another. Not to mention what you did with our kids. The trouble is you damn near killed me, and my spirit is floating out there somewhere, it's free now… and I think it likes it that way…”

“You always were a little crazy.” She laughed. But he had never been as sane in his life, and he knew it. “What about an affair?” She was playing let's make a deal now and he felt sorry for her.

“That would be foolish, and confusing. Don't you think? Then what? I'd like nothing more than to go to bed with you. But that's when all the trouble starts. I care. You don't. Someone else comes along. I get tossed on my head out a window. It's not exactly my favorite form of transportation. Sleeping with you is a dangerous sport, for me at least. And I have a healthy respect for my own pain threshold. I don't think I could do it. In fact, I know I couldn't.”

“So now what?” She looked frustrated and angry as she poured herself another martini. Her third now. He had left his first one unfinished. He had outgrown those too. It didn't taste as good as it used to.

“Now we do what you said we would. We declare ourselves friends, wish each other luck, say good-bye, and go on about our business. You go to New York, have a good time, find a new husband, move to Paris or London or Palm Beach, bring up your kids, and I'll see you at Robert and Vanessa's weddings.” It was all he wanted both for her and from her. And nothing more.