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I was coming back to New York one way or another. What would you like to drink? I’ve got white wine chilled. Or would you prefer cognac?”
    “Cognac sounds good,” she said.
    Keaton laid her trench coat across the arm of the sofa and walked to the kitchen area. While he had his back to her, Lake surveyed the space. Though it was still sparsely decorated, there were a few stunning pieces. On one wall was a striking abstract painting of a man with an elongated head. She stepped closer. Below it was a sleek side table with a primitive wooden bowl sitting on top. She glanced inside the bowl. Nestled at the bottom were a few coins and an ATM slip. Also a business card from a woman named Ashley Triffin, an event planner. And a scrap of paper with the name Melanie Turnbull scrawled on it. Well, she thought, I knew he was a player.
    “Here you go,” Keaton said, walking up with their drinks. As she accepted the glass, she saw that his arms were tan, muscular, and covered with hair so light it looked like it had been bleached by sunlight. “Why don’t we go out to the terrace?”
    He opened one of the French doors and motioned her outside. The view was mainly north—to a dazzling, glittering midtown, endless rooftops and wooden water tanks. All set against a blue-black sky. She could hear the faint hum of traffic twelve stories below and the sporadic blare of a car horn.
    “I feel like I’m looking at Oz,” she said as a soft breeze lifted the back of her hair. “It seems almost unreal.”
    “I’ve practically lived out here this summer,” he said. “One night I even dragged a sleeping bag onto a lounge chair and slept here.”
    “Is that safe? I mean, it is the middle of Manhattan.”
    “There’s no access from anywhere but my apartment—though I guess Spider-Man could reach it.”
    She smiled and walked over to the outside wall, peering over.
    “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” he asked. She smelled his musky cologne as he came up slowly behind her.
    “No,” she said. “Not heights.”
    “Ahh, but something ?”
    “A crazy little phobia. Not what you’d expect.” She couldn’t believe she was going to confess it. But she felt reckless with him.
    “So you’re true to your name, then? Still waters run deep.”
    “I don’t know how deep it is.” She took a sip of her cognac. “I have this weird fear of clowns.”
    “Clowns?” he said, looking intrigued. “Does that mean you’ve never taken your kids to Ringling Brothers’ circus?”
    “Correct…. But how do you know I have kids?”
    “I overheard you say something about one of them to Maggie. I’m just guessing you have more than one.”
    “I’ve got two, actually. They’re at sleepaway camp this month.”
    “And a husband?”
    Had he asked her up here not knowing the answer to that?
    “We…ended things a few months ago.” She turned it over to him. “You don’t have kids, do you?”
    “No kids. I was married briefly in my thirties, though, to another doctor. Commuter marriage. Probably doomed from the start.”
    “And does it take as long as they say to recover? To feel like you haven’t been flattened by a car?”
    She regretted her comment instantly. The last thing she wanted was for things to turn heavy.
    “Is that how it’s made you feel?” Keaton asked.
    “Well, in the very beginning, yes,” she said, trying to sound breezy now. “But it’s been about four months, and these days there are moments when I feel really good, happy.”
    “Because of? Evenings spent chatting with eminent fertility experts like Dr. Levin?”
    “Well…more because of being on my own again. Not having to answer to anyone. Getting all the crumbs I want in the bed.”
    She couldn’t believe she’d said the word bed . How transparent, she thought. The blood went rushing to her cheeks again.
    “Sounds good,” he said, holding her eyes in the dim light. “And you’ll see that things will only get better from