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minute?” He pointed toward the couch. A gust of wind kicked up outside and sent a faint whistle through the fireplace behind them. Neither of them moved.
    Claire felt his gaze boring into her. “You know, I’m not comfortable with this,” she said, finally finding her voice and setting down the empty glass. “I should never have called, and I think it would be best if you—”
    Andrew stepped in closer to her. “I’m very glad you did call,” he said before she could finish. “And, truly, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m sorry for that. I came here for you, Claire.” There was a hunger underlying the contrition in his voice. “Because you asked me to.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Because I wanted to see you, to be with you again.”
    He was just inches from her and she could smell him, too—the scent of his soap and urgency, and some intoxicating quality that hindered her reason. It was a familiar, ambrosial essence that brought her back to a time when everything had seemed exciting and hopeful. She breathed it in, wanting him gone just as much as she didn’t.
    Just then, Andrew’s cell phone breached the intense silence, startling them both. He checked his BlackBerry, looking distressed that the moment had been interrupted. And equally resolute that it would be continued. “I apologize,” he said. “It’s work and I unfortunately need to take this. Is there somewhere I could have just a minute?”
    “There’s the guest room.” The words seemed to come from someone else as she indicated the doorway in the hall, instead of telling him to take the call in his car and leave. She watched him look back at her as he walked toward the door, his confidence and obvious desire for her rendering her paralyzed. She knew she should stop him and tell him to go, but she just stood there. Things like this did not happen to people like her. And yet. It was lopsided origami everywhere.
    When she was finally able to unglue herself, Claire began to pace the long gallery-lit hallway outside the guest bedroom, punctuating her thoughts with the odd articulated word, and fighting to banish images of Michael and Nicholas. She stopped in front of a large oil painting by a still unknown modernist—the painting she’d wanted to show Andrew.
    Lightly tracing the raised ochre curves of the nudes on the canvas, she listened to Andrew’s muted voice as she tried to re-summon her strength. Turning away from the painting, she slid down the wall to the floor, still wanting and knowing that she shouldn’t.
     
    “This was a mistake,” Claire said as she pushed open the bedroom door, “and you need to go.” She squeezed the doorknob with one hand, and rubbed at her temple with the other. Her pulse hammered into her knuckles. “Please.”
    Andrew was just placing his phone into his pocket. “Claire,” he said, moving toward her. “You can’t tell me that’s what you really want. You don’t want me to leave now.” He grasped her biceps. “I don’t want to go,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
    Her arms dropped to her sides. They stood hip to hip and she felt the energy between them again, and sensed her fragile control slipping. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”
    “Shh.” He placed his fingers on her lips. “It’s okay. Don’t think so hard.” His mouth grazed her earlobe and dotted a path down her shoulders.
    “No.” She didn’t move.
    He kissed the side of her neck. Her skin prickled as he circled around to her throat, his breath hot and then cold on her. She pulled away from him, and the unsettling sensation that had flooded her evaporated. There was a dreamlike instant of quiet in her head, a cessation of thought. She took his face in her hands and kissed his mouth deeply until it was no longer a kiss and they were devouring each other’s lips and tongues. Andrew tugged her head back by the nape of her hair and caressed the hollow at the base of her neck. Then, winding her