Which Catherine figured was long enough. She’d been on the diving team at Cornell not that many years before. She was still in good shape. She didn’t like to stand and wait. And she needed a drink. So as she reached the curb and the don’t-walk started flashing, she ran.

Rafe and Majid looked toward the sound of the honking. “Is that Catherine?” said Rafe. They had a clear view of the street from where they were standing, the terrace of a hotel bar adorned with a sign welcoming members of the Harvard Business School Club of Switzerland, a well-dressed mob of ambition and prosperity grabbing shrimp and paté from passing servers. “Who else?” said Majid. He hadn’t seen Rafe since Cambridge, where they’d been friends or, at least, friendly acquaintances. Rafe Sassaman was a casually privileged American, or that’s how he had appeared to Majid. Harvard was awash with casually privileged Americans, but Rafe’s casualness seemed less of a mask over insecurity and competitiveness than that of most of their classmates. Also, Rafe had seemed interested in the fact that Majid was from Dubai, although not enough to stay in touch after they graduated. But then today, here he was, popping up in Geneva, giving Majid an enthusiastic greeting, offering to buy him a drink and then even remembering to ask whether Majid still didn’t partake. Now Rafe swirled a bourbon on the rocks and Majid held a Sprite, an homage to the Muslim observances he mostly didn’t observe.

“She’s here?” Rafe asked.

“Yes,” said Majid. “At a private bank. Didn’t you know?” Didn’t he? That would be good.

They both watched as Catherine leapfrogged a braking Citroën.

“No,” Rafe said. “I didn’t.”

Ah, thought Majid. “Ah,” he said, sipping his Sprite. “So you haven’t been in touch? I would have thought . . . I mean, back in Cambridge, you and she . . .”

Had been fucking like rabbits.

“She holds a grudge,” Rafe said.

“She does? Shouldn’t her fiancé have been the one with a grudge?”

“Oh. Right. Him.”

“What was his name?” Majid said.

Rafe shrugged. “Chester? Hector?”

“Rafe?”

And there she was. Catherine, maneuvering through the crowded bar, looking at him, surprised, but not to the exclusion of keeping an eye out for a waiter with a tray of drinks.

“Catherine. Yes. Hi. Wow. Long time.” Rafe took her in. It had been five years. The only change he saw was a lessening of a softness in her face she’d had when she was twenty-four. Now sharper lines, a more elegant beauty.

“Yeah. Wow.” Her wow in a lower tone than his. “What are you doing here?”

Where to begin? Rafe thought. The answer: Don’t.

“Right now, being cross-examined by Majid. He’s out of control, never could hold his Sprite.”