—

Theo was alone in first class on the trip home, which was a relief. No one was there to stare at her or recognize her. She sat lost in thought watching a movie she paid no attention to, thinking about Mike. Being drawn to him seemed completely unreasonable. She couldn’t wait to get back to Paris and get to work in her office. She had meetings for Matthieu’s company too. She was on the board and an advisor of the company, as she had been for the past ten years. Those responsibilities remained and were even heavier now, with Matthieu gone and unable to run the company himself. His remarkable CEO was doing a great job and consulted Theo on an ongoing, nearly daily basis. Everything she had learned through his company had served her well in her own. She had learned so much from Matthieu, and was grateful for it. He had been an excellent teacher, and a relatively good husband. Even the girl in Moscow didn’t change that, although it tainted things for Theo. It made her question how much he really had loved her. He had never been an entirely one-woman man, even for her. He had never considered them equals, possibly because she was so much younger than he was. She accepted it, because there was no other choice, but it chafed now, as she thought about Mike and made a decision to be faithful to Matthieu’s memory for as long as she could, out of love and respect for him and Axel. Matthieu would have expected that of her, even if he didn’t hold himself to the same standard, and probably wouldn’t have done it for her.

—

She didn’t contact Mike again after her email thanking him for dinner, and he didn’t respond, which startled her. She told herself that the attraction she felt had been her imagination, the reaction of a lonely woman who had no one to talk to or share a life with anymore. She was determined to get used to it. She couldn’t imagine herself ever marrying again, and didn’t want to. She had had fourteen years of marriage, and she was going to have other pursuits now to fill her time. She had a business to run, and Matthieu’s empire. She told herself it would be enough. It had to be. She doubted she’d ever see Mike again, and tried to convince herself she didn’t want to. He was a nice man, but he had his life to lead and she had hers, with an ocean between them.

—