In the past she had used the name as an endearment. A secret name only a lover would use. It was based on his initials-HP, as in Hewlett-Packard, the huge computer manufacturer that these days was one of the Goliaths to Pierce's David. She always said it with a sweet smile in her voice. Only she could get away with nicknaming him with a competitor's name. But her using it in this final message, what did it mean? Was she smiling sweetly when she wrote this? Smiling sadly? Was she faltering, changing her mind about them?

Was there still a chance, a hope of reconciliation?

Pierce had never been able to judge the motives of Nicole James. He couldn't now. He put his hands back on the keyboard and saved the message, moving it to a file where he kept all her e-mails, going back the entire three years of their relationship. The history of their time together-good and bad, moving from co-workers to lovers-could be read in the messages. Almost a thousand messages from her. He knew keeping them was obsessive but it was a routine for him. He also had files for e-mail storage in regard to a number of his business relationships. The file for Nicole had started out that way, but then they moved from business associates to what he thought would be partners in life.

He scrolled through the e-mail list in the Nicole James file, reading the captions in the subject lines the way a man might look through photos of an old girlfriend. He outright smiled at a few of them. Nicole was always the master of the witty or sarcastic subject line. Later-by necessity, he knew-she mastered the cutting line and then the hurtful line. One line caught his eye during the scroll-"Where do you live?"-and he opened the message. It had been sent four months before and was as good a clue as any as to what would become of them. In his mind this message represented the start of the descent for them -the point of no return.

I was just wondering where you live because I haven't seen you at Amalfi in four nights.