“Don’t,” she began, and she was still telling herself, as he moved, that she would be safe if he did not touch her. “Don’t. It’s all right. It’s my pride that’s hurt, that’s all.”

He did not argue with that lie; he said nothing at all. He took her hand and drew her against him gently. He looked down at the tears on her face, then held her still against him in a gentle embrace. After so many weeks of abstinence, the shock of a man’s body, and a man’s embrace, was intense. She let her face rest against the muscles of his chest; she listened to the beating of his heart. She felt a sense of protection, and then of need. The body could be starved of affection as much as the mind, and for a short while just to be held, and be held by a man, gave her relief. She felt as if she had been struggling so long, fighting herself for so long, and now—suddenly—she was released.

Then it began to steal upon her, the realization that this was not just any man, and not a neutral embrace. It was a particular man, strong, a little taller than Pascal, a man whose body, touch, manner of holding, were new to her. She realized that her breasts were pressed against his chest, that he was becoming aroused, that one of his hands rested in the small of her back, exerting no pressure as yet.

Behind her in this room which she had scarcely looked at when she entered it less than ten minutes before, a telephone had begun ringing. She had a confused sense that it might be for either of them, and that if it was for her, someone was trying to reach another woman, leading some previous life. She let it ring, and Rowland let it ring, five times, six.

He rested his hand against her throat, then lifted her face to his. She met his steady, green, intelligent gaze: a man who could indeed be impetuous, a man who was more than prepared, when he judged it necessary, to take risks. She felt him stir against her, and a tremor of response ran through her own body. Even then, when she knew they could both sense consequences, repercussions, when the noise of them was so loud in her head that she could scarcely think, even then he was scrupulous, and he gave her a choice.

“This story is breaking,” he said, “and that call might be urgent. Do you want to answer it?”

Gini looked up at this semi-stranger. Want for him surged up through her body with an astonishing force.

“No, I don’t,” she said.

“Neither do I,” he replied, and with that acknowledgment past, he did not hesitate. With the noise of the ringing telephone blindingly loud, and his composure suddenly gone, he pulled her against him. He kissed her hair, then her eyes, then her mouth. It was urgent, and very swift: Gini opened her mouth to his; she cried out as his hands touched her breasts. At some point the telephone stopped ringing; at some point Rowland locked the door, but afterward neither of them could have said when, or at which point.