The appearance of the girl, the wanting she had awakened in him, had started it. Then the Indian's presence had so confused him that he was fumbling through the day marveling at things that before had never merited a second look. Walking back into his outer office he spied his secretary, Gabriella Snow, and was awed for a moment by just how tremendously, how incredibly, how child-frighteningly ugly she was.

There are those who, deprived of physical beauty, develop a sincerity and beauty of spirit that seems to eclipse their appearance. They marry for love, stay married, and raise happy children who are quick to laugh and slow to judge. Gabriella was not one of those people. In fact, if not for her gruesome appearance, an unpleasant personality would have been her dominant feature. She was good on the phone, however, and Sam's clients were sometimes so relieved to be out of her office and into his that they bought policies out of gratitude, so he kept her on.

He'd hired her three years ago from the resume she had mailed in. She was wildly overqualified for the position and Sam remembered wondering why she was applying for it in the first place. For three years Sam had breezed by her desk without really looking at her, but today, in his unbalanced state, her homeliness inspired him to poetry. But what rhymed with Gabriella?

She said, "Mr. Aaron is very anxious to talk to you, Mr. Hunter. He requested that you go right into his office as soon as you arrived."

"Gabriella, you've been here three years. You can call me Sam." Sam was still thinking about poetry. Salmonella?

"Thank you, Mr. Hunter, but I prefer to keep things businesslike. Mr. Aaron was quite adamant about seeing you immediately."

Gabriella paused and checked a notepad on her desk, then read, "'Tell him to get his ass in my office as soon as he hits the door or I'll have him rat-fucked with a tire iron. "