“I told you I wasn’t the scandalous woman the papers made me out to be.” The bed sank down as she sat next to him. “I’m telling you because I want you to understand. Last night was important to me. I didn’t fall into bed with you casually. But I’m never going down that road again.”

“Marriage.”

“Yes.”

“All right,” he said, fumbling with his shirt buttons while he tried to understand what she’d told him. The anger and hurt in his chest were making it difficult to think. “Thank you for … breaking your fast with me? I’m not exactly sure what the polite thing to say here is.”

“Oh, damn it, I’m making a mess of this, and it’s supposed to be so sophisticated. My friends in Paris never had any difficulty.”

“Maybe the problem is that we’re not French, then.” He needed to get out of there before he made even more of a fool of himself. He shoved one foot into the sock she’d found, while casting an eye around for the other before deciding it wasn’t worth the extra time to find it. He grabbed his shoes and pushed the socked foot into one of them. “It’s all right; I understand. You wanted a night of passion; I provided. It wasn’t exactly a hardship.”

“I’m trying to say that I want more than a night,” she said.

“But—”

“We should have an affair.”

“Oh,” he said, and dropped the second shoe. He was utterly at sea. He’d been reacting instead of listening, he realized, finally looking at her face. What was she trying to tell him?

Last night had been the second time she’d had intercourse, but she’d been married for ten years.

Ten years. And he knew she’d been unhappy; he knew there was more wrong with that decade than the lack of lovemaking. He’d seen the fear in her eyes too many times.

“Alva,” he said.

“It makes sense,” she said, speaking quickly. “I’m attracted to you. You’re attracted to me. Why do we have to make it more than that?”

“If it were merely physical attraction I could see your point,” he said. “But you know that’s not all we have between us.”

“No, we like each other,” she said. “Wouldn’t that make such an arrangement better? We can be lovers for as long as it suits, and when it doesn’t, we’ll part like friends.”

“Alva … It would be more complicated than that.”

“Only if we let it,” she said. “I was foolish to think I could resist you. This is … sensible.”

“Sensible,” he repeated. “Alva—”

“I can’t get married again, Sam.”

“This is about him,” he said. “Your husband. Is he what scares you so?”

“I don’t want to talk about him. This is about me.”