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bag—a bright yellow, crushable Prada—over her shoulder and sauntered past him. Just before exiting the door she paused, and turned a curious look on him. “This Mrs. Daniel, the American,” she said. “Do you intend to tell her about the brat?”
    Ash’s expression remained as pleasant as ever, but he could not disguise the wariness that crept into his eyes. “I can’t imagine the subject would come up.”
    She smiled, insincerely. “You are no doubt right.” Coming close to him, enveloping him in her scent, she placed a sharp-nailed hand alongside his face. She leaned in close, emerald eyes fixed on his, and brushed a quick, light kiss across his lips. “Au revoir, mon cher . Think of me.”
    Ash waited until she had gone, then he removed a handkerchief from his pocket and blotted his lips. He walked into the outer office and stood thoughtfully beside Mrs. Harrison’s desk for a moment. “Do you know what my father taught me?” he said, at length.
    She did not look up from her monitor. “Everything you know, sir.”
    â€œQuite. More to the point, he had a saying he was fond of repeating: An ember that’s allowed to smolder overnight will oft be a blazing inferno by morning. You’d best cancel my date with the Swiss ambassador, and give my regrets to my mother. And clear my schedule for the week, will you? I’ll be leaving for Rondelais on the evening train.”
    â€œVery good, sir.” One hand continued to type as, with the other, she offered him a slip of paper. “The young lady is staying at the Rosalie in the village. Here’s the telephone. She’s expected to arrive by five.”
    He took the paper, tapping it absently against his hand as he gazed out the window at the rain. “Sara,” he murmured. “Her name is Sara.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    He turned from the window to Mrs. Harrison with brisk resolve. “Let’s see what we can do about upgrading our Sara’s accommodations, shall we? Call in a staff, and get that chef— what’s his name? The one who catered that affair for the museum we had there last spring.”
    Mrs. Harrison raised an eyebrow but did not glance up as she jotted notes on her pad.
    â€œHave them put her up in the Queen’s Chamber,” he went on. “Yes, that will do nicely. And flowers, mountains of them. Make the place look like a bloody church. Candy, champagne, the full VIP treatment. And get Winkle up here. Tell him to bring the file on Rondelais. I think I’d best handle the matter personally after all.”

THREE
    There was not one single thing that Sara could look back on and say, Yes, that was it; that was what happened ; no precipitating event or specific moment. After the party in New York, she flew back to Chicago, approved the final revisions on the Super Bowl launch campaign for New Blue Microbrew, and three days later woke up in her plush lake-view apartment to the horrifying, paralyzing awareness that she couldn’t do it another day.
    She couldn’t make herself get out of bed. She couldn’t make herself get dressed. The telephone rang, and she didn’t care. Her cell phone rang, and she didn’t care. Her BlackBerry buzzed. She didn’t answer the banging on the door. For forty-eight hours she lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and barely noticed the changing patterns of light and dark. She just didn’t care.
    Exhaustion, they called it. Stress and overwork. Take a vacation. She would be fine.
    Sara nodded and smiled her wooden smile and pretended to listen to all the careful concern and well-meant advice. But even as she boarded the plane for the coast of North Carolina, Sara knew that the only way she would ever be fine was if she never came back.
    And she didn’t.
    She moved into Dixie’s basement guest room. She took long walks on the beach. She played endless games of Chutes and Ladders