“Goddammit!” He swore loudly and pressed his fingers against his temples.

Rather than talking about it more, rather than trying to help him work out a way to stop Amelia—as if she’d already given up—Jess stepped back and fumbled in her purse. “I have a favor to ask you.” She passed him a folded sheaf of typewritten papers.

He read over her words about all the things she’d wanted to write about in Europe but that Warren Stone would have obliterated with blue censors’ ink. She’d even spoken to women in East Germany, some of the estimated three hundred thousand, she said, raped by packs of Russian soldiers, most women by more than one man.

It was the best thing she’d ever written. Despite the fact that she wasn’t just singling out the U.S. Army, she’d be hated for writing it. He didn’t want anyone to hate her. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t publish it. He shook his head.

She gave a little shrug as if she’d expected him to refuse. Then she reached up and kissed him gently, far too gently, on the lips. It was the lightest of touches, brushing against him the same way his thumb had swept over her back the night they’d danced at the chateau, but its effect was such that it almost brought him to his knees.

When she drew away, she gave him the smile he remembered as being particularly and especially Jessica May’s. “One day, when your heart is mended, and you think of me, raise a glass for me, won’t you?” she said. “We’re worth remembering.”

He stepped forward then, both hands on her tear-soaked cheeks, and his lips met hers far from gently. He felt her whole body sigh into him as she opened her mouth and kissed him the way she’d always done. As if she trusted him. As if she loved him. As if she was him. “This is not the end,” he whispered against her lips.

She gave him a sad smile that seemed to say, Yes it is. Then she said, “Congratulations. You deserved to win,” before she disappeared.

* * *

He had no idea for how long he stood outside after Jess had gone. His father eventually found him and dragged him inside. The awards had been announced. His secretary was on the telephone at the club right now taking down the names of the winners of each category. And he vaguely heard, through the clamor in his head, his father say, “The right man won,” as Dan’s name was read out from the list. But not Monsieur Durant’s.

Dan’s eyes focused then, taking in his father before him, taking in that especial emphasis on the word man. And Jess’s words. Congratulations. You deserved to win. Not you deserve to win as if it was something still in the future that hadn’t yet been decided. But as if it had already happened, or as if she knew the outcome.

“You found out she was a woman,” he said to his father, his voice barely controlled, aware that all eyes were on him, wondering why he wasn’t smiling.