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me."
    "Be prepared to be organized."
    "I can't wait." Mason stopped in front of Guinevere's security door. "Here we are. I'll walk you up the stairs like a good Boy Scout. I really appreciate you and Carla coming to the gallery tonight. I was not exactly cool and calm ahead of time, and it was good to know there were going to be some friends there."
    "It was a very successful evening, Mason. You should be proud of yourself." Guinevere dug her key out of her shoulder bag as she climbed the second flight of stairs.
    "Relieved is the word, I think." He waited, lounging against the wall, while she slipped the key into her lock. "Well, good night, Gwen, and thanks again for showing up tonight." Mason straightened and turned to start down the stairs.
    "There seems to be something wrong with the door." Guinevere pushed tentatively against it. "I was sure I left it locked. I always lock it."
    Mason paused, glancing curiously back over his shoulder. "Anything wrong?"
    Guinevere shoved open the door and stood looking into the living room. "Nothing you can do anything about, Mason. Good night." She closed the door very gently in his face and turned to confront Zac.
    Zac put down the glass of tequila he had been holding and leaned his head back in the chair where he had been sitting for the past two long hours. The expression in his ghost-gray eyes made Guinevere think again of glaciers.
    "I think," Zac said in a voice that showed all the rough edges, "that we have a communication gap here." He got up out of the chair and came forward with grim deliberation. "You and I are supposed to be having an affair. That, for your information, implies exclusivity. What the hell do you mean by coming in at midnight with that goddamned artist?"
     

Chapter Three
     
    "I'm not an errant wife coming home late after a night on the town," Guinevere managed to say in a surprisingly even voice. She wasn't feeling at all even inside. She'd never seen Zac in quite this mood. There had been times when he'd been annoyed with her and she'd seen him concerned and had been around him when his temper grew a little short. But she'd never seen such blatant anger and outrage.
    "No, you're not an errant wife, are you? You're a bored mistress coming in after a night on the town."
    Guinevere's head came up with a snap. Furiously she tossed her shoulder bag down onto a black leather chair. "Don't you dare call me your mistress, Zac. A mistress, for your information, is a kept woman. And you don't keep me, Zac Justis. Lately you haven't even kept me company!"
    "So you decided to go out and find someone else to keep you company?"
    "It's none of your business what I did tonight." She was moving farther and farther out on the thinnest possible ice, but her own anger was in full sail. "You have no right to yell at me like this."
    "No right? You come home at midnight with that naked artist in tow and you tell me I don't have any right to yell?"
    "He wasn't naked."
    "How long would it have taken him to get naked after you invited him into your apartment?"
    "I didn't invite him in, not that it would have made any difference. Mason walked me home after his gallery showing tonight. He invited Carla and me to attend. Since I didn't have anything else to do tonight and since he's a very nice person, I decided to accept the invitation. I had a couple of glasses of free champagne and half a dozen salmon canapes. I resisted the impulse to buy one of his paintings. Primarily because I couldn't afford one. That, Zac, is the sum total of my wild night on the town. Mason and I left the gallery about fifteen minutes ago, and I can produce witnesses if necessary. Is there anything else you'd like to know?" Summoning up a courage she wasn't sure she actually felt, Guinevere walked right past Zac, flung herself down onto the black sofa, and glared across the room at the egg-yolk-yellow floor-to-ceiling bookcase. She refused to glance at Zac, who was watching her the way a predator watches its