‘All right,’ she admitted.

‘All right, what?’

Pulling her hands away from his, she crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Now you’re cross-examining me. I think I’ve had enough of that for today.’

Hardy kept his voice in tight control. ‘I’m not doing that.’ He brought it down to a whisper. ‘I don’t know why you’re here. I’m confused. I don’t know what’s going on. You want to help me out with this? I’m on your side.’

Closing her eyes, she let out a breath. ‘OK,’ she said. She reached again for his hand. ‘I know I should have told you. I mean, I know that now. It’s just we’ve had such different lives lately. I didn’t want you to misunderstand, I guess – to have to deal with it at all.’

‘Deal with what?’

She met his eyes, taking a long moment before answering. ‘Ron.’

‘Ron,’ Hardy repeated, his voice hardening in spite of himself. ‘I don’t believe we know a Ron.’

‘Ron Beaumont,’ she said. ‘Max and Cassandra’s dad.’

Hardy knew the children a bit from their visits with his kids, from sleepovers. The older one, Cassandra, had become one of Rebecca’s good friends, maybe even her best friend, although he wasn’t sure of that. Hardy had some vague sense, a dim memory, of a charming, vivacious child, although the ‘kid thing,’ as he called it, had been pushed off – banished from? – the front burner of his life. But he had never met the father. ‘Max and Cassandra’s dad,’ he repeated, his voice flat. ‘Ron.’

Frannie looked at him and he saw desperation, even despair, in her expression. And, behind that, maybe a disturbing hint of defiance. ‘He’s a friend of mine. Like you with the women in your life.’

This was a sore point. Hardy often went to lunch, or sometimes even dinner, with other women, colleagues who he worked with, got along with. Even his ex-wife Jane, too, once in a while. He and Frannie finally had to put a moratorium on questions about who they all were, the various personal and professional relationships. They were all just friends. They’d leave it at that.