He hung up. Judy listened to the click and the dial tone, then slowly replaced the receiver. She looked around her office. There was work to be done, but she had no appetite for any of it. Judy felt sick. She closed the blinds on her door and curled up miserably on her couch.

Tom put the phone down and was surprised at the extent of the relief he felt.

Judy!

She was sexy, no doubt about that. And he’d been enjoying himself. But he was totally exhausted, and besides, he felt a bit guilty.

There was no future with Judy. He knew that now. All his energies had to be focussed on House Massot.

That wasn’t going so well right now, either.

Judy, well, he ought to break up with her. But she had given him the perfect excuse not to. It was never the right time, and the way things were going, the right time wouldn’t arrive for months: every day, some new pleasure; every night, that smooth, firm body slipping in between his sheets. . . .

Tom felt guilty even thinking about it.

Well, he wasn’t technically cheating. It wasn’t like he was back together with Polly. Not yet.

He just wanted to be, more than anything.

This is another opportunity, Tom thought. I must stop being a coward.

Ugly word, but accurate. Yes, he had been a coward. It was always so easy to say “tomorrow.”

Well, no putting it off anymore. He would wait for Judy to come home tonight and break the news, as gently as he knew how. There was somebody else . . . or should he just say things weren’t working out?

I’m growing up, Tom thought, as he walked out of the front door, past his scowling butler. When Grandmother wasn’t around, all the staff made faces at him. And who could blame them? He had not treated Maman well. Maybe she had made a mistake, maybe she had lowered herself in dating that pig, Lazard, but . . .

It was strange. Tom had imagined that all his problems would cease the day he ran his father’s company. And yet, now that he had everything he had wanted, even coveted—the company, the château, the girl—it seemed very empty. He’d rather be in a punt, on the Cherwell, or rolling around laughing at Polly in her scruffy jeans and unfeminine sweatshirt. With Judy, he never laughed.

Or playing cards with Maman, who always lost.

She’d lost in the big game of cards, too.

Tom walked over to his eighteenth-century desk and retrieved his mother’s letter from the secret drawer where he kept it stashed.

He missed her so much. It hurt so horribly. If he were honest, he was starting not to care that she was staying with Montfort. Tom still wanted to see her, to wrap her up in a bear hug.

Those words—about always loving him.