“I want to believe you. I really do. But I’m starting to think that nothing you say is true. You told me nobody had ever been in your workroom, but—”

“No.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have said that. I don’t generally let people in there. But of course one or two have been in.”

“Women?”

He frowned. “I have a past. So do you.”

She put a cigarette in her long ebony holder and placed it between her lips. Zachari reached over to light it for her.

“Paolo, I’ve risked a lot by coming here to meet you. And perhaps I’m about to risk a great deal more.”

Yet another sugar was added to the coffee.

She looked nervously around, dragged on the cigarette. The barman was polishing glasses. A man sitting out in the foyer was watching them over his newspaper. “It’s this. You spend your life skulking about in a basement behind a big, crass sign, with that crazy woman guarding the door. Distancing yourself from the world. Hiding behind all those rumors—you probably start them off yourself! Sleeping with your clients. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. I want to trust you, but I don’t know if I can.”

“Trust me.” His eyes were black. Too black to be readable.

“If I sleep with you again, I’ll be giving you such power over me. Do you understand?”

He reached for her hand. “Genevieve.” Just her name, softly spoken, and her hand held in his. Nothing more.

After a moment, he tasted his coffee and grimaced.

“How many sugars do you usually take?” she asked.

“None. I hate sweet drinks. Let’s get a room.”

The man with the newspaper was still watching as they got up from the table.

Robert stared out the window of the Bentley at shops, newspaper stands, traffic, people walking. The smallest glimpses into worlds that must surely be far more simple than his. That girl with the short blond hair and the summer dress—the way she swung her bag as she strolled along—there was something so carefree about it. So childlike. It was impossible to imagine her as anything other than innocent, angelic even. Would Genevieve look like that if you glimpsed her walking down the street?

And now here was Felperstone, lurking about near the Brasserie Lipp, just where he’d said he’d be, getting stared at by a couple of waiters who probably thought he was up to no good. Robert recognized the round, sloping shoulders, the curved back, the bad suit, long before he could see the professionally concerned face. He would have liked to land a good punch square in the middle of that face. He would have liked to break the long, delicate nose.

“Pull over,” he said to Pierre. “This gentleman’s getting in.”