She kept gazing down into her teacup, but she tilted her head a little, like she was giving it more thought than his offhand question deserved. “Everyone always says Paris,” she said. “And they’re right. It’s beautiful.” She looked up at Keegan and then looked away. “But right now, I think I’d like to be in Cologne.”

“Why Cologne?”

She gazed down into her cup again. “The Germans always keep to themselves,” she said. “And I don’t know a soul there. I wouldn’t have to talk to anybody. I could just be by myself awhile.” She shrugged and looked up at him. “And I like the way the cathedral looks at night from across the river.”

She fell silent and looked at the floor, and Keegan sensed that his question had shooed her down some melancholy trail of thought. He tried to lift the mood. “What else do you like to do?” he asked brightly. “What makes you happy?”

She pulled her knees up closer to her chin. “I like horses,” she said. “I know it must sound awful, but it’s very nice to be—well—rich.” She slid sideways on the armchair, and set her cup, very gently, on the table beside her. “But there are disadvantages to it, too,” she said.

“Poor thing,” he told her, and hoped it didn’t sound cruel or insulting.

She smiled back at him. “Don’t mock me,” she said. “I’m being serious.”

He took a sip from his cup. “And what might those disadvantages be?”

She looked at him and then looked beyond him, as if she was peering through the kitchen doorway. “There are always people around,” she said, pulling back one finger, like she was counting off items. “Even when you’re in your own house. Everyone is always watching you.” She pulled back another finger. “No one ever tells you the truth. Only what they think you want to hear.” She smiled and directed her gaze at him again. “At my mother’s house, I could put on one red shoe and one black shoe and go about all day without anyone daring to point out my mistake.” She shook her head and reached for her teacup on the table at her elbow. When she spoke again, the playfulness seemed to have vanished from her voice. She wasn’t keeping count anymore. “Once you have enough money,” she said, “you can never really have any friends.”

Keegan thought about his own solitary life: lonely meals taken in diners and drugstores, long evenings in an empty apartment with coffee mugs and whiskey glasses piling up in the sink. He’d let any semblance of a social life fade away years ago, along with his prospects and any hope of a steady income. Living hand-to-mouth didn’t foster friendships, either.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Eve said. “‘Poor little rich girl hasn’t lived a minute in the real world.’ And I can’t really argue. It’s true. My life has been free of the problems most people face. But wealth does have its own set of challenges.”