Hood didn't hear the rest of the exchange. Nancy Jo Bosworth, he repeated. Nancy was the kind of woman who would have hyphenated her name. So she isn't married. Hood felt his soul begin to glow with joy, then burn with guilt. He told himself, But you are.

Hood jerked his head toward Hausen. He was conscious of moving it like that, of jerking it. Otherwise, it wouldn't have budged. Facing Hausen, Hood saw a look of compassion bordering on sadness in the man's eyes. Not for himself but for Hood. And he appreciated the empathy. If Hood weren't careful here, he was going to ruin a lot of lives.

Hood said to Hausen, "I wonder if you would give me just a minute."

"Certainly," Hansen said. "I'll see you back in my office."

Hood nodded. "What you were saying a moment ago," he said. "We'll talk more. I can help with that."

"Thank you," the German said. After snapping a polite bow at the woman, he walked away.

Hood looked from Hausen to Nancy. He didn't know what she saw in his eyes, but what he saw in hers was deadly. The softness and desire were 'still there, still an electric combination, still damn near irresistible.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"It's all right," Hood said. "He and I were nearly finished."

The woman smiled. "Not about this."

Hood's neck and cheeks went red. He felt like an ass.

Nancy touched his face. "There was a reason I left the way I did," she said.

"I'm sure there was," Hood said, recovering slightly. "You always had reasons for everything you did." He put his hand on hers and moved it back to her side. "How did you find me?"

"I had to return papers to the hotel," she said. "The doorman told me a 'Paul' had been looking for me, and that he was with Deputy Foreign Minister Hausen. I called Hausen's office and came right over."

"Why?" hood asked.

She laughed. "God, Paul, there are a dozen good reasons. To see you, to apologize, to explain-- but mostly to see you. i missed you terribly. I followed your career in Los Angeles as best I could. I was very proud of what you'd done."

"I was driven," he said.

"I could see that, which is funny. I never thought of you as ambitious that way."

"I wasn't driven by ambition," he said, "but by despair. I kept busy so that I wouldn't become Heathcliff, sitting up at Wuthering Heights waiting to die. That's what you did to me, Nancy. You left me sick and so confused that all I wanted to do was find you, make whatever was wrong right again. I wanted you so badly that if you'd run off with another man I would have envied him, not hated him."

"It wasn't another man," she said.

"It doesn't matter. Can you begin to understand that level of frustration?"