So she’d start fresh. A new idea, a new mood, and in some ways, a new woman. Act One, Scene One, Eve told herself as she clicked on an icon to create a new file.

Time clicked by. She had printed out—and wadded up—countless sheets of paper. But a satisfying pile of working-draft sheets lay at her elbow. This time she would do it, she told herself. And when she was finished, she’d produce, maybe even direct the production herself. She chuckled as she stretched her fingers. Isn’t that what she’d told herself whenever she’d begun to write?

Alexander found her that way, hunched over the keyboard, working steadily, with her hair piled on top of her head and her legs drawn up under her. The light was burning on the table and fell across her hands as they moved over the keys. She wore the same blue robe he remembered from the first night he had come to her. She’d pushed the sleeves up to her elbows and it fell carelessly open over her thigh.

Every time he saw her he was freshly amazed at how lovely she was. She exploited her looks when she chose; at other times was negligent of them. It never seemed to matter. Competence. Was that what added so much substance to beauty? Something about her told the onlooker she could do what she set out to do, and do it well.

Her hands appeared delicate, yet she was not. Her shoulders appeared fragile, yet she was strong. Her face was young, vulnerable and so sensitive. Though she might have been all those things, she had a strength and a sense of purpose that made her capable of dealing with whatever life handed her.

Is that why he loved her? For her capabilities? Weary, Alexander passed a hand over his face. He’d only begun to realize this fully, only begun to try to analyze and understand. Attraction had become so much more than an appreciation of beauty. Desire had dipped far beyond the physical.

He’d told her once he’d needed her. It had been true, before that moment and now past it. But he hadn’t told her, or fully understood himself, the scope of the need.

When he’d thought he might have lost her, his heart seemed to have stopped beating. He seemed to have stopped seeing, stopped hearing, stopped feeling. Is that what it meant to love?

He wished he could be sure. He’d never allowed himself to love beyond his family and his country. With Eve he hadn’t allowed, but had fallen victim to. Perhaps that was love. To be vulnerable, to be dependent, to be needful. Such a tremendous risk, a risk his practicality told him he couldn’t afford. Not now, perhaps not ever. Yet it was done.