She didn’t immediately acknowledge it. In fact, she’d been too knocked for a loop at the time to know exactly what to think.

“We’ve been through a lot of wear and tear lately, Meg,” Gord had said when he’d broached the idea. “A change of scenery might be good for you. Something dramatic. Along with the chance to captain your own ship.” And then he’d given her the look that might have almost convinced her she’d been struck by a thunderbolt. “I know it could only help you prepare for the day you inherit mine.”

Boom.

Megan’s automatic reaction had been a kind of befuddled astonishment. Inherit mine. The thought had never occurred to her. Not consciously, at any rate. The boss had been her vertical constant for too long. Her Kilimanjaro towering at an unmatched height. Turn her eyes to their loftiest reach and he’d be there. Even when he was hospitalized, part of her had denied admittance to the prospect that she could lose him. Somebody take his place one day? Her? It seemed inconceivable. . . .

Gordian had asked her to wait a bit before giving her answer, let the idea sink in, and she’d agreed out of deference alone, or told herself that was the reason, figuring she’d put the whole crazy thing out of her mind, wait a respectable week or so, and courteously decline.

Surprise, surprise. She’d found herself thinking about his proposition, really thinking about it, at odd instances throughout that day. And the next day. And the next. The thoughts had sneaked up on her during morning workouts, business conferences, lunches, cocktail parties. They had slipped between lines of office memoranda, the paragraphs of a novel she was reading, song lyrics on her car stereo. And they’d struck her often when she was with Bob, much too often . . . once, finally, while they were thrashing toward the climax of an ardent scene on his living-room rug.

It was fairly crass as turning points went, but you weren’t often able to choose their times of arrival, and she supposed you just had to be grateful when you recognized them. That hers had coincided with a moment of intense physical pleasure, some emotional connection to Bob clicking off even as her body aggressively pursued its own independent gratification, was fitting and probably necessary in its way. Action plus conflict equaled change, wasn’t that how it went?