He heard that ridiculous old car of hers grind to a start in the driveway and swore. She’d come there to have dinner and to work and instead she was making a getaway in the gray light of a drizzling dawn, afraid of encountering his housekeeper.

Mitch shook his aching head and swore again, but then a slow, weary smile broke over his face. He regretted buying the house and he regretted ever mentioning Rosamond Dallas to his agent, but he couldn’t regret Shay. For better or for worse, she was the answer to all his questions.

He walked to the middle of the library floor, knelt on the carpet and began going through the photographs, diaries and clippings that made up Rosamond Dallas’s life.

At home Shay took a hot, hasty shower and dressed for work. She kept waiting for the guilt, the remorse, the regret, but there were no signs of any such emotion. Her body still vibrated, like a fine instrument expertly played, and her mind, for the first time in years, was quiet.

While she brushed her hair and applied her makeup with more care than usual, Shay remembered the nights with Eliott and wondered what she’d seen in him.

She paused, lip pencil in midair, and gazed directly into the mirror. “Hold it, lady,” she warned her reflection out loud. “One night on a man’s sleeping bag does not constitute a pledge of eternal devotion, you know. Don’t forget that you threw yourself at him like a—like a brazen hussy!” Shay frowned hard, for emphasis, but even those sage words, borrowed in part from one of her mother’s early movies, could not dampen her soaring spirits. She was in love with Mitch Prescott, really in love, for the first time in her life, and for the moment, that was enough.

Of course, it made no sense to be so happy—there was every chance that she’d just made a mistake of epic proportions—but Shay didn’t let that bother her, either. Mitch’s feelings, whatever they might be, were his own problem.

She drove to Reese Motors and soared into her office, only to find Ivy waiting in ambush. Even though the phones were ringing and Richard’s camera crew was crowded into the reception room, Ms. Prescott sat quietly on Shay’s couch, her legs crossed, her hands folded in her lap.

Shay smiled and shook her head. Love was marvelous. Richard’s crew was proof positive that she was going to have to film another commercial that very day and here was Ivy, waiting to grill her about the evening with Mitch, and she still felt wonderful. “I hate to pull rank, Ivy,” she said brightly, “but get out there and take care of business. Now.”

Ivy looked hurt but nonetheless determined as she stood up and smoothed the skirt of her blue cotton dress. “At least promise to have lunch with me,” she said with dignity. “You did say that you’d tell me all about everything, you know.”