“I assure you that I qualify on both accounts.” Pierre sneered. “Do you think I am going to trust you with buying land with my money, in my name? You would never return.”

“You don’t trust me, Pyotr,” Gregoire sulked. “You prefer your pretty mistress downstairs, you talk to her of business . . .”

His eyebrow lifted. “Only for my own pleasure. She’s far more amusing than you, of course, but she’s a woman. A female . . . Do not be concerned; you brought me this information, and you will be rewarded.” He went to his desk. “I want a report. No copies. Everything you know. Names and numbers of your contacts. I will go to Siberia. It will be secret, of course. Nobody must know where I have gone.” He smiled thinly. “I will not even tell my wife. I should be back in a month.” He patted Gregoire Lazard on the back. “And in the meantime, you will be in charge. Acting chief executive, with the use of my office, and all my privileges. And a salary of ten million francs a year.”

Lazard’s catlike eyes widened. “Ten million francs!”

“You understand what that buys, Grigory. It is not your management expertise.” Pierre’s lip curled again. “It is your information, your loyalty, and your secrecy.” His voice threatened softly. “You should not fail me in any area.”

“I will not. I will get you the information, Pierre . . . Pyotr. Today. And when will you be leaving?”

Pierre raised a brow, as though it were a stupid question.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “When it is time to act—you act.”

He only remembered, much later, how Gregoire Lazard’s smile had deepened.

“Oh yes,” Lazard had said quietly. “I agree with you.”

“Home? But this is your home,” Judy said.

Her voice snapped him from his memories. “I will tell you later. First, I want to know what has happened here. With my firm, and my family.”

Judy blinked. He did not know.

Pierre was here, and he didn’t know. Any of it. How could she tell him? How could she tell him she had slept with his son?

She prevaricated. “But my dear, it’s been so long. . . .”

“Summarize,” he said, coldly.

Judy sat down and, very carefully, began.

“Your wife betrayed you. . . . Gregoire stole. . . . Gregoire and Sophie were lovers. . . . I tried to stop it . . . she came to the office . . . the stock started falling . . .”

He listened impassively as she recited the tale.

“And my mother?” he asked. “My son?”

Judy made a split-second decision. “He was a fool,” she said, contemptuously. “And weak ... he sold your company ... he and Katherine . . . and they set him up there as a puppet. But then Mayberry fired him.”

“Mayberry.” It came back to him. “Hugh Montfort . . .”

“Pete Stockton,” she corrected him, and filled him in.

“So.” And now anger, indeed rage, was written bright across his face, and Judy shrank from it. “My wife . . . my wife is a whore. . . .”