His hand checked his thinning hair although it was sprayed solid. He got up. “Look, we have a crew call for the filming at the Great Wall tomorrow at dawn, which makes today a hell of a short and busy day. I’m still battling with the Ministry of Tourism to restrict public access where we’re filming in order to keep tourists out. We’re dealing with the stage set, the most expensive the world has ever seen. I have a dozen TV crews running all over the place, fighting with my director, while Roberta—of all times!—is negotiating a comeback to CNB Radio. We’re in the middle of a concert tour, the media is climbing up my ass about this baby, and I have a rash that’s driving me nuts. All I ask is that you be a good girl and cooperate with me until I can breathe.”

“What about what I need from you?”

The sweep of his hand encompassed the world outside. “Who is all this for? Cleopatra?”

“You’ve been incredible,” she said. “Now please understand that I have to keep Lulu. Help me find a way to work it out—”

His voice rose. “Didn’t you hear what I was just telling you?”

She felt herself shrink as if a corrosive substance ate her bones. “Please talk to me. I can’t handle shouting.”

Wade's eyes, those pale blue orbs, honed in on her. His features softened. He circled the coffee table and put his arms around her. “Sorry. I love you,” he said, and put her head against his shoulder.

For a short moment she leaned against him. He was her refuge; there was no one else to call family. “I need your strength, your loyalty,” she murmured.

“You’ve been the center of my existence,” he said, his voice quiet. “Even when I was married to Deanna.”

She nodded against his shoulder. There had been no change in his devotion between their first twelve years as artist and manager and the past three years as wife and husband. All marriage had done was to put them in the same bedroom for whatever hours were left of their late nights. “Maybe slipping into marriage like a wheel into its groove is part of the problem,” she said.

“Our problem is that you seem to forget that we’re partners.”

“I don’t want us to be merely partners who sometimes have sex,” she said with sadness in her voice. “Am I being unrealistic to want more?”

“You want more? Remember that next time you so impetuously jump into the sack with a lover in the middle of an important party—”

She jerked herself away from his hold. “Wade! Daniel’s not my lover.”

“Excuse me. He reads you poetry under the Beijing sky.”

Her hand clamped at the base of her throat. “How can you think I’d cheat on you?”