Even before seeing it in his cobalt-blue eyes, piercing beneath the brim of his cap, I recognize the implication. An overt link to our first encounter. Suddenly I’m back at the canal, his mouth hovering at my neck, his hand intimate on my hip.

He appears to remember the same as he shifts to face me, his attraction clear.

I yearn to set him straight, that my intent was strictly proper, but then a grim vision intercedes: little Evelien huddling in that monster’s home, trapped until the couple grows tired of their pet or a Nazi friend uncovers her heritage, and she meets her mother’s fate. Maybe worse.

I needn’t meet the child to know this truth: mere minutes of impropriety couldn’t possibly outweigh an opportunity to save her fragile life. Countless others have sacrificed much more, and for less.

In all candor, it’s not as if I have the purity of fresh snow. I can do this. I can.

Before I’m able to reconsider, my hands find the belt of my coat. As I undo the knot, Willem watches me with an intensity that shoots a tremble through my knees. Still, I proceed with the buttons. I slide free the first one and the next, and my coat falls open.

He advances with slow, purposeful steps.

Just imagine it’s a dream, I tell myself, not because the man isn’t handsome, as he assuredly is, but because he’s not…

A pointless thought.

I move on to my blouse. I’m unfastening the buttons when Willem arrives before me, delivering a light waft of tobacco. His hand layers mine. His fingers brush the hollow of my neck, and my insides contract. Gradually he lowers my hand. I close my eyes, waiting for him to take over.

I can do this, I can.

Through the motionless moment, I imagine his gaze lazing over me. How I wish he would hurry.

“Zo ben je niet,” he says. “En ik ook niet.”

This is not you. Or me.

I open my eyes.

He was only stopping me.

Humiliation floods my veins, coursing through every limb. I angle away and fumble to reassemble my blouse. In the deafening silence, my face flushes with heat. This was all a mistake. Not bothering with my coat buttons, I start for the door.

“These friends,” he calls out, “one is Frans?”

The reference to Arie reflexively slows my feet. Against my desire to leave, wary of being tested, I answer simply over my shoulder: “Yes.”

“It seems maybe he is not to be trusted.”