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hand as they stood and walked out of the restaurant. “Thank you. It was a great evening. And you certainly have a lovely wife.”
    “So I’ve been told.” Michael laughed and gave Claire’s arm a squeeze before heading to the valet with his ticket.
    Andrew stared at Claire for several seconds before speaking. “It was truly a pleasure.”
    “Yes . . . thank you. I enjoyed our conversation.”
    Andrew held the door open for her, and they parted at the valet.
     
    In the days that followed, Claire wondered if Andrew had thought about the evening as much as she had. With Michael in London on business and Nicholas just home from boarding school and anxious to catch up with old friends, her dinner encounter with Andrew had taken up a cozy residence in her consciousness. During restless moments she paged through old Sotheby’s catalogs and imagined the MoMA tour she might give. Alone in bed at night she tried to conjure Andrew’s face and voice, and the competent, fascinating person she’d been with him, along with the dizzying chemistry she knew she hadn’t invented. When she awoke from old familiar dreams, she felt the hot whisper of querida in her ear.
    Feeling every inch the ridiculous schoolgirl, she telephoned Andrew’s hotel three times before she actually had the nerve to be put through to his room. She hadn’t planned any script beyond the “Hello, just checking to see how you’re enjoying Denver” opener. But the words spilled out in rapid, ineloquent succession as she paced the wide perimeter of her bedroom. She found herself inviting him to the house to hear more about his deal. Michael mentioned there might be a diabetes application she said she’d like to hear about, maybe just a quick stop on his way to dinner if he had the time. And there was a painting she’d recently acquired at auction that she thought he might like to see as well. Similar impact to Renato’s work, she explained.
    “I’d love to,” Andrew said, interrupting her description of the finer points of the artist’s use of perspective. “Seven thirty?”
    “What? Oh. That’s . . . great,” Claire spluttered. She clicked off and folded into her mohair reading chair, stunned by her own audacity. Closing her eyes, she whispered reassurances that there was nothing inappropriate about improving her grasp of technology, or showing a great piece of art to someone who genuinely shared her interest.

C HAPTER 3
    I nside the library with Andrew, Claire imagined that she was someone else, that what was happening was somehow valid, even vital. She looked down at her hand on his. Their shared electricity seemed to course through her, and her breath came in shallow spurts. She felt heat, cold, fear, and restlessness—all the walls beginning to recede. Andrew let the pen fall and curled his thumb around her index finger, massaging it with a rhythmic and tender sensuality. She turned to him, about to speak, just as the library door swung open. Andrew inched to the left.
    Nicholas stood framed in the doorway, and Claire saw Michael’s blue-gray eyes staring back at her, saw the boy, the man, her son. She jerked her hand away from the desk and into her pocket, wondering what he had seen in that instant. “Nicky, honey, I thought you were at Reese’s.”
    “Apparently,” she heard him say under his breath.
    Claire stepped forward and cleared her throat. “I’d like you to meet Andrew Bricker.” Nicholas stared at her, unmoving, his eyes frozen wide. His light brown hair, a beautiful compromise between her chestnut and Michael’s blond, fell in thick waves around his face, which now bore an expression of undisguised surprise. His arms hung at his sides, tan muscles peeking out from the sleeves of his Nantucket-red T-shirt. “He and your father have had a couple meetings. About a new biomedical software concept Mr. Bricker’s company is funding.” The room was deadly quiet, but for her voice. “And he just stopped by to drop off some