The condo was dark, with only the pale light from the small lamp falling on the pair of white velvet couches with their scattering of shocking pink pillows. Her fig tree was getting huge, playing a marvelous game of Shadows on the thick white carpet. The chrome and pewter appointments gleamed, giving evidence of her meticulous care. Magazines were neatly aligned on small, elegant tables. Somewhere along the way she seemed to have accumulated a collection of marble eggs; their pearly pink surfaces shone from the far corner of the French bookcase. Everything was in its place, all feminine perfection. She loved the look of the room.

Usually.

Switching off the small lamp, Anne ran her fingers back through her hair with a little sigh. A desperate feeling of disappointment came from nowhere to clutch at her heart. The chase had set off a confused kaleidoscope of emotions, none of which she wanted to deal with. Taking a brush from her purse, she restored at least basic order to her hair as she wandered into the kitchen. Suddenly thirsty, she took a long drink of water and listened, for a moment, to the lonely silence. A neighbor’s light went off in the distance across the courtyard, the only other light that had been on besides her own.

Slowly, she made her way to the bedroom and pushed open the door.

He was there. Lying back against her pillows, his shoes off and the tux jacket opened, his unbuttoned shirt baring several inches of that sand-silver mat of hair on his chest.

Her heart skipped two beats and then raced; a small fist clenched in the folds of her skirt. “To begin with, there isn’t any possible way you could have gotten here ahead of me, and don’t even tell me how you got in,” she said furiously. “And to end with, Jake, the answer is no. Not again. Not this time.”