He brushed his hair, washed his face, and splashed on some after-shave, and by the time he left, he looked as though he had just stepped off the cover of GQ in a dark gray suit, and a white shirt. He looked like just what he was, one of the most exciting businessmen in New York, and heads turned, as they always did, when he got to Le Cirque. Half the people there knew who he was, and had read about him, the others wondered who he was because he was so good-looking, mostly the women. He was so used to it, he never paid attention to it anymore, and it was usually Alex who teased him about it. She accused him of leaving his fly open in the hope that women would watch him. And he thought of that now as he made his way across the restaurant and smiled, thinking of his wife. But when he thought of her, it was as she had been before, not as she was now, deformed and angry, at New York Hospital.
“Glad you could make it, Sam!” Simon stood up and greeted him the moment he arrived, and introduced him to everyone. There were four Englishmen, and three American girls that someone had introduced to them. They were all very pretty, two were models, and one was an actress. And then there was Daphne, which left only Sam and Simon unescorted. They were a large group in a small restaurant, and the noise was deafening. Sam managed to have an intelligent conversation nonetheless with one of the Englishmen, and on his other side was Daphne, who spent a lot of time talking to one of the models. They finally got to talk to each other over dessert, while the others drank and chatted.
“I hear your wife is a very important attorney,” she said conversationally to him, and he nodded. Somehow, right now, talking about Alex seemed painful, and it was easier not to.
“She's a litigator with a firm called Bartlett and Paskin.”
“She must be very intelligent, and very powerful.”
“She is.” He nodded, but something in the way he said it told Daphne that this wasn't a comfortable subject.
“Do you have children?”
“A little girl named Annabelle,” he smiled at that one, “she's three and a half and adorable.”
“I have a four-year-old son in England,” she said easily.
“You do?” He looked startled. Somehow she seemed too young for a husband or children, although he knew she was twenty-nine, but still it surprised him. Everything about her suggested she was single.
“Don't look so shocked,” she laughed at him, “I'm divorced. Didn't Simon tell you?”
“No, he didn't.”
“I was married to a shocking rotter at twenty-one. He finally ran off with someone else and we got divorced, which was why everyone in the family thought it would do me good to get away for a year. Therapy, I think you call it here. We call it a bit of a holiday,” she smiled at him.
“And what about your son?”
“He's very happy with my mother,” she said matter-of-factly.
“You must miss him.”
“I do. But we're not quite as sentimental about children in England as you are over here. We ship them off to boarding school at seven, you know. He'll be away at school in three years, and eventually at Eton. And I think it'll do him good to get a bit detached from Mummy in the meantime.” It was not the kind of thing he could imagine himself doing. He would have been heartbroken without Annabelle, but Daphne was very cool, and very aware of what she wanted. “Does that shock you?” She could see in his eyes that it surprised him.
“A little,” he said honestly, with a smile. “It's not exactly the image we have of motherhood over here.” But on the other hand she didn't look like a motherly type, and maybe she wanted some freedom before she was any older.
“I think as a nation we're a bit more cold-blooded than you are. Americans seem to get terribly wound up about what they ought to be doing, and what's expected of them, and what they should be feeling. Britons just do it. It's rather simple.”
“And a little self-centered.” He liked talking to her, very much in fact. She was smart and honest and totally open about who she was and what she wanted.
“It's terribly simple, you go after what you want, when you want it, without apologizing, or pretending that you're doing anything other than what you are. I rather like it. Things seem a bit more exaggerated here. Everyone's always apologizing for what they're doing, or not doing, or not feeling.” She laughed, and Sam liked the sound of it. It was an unbridled sound of almost sensual amusement, and he could imagine her easily with her clothes off and totally unembarrassed. “Have you ever been divorced?” she asked bluntly, and he laughed at the question.
“No, I haven't.”
“Most Americans have, or at least that's the impression they give me.”
“Was your divorce very traumatic?” It was an oddly personal conversation between two strangers, but he was enjoying it. There was something totally open and abandoned about her.
“Not at all. It was a great relief. He was a complete bastard. For the life of me, I can't imagine how we stayed married for so long, seven years. It was quite dreadful, I assure you.”
“Who did he run off with?” He liked being somewhat forward with her. It was fun playing the game of discovering things about her.
“A barmaid, naturally. Quite a pretty one though. He's already left her. And he's living in Paris with some girl who says she's an artist. He's quite mad, but fortunately he takes good care of Andrew, our son, so I don't need to panic.” She seemed anything but panicked, she seemed completely in control of any situation. And more than one of the Englishmen were eyeing her with interest. She looked as though she could have had anyone she wanted.
“Were you in love with him?” Sam asked her, feeling brazen.
“Probably. For a while anyway. At twenty-one, it's awfully difficult to tell the difference between love and good sex. I'm not sure I ever figured out which one it was.” She smiled cheekily at him, and as he looked at her, he wished suddenly that he were young enough to have her. She was terrific. But then he thought of Alex. And it was as though Daphne saw that.
“And what about you? Are you in love with your wife? I hear she's very pretty.” She was, for forty-two, for any age. But she was not quite as outrageous or even as striking as Daphne and he knew it.
“Yes, I love her,” he answered firmly, as Daphne watched him intently.
“That's not what I asked you, is it? I asked if you were in love with her. There's a difference,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Is there? We've been married for more than seventeen years. That's a long time, you get very attached to someone by then. I love her very much,” he said, as though trying to convince himself, but he still hadn't answered Daphne's question.
“Are you telling me you don't know if you're still in love with her? Were you ever?” she persisted, playing cat and mouse with him, but he didn't mind it.
“Of course I was.” He sounded shocked at the question, and Simon was amused by the intense look on their faces from across the table. They were huddled together, as though solving all of life's greatest problems.
“Then when did it change? When did you stop loving her?” Daphne accused, sounding like a lawyer, and Sam wagged a finger at her.
“I never said that. That's a terrible thing to say.” Especially now. But all he could think about as he looked at her was Daphne.
“I didn't say it. You did. You said you were in love with her, but you don't seem to be able to tell me if you are now,” she said, looking incredibly sexy as she persisted.
“Sometimes marriage is like that. There are dead spots in the water sometimes, when you kind of run dry and get stale, and none of the right things seem to happen.”
“Is this one of those times?” she asked, her voice a velvet purr that tore at his insides.
“Maybe. It's hard to say.”
“For any particular reason? Did anything happen?”