“Of course. Without hesitation. And you’d never suspect.” He turned back to look at her, and then, to her surprise, he crossed back to her, took the blouse she was still holding out of her hand, and drew her into his arms.

“I’ll say this just once,” he began quietly, resting his hand against her hair and drawing her face against his chest. “I give you my word—I’ll never tell anyone what happened tonight. I’ll never discuss it, under any circumstances—not with any other woman, not with a man. And if this is something you want erased from the record—it’s erased. It’s without consequences. From now on I’ll treat you exactly as I did before this happened, and you will treat me the same way. And no one will ever suspect.”

“Can you do that?”

“Yes. I’m good at disguising my feelings. I learned as a child. I’ve had plenty of practice since.”

“Feelings aren’t involved.” Gini broke away from him. “This has nothing to do with emotion. It’s sex—”

“Even simpler, then. I’ve always found sex very easy to forget.”

He moved away from her and began to pick up objects that had been scattered about the room earlier: a wallet, keys. His composure hurt Gini, as did the tone of his replies, and she despised herself for this. It was a very female perversity, she thought, to start objecting when a man granted her her wish, and she had no intention of giving in to that impulse. Without further comment she began slowly to dress.

Rowland had moved across to one of the fax machines and was reading various messages. Gini was unsure when those messages had come through: before, during, after? She could not have said.

“The Cazarès offices have closed down for the night. Apparently.”

He looked up from the page. “I doubt that. They may not be taking calls, but they’ll be working. Preparing the authorized version of Maria Cazarès’s death. Lazare is holding a press conference at eleven o’clock.”

Gini hesitated, then tried to match her tone to his. “Nothing more on the circumstances of her death?”

“No. Heart failure—cardiac arrest was the first rumor. There’s been no advance on that. And there’s still evasiveness as to exactly when she died, and where. Not at one of her own properties—that was the initial rumor. I have some inquiries out about that. She was taken by ambulance to a private Catholic hospital, the St. Étienne. She’s been treated there before, apparently. It would be useful to know from where, and when, the ambulance picked her up.”

“If our suppositions were correct, she’d been taking White Doves for—what? Two days? Three?”

“Probably three. But they’re still suppositions. And likely to remain that way, I suspect, as far as the doctors and clinic are concerned anyway.”

“Won’t there be a post mortem?”

“I don’t know. I imagine it depends on Lazare, and the degree of his influence. The security shutters came down very quickly on this.”

“And the collections? She was due to appear Wednesday. Her show is on Wednesday. Will they cancel that?”