"If you do this, I won't be there to back you up, Diana. You'll be all alone."
"I'm all alone right now," she said. She buttoned her blouse and put her shoes on. "I'm going for a walk. Please be gone by the time I get back."
"Don't go, Diana, please," I said. I took her by the arms and held her, breathed in her scent, felt the heat rising from her skin. "I love you."
"No, you don't," she said. "You want to possess me. I've been waiting for you to learn the difference."
She twisted out of my embrace and left, slamming the door behind her. I stood there, unsure of what to do next, the tick tick tick of the ceiling fan in the empty room marking the beats of my heart.
CHAPTER TWO
I found Kay in the hotel bar. Then I saw a waiter and ordered two Irish whiskeys. Doubles. I asked Kay if she wanted anything.
"I'm fine, Billy. But what sorrows are you drowning?"
She raised her glass and drank, her gaze fixed on me over the rim. Kay Summersby was a knockout, with dark, wide eyes set above prominent cheekbones. Her smile was infectious, and I had a hard time staying miserable around her. But I was working at it as hard as I could.
"Diana and I had a fight."
"Billy, you shouldn't waste time quarreling. Not the two of you, not in the middle of a war. Life's too short, believe me." Her smile vanished, and she reached for a cigarette.
I lit it for her, but she avoided looking straight at me. Her fiance had been killed in combat several months ago but I didn't think she was still broken up. She had the look of having suffered a more recent wound.
"It's about her going back to the SOE," I said. "I don't want her to."
"But she is anyway," said Kay. It wasn't a question.