So I told him to come over here and demonstrate his loyalty to his lover, and he turned on me like a tiger. Oh, it was the most passionate affair I’ve ever had, before or since. We were insatiable together, and the businesslike way he treated me during photo shoots and fitting sessions only made us more concupiscent in private. All through the winter and early spring we carried on, dirty as hell, until one day at the end of March, not long before Iris’s accident, when he rolled off me, lit a cigarette, and informed me in a regretful voice—this after making love twice during the course of a rainy morning!—that his wife had put her foot down and said enough with this new mistress of yours, you’re neglecting your family.

“So what does that mean?” I said.

“It means we must go separate ways for some period of time, bambina.”

“For how long? A week or two?”

“Longer, my love. After baby is born.”

I sat up. You see, for a peculiar moment I thought he meant our baby, the one I was about to reveal to him, once I worked up the nerve. I had it all planned out. Dinner with a nice Bordeaux, a lively tussle on the couch, and then the news dropped casually, as a compliment to his virility, just look what you’ve done to me, you wanton beast. And then of course I don’t expect you to leave your wife, that kind of thing, but we’ll get a nice cozy place somewhere, she’ll come to accept the arrangement.

After all, you told me the marriage is only in name. You told me this.

“What baby?” I said.

“I did not tell you? Laura is having baby.” He counted on his fingers. “November, I think?”

I smacked him across his bottom. “I’m having a baby, you son of a bitch!”