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Joe said nothing while she undressed, his dark eyes fixed on her, unreadable. Then he pulled off his sweater, and stood before her wearing only his chinos, his long torso

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stippled by the shadow of an ailanthus tree that was moving so that it seemed to be breathing along with him.

An image of Laurel edged its way into her mind, but she blocked it out. This belongs to me, she told herself fiercely. To us. Laurey will never know.

She watched him take off the rest of his clothes.

Annie was shivering, but not from cold. It was the sight of Joe, naked and beautiful-a tall, gleaming blade of a man. His face seemingly composed of nothing more than shadow and light.

They stood before one another, naked, not touching. Yet Annie felt as if she were gripped in an electrical field, the air around her charged with static, sparking against her bare skin, down into the roots of her hair. She halfsaw tiny faraway stars glimmering just at the edge of her field of vision. There was a high humming inside her head. She felt scared, weak and trembly, barely able to stand.

If she didn’t back away from him now … quickly … she’d be swept away. She might never stop.

But if a speeding train had been thundering right at her, Annie could not have moved.

Joe began to touch her. Her hair, her face, his fingertips brushing lightly over eyelids, nose, lips, ears. Gentle strokes that soothed and excited her at the same time. It was as if he were mapping her out, memorizing her. They were joined at so many points, it was strange to realize how much there was still to discover. A universe.

Smooth palms cool one instant, almost fiery the next, sliding, sliding down neck, shoulders, arms. Now cupping her breasts, him leaning down to kiss each one. She grew faint, pinpricks of blue light dancing behind her eyelids.

“Oh, God … Joe.”

He shuddered, making a noise low in his throat, halfway between a sigh and a moan. He drew her to him, letting her feel his own excitement, his heat. Finally, he kissed her. No, not just a kiss … it was more, oh, so much more. Had he entered her at that moment, she didn’t think she could have felt more exhilaration than she did now. Bright heat filled her, made her feel that she glowed

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and shimmered. God, how could she have denied this for so long? How could he?

She touched him. There … and there. Oh, he was beautiful. She loved the economy of him-there was nothing extra, nothing that didn’t fit perfectly with the rest of him. Long bones, muscles like a cat’s. Hard shanks shaped like shallow spoons. And here, where she was touching him now … narrow and smooth … a bead of moisture at the tip, warm and sticky.

The room swayed, tilted. Now she was lying on the bed, Joe kneeling over her. He kissed her breasts, her navel … and below. Annie cried out, the tender shock of his mouth taking away her breath, so acute it was almost agonizing. She grasped his head, the heels of her hands pressing against his temples, where she could feel a pulse jumping.

She began to cry, silently, tears running from the corners of her eyes into her hair. She wanted him … oh, she wanted him … but she didn’t want this to end, either. She longed for this to go on forever.

But at the same time she was straining toward some higher, finer point. She could hear it in the quickening of her breath and Joe’s. She could feel it intensifying, blossoming at every pulse point-wrists, throat, temples. She was swollen with it, and wet.

Now.

“In you,” he gasped. “Feel it. Feel me. So good. Annie. Your name. God, I love your name. Annie, Annie, Annie. Oh, Jesus, I’m coming …”

“Yes,” she cried.

There was a searing rush, white, blinding, sweeter than anything she had ever felt. Yes … oh yes . . ,

Lying there afterwards, both exhausted and exquisitely sensitized, Annie thought, Can I let go of this? Is it possible to let go and still go on living?

Yet even if she did let go of him, Annie had a feeling that she would not walk away unchanged. She felt as if, yes, a circle inside her had finally closed. Though imagining a life without Joe had always been an agony to her, she felt strangely at peace.

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The world began to trickle in. Muted voices drifting up from below, a toilet flushing in the apartment overhead. Outside, the plaintive mewing of a cat, the rattle of a garbage can. In the distance, a siren wailed.

Morning.

She turned to Joe, who lay curled by her side, one long leg hooked over hers, an arm looped about her middle.

“I love you.” The words came easily, like a line she’d rehearsed countless times inside her head.

Joe brushed a tendril of hair from her cheek-she’d cut her hair just last week, shorter than before, a shiny darkbrown wedge that fit her head like a cloche. Now she wished she’d let it grow long, that she had wavy waistlength tresses Joe could wind about his fingers and bury his face in.

But he wasn’t looking at her hair; his soft brown eyes were fixed on her face. “Thank you,” he murmured. “For that. For you.”

“It was easier than it ought to have been.”

“Don’t say that.” He placed a finger lightly against her lips. “I can’t feel guilty. Maybe I should … I don’t know. But it seems like in trying to be honorable and upright we’ve both done more harm than good.”

“Joe … do you think if we had …” She tried to sit up, but Joe held her gently pinned.

“Annie, it’s just us … the two of us here right now in this bed. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or the next day, or next year. But right now, I know one thing-I love you.”

The image of Laurel flickered, then died. Tomorrow, she would face it. The guilt, too. Couldn’t this one moment be hers?

“Again, Joe,” she whispered, holding him tightly. “Make love to me again.”

But even when he was once more inside her, she could feel it-the moment passing, far too quickly, falling away from her even as she clutched it to her, as if she were drinking from a cup with a hole in the bottom, trying

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desperately to quench her thirst before all the water trickled away.

Dolly swept into the reception area outside the ballroom, and was enveloped at once in a haze of cigarette smoke. So many people! The narrow, high-ceilinged room was jammed-tuxedoed men, gowned women in fluttery silk, stiff brocade, glittering sequins, all standing together in clusters, arms now and then reaching out to lift a glass of champagne or a canap้ from silver trays proffered by maroon-jacketed waiters. Every crimson-upholstered chair, she saw, was occupied, and the potted palms and tables with their shirred, rose-shaded lamps had been pushed against the wall to make more room.

A chamber quartet, only barely audible, was fiddling away in a corner under a gilt sconce. They made her think of mechanical figures atop an elaborate music box. Looking at the lovely mirrored doors, the gilt moldings along the ceiling and on the walls, she found herself remembering other years, other chocolate fairs, when she and Henri had held hands under the dinner table, almost counting the minutes until they could go back to her apartment and snuggle up.

She felt an ache in her chest, and brought her hand to her bosom above the scooped neck of her emerald satin gown. A little dizzy, too, she felt herself teeter on her fiveinch heels as if she were attempting to balance on a precarious ledge. She grabbed hold of the large sapphire pendant nestled in the cleft of her bosom as if to steady herself.

Henri. Damn it, where was he? He had said he’d be here, hadn’t he? But the message on her answering machine had been so garbled, so much background noise. He’d been calling from Charles de Gaulle, that part was

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clear …-his plane leaving in minutes … and he’d said he’d be in New York for the fair. And-at this point, her heart had taken a plunge into ice water-he’d said he needed to speak with her about something very important. …

She’d made herself wait until late this afternoon before trying to reach him at the Regency, where he always stayed. Yes, Mr. Baptiste had reserved, she was told; but, no, not checked in yet. She’d left a message, but he hadn’t called. Could something have happened to his plane? And, what, dear Lord, could his cryptic message have meant?

Dolly closed her eyes. Am I losing my marbles? … Or maybe it’s the change I’m going through, and it’s getting me all muddled. But I just can’t stop imagining that Henri’s needing to talk to me is more than just business. And if I don’t get that dumb notion right out of my head, before he walks in, I just know I’m gonna make an awful fool of myself… .

She thought back. It had been four years since Henri had come to New York for the Gourmand fair-usually he sent Pompeau, along with Maurice or Thierry. So why was he coming this year?

Funeral, was that a word she’d really heard in all that static? Could old Girod have died? And if he had, did that mean Henri finally was free?

No, more likely Henri had come with bad news. What if Francine had won-and she was going to force Dolly out? Yeah, that’d be big enough for Henri to fly here to tell her himself. Dolly felt a shortness of breath.

She had to find Henri. She had to know.

Dolly brushed past a waiter extending toward her a tray of tulip glasses fizzing with champagne. Rocking onto the toes of her emerald-satin pumps, she strained to see above the sea of heads. But no Henri. Her eyes blurred with tears.

She blinked, her vision clearing. Now she began to spot familiar faces. Over by the bar, chatting it up like the dearest of chums, were the heads of the two biggest Belgian chocolate houses-Kron and Neuhaus. Rivals, each probably wished a chandelier would fall on the other’s

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display. On the other side of the room, Dolly spied a tall, well-built man with curly graying hair, Teddy McCloud, an old friend from Perugina. She blew him a kiss, and he tipped her a wink. And near the table where dinner seat assignments were being handed out, that slim bespectacled man nibbling on a prawn, wasn’t that Robert Linxe from La Maison du Chocolat? She recognized, too, Maurice Bernachon and Maurice’s son, Jean-Jacques, and Marie Biard of Debauve & Gallais.

There were others whose faces she recognized, but whose names had slipped her mind. That heavyset fellow from Charleston Chocolates, supposedly Elizabeth Taylor’s favorites. The blond lady from Li-Lac. A handsome, florid-faced man from Leonides.

But where in blazes was Henri?

The thought struck her: Maybe he was inside, checking on Girod’s display.

Dolly was making her way toward the mirrored doors that opened onto the ballroom, when she saw someone trying to wave her over. An imposing blond fellow straight out of a Wagner opera, smoking a thin brown cigaretteshe’d forgotten his name, recalling only that he was somehow connected with Tobler-Suchard. She waved back, but kept moving.

Entering the ballroom, which was quiet and devoid of people except for hotel staff putting finishing touches on the tables and Gourmand judges scribbling notes about the displays. Later, while dinner was being served, the judges would sample and evaluate the edible entries. In the truffle and bonbon category, flair and flavor counted heavily, she knew, but the quality of the chocolate itself was equally, if not more, important. Chocolate was judged on various criteria-“presentation,” which meant the chocolate should have an even, glossy surface; “snap,” or in other words, whether it broke apart easily, without splintering or folding down into waxy sludge; “mouth feel,” or texture… not gritty or overly moist; “taste,” to determine sweetness, percentage of chocolate liquor, and bouquet.

Dolly, satisfied that Girod’s chocolates were up to snuff, paused under the long marble-columned arcade that

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bordered the dining area. Waiters swept past her along the passageway, holding empty canap้ trays, disappearing through double doors to the kitchen, and reappearing minutes later with freshly laden ones.

Beyond the marble pillars, she could see the main ballroom, lit by two enormous crystal chandeliers-its cream-colored walls edged in gold, and its vaulted ceiling adorned with cameo-like oval paintings of pastoral scenes surrounded by filigreelike moldings. At one end, there was a stage framed in great swags of rosecolored velvet; and along the wall opposite her, four raised, arched coves resembling small opera boxes. Clusters of tables, each with a pale-pink damask cloth and an arrangement of freesias and baby pink roses, were arranged about the main floor.

She thought back to this morning when she’d been helping Pompeau set up their display. The whole place a buzzing beehive, Teamsters lugging in cartons of all sizes, hotel staff arranging the dinner tables, chocolatiers in chef’s whites carefully uncrating their fragile creations, putting together their displays on the long white-clothed tables set in front of the stage, applying the finishing touches to their chocolate masterpieces.

Now everything was complete and in place, and it all looked so exquisite, such a triumph of human ingenuity and artistry, that Dolly could only stare, spellbound.

Each display was set slightly apart, and on a small gold card was the name of the chocolatier it represented. Silver trays with elaborate arrangements of truffles and chocolate creams; luscious cakes and tortes and cookies displayed as if they were jewels in Cartier’s window; an enormous Georgian-style punch bowl made of chocolate and piled with strawberries, each of which had been dipped half in white chocolate, half in dark.

She saw a chess set-its board and carved pieces made entirely of dark and white chocolate. Next to it, a chocolate replica of a Spanish galleon, complete with a life-sized ship’s log, spyglass, and bag of gold-foil-wrapped “doubloons.” She smiled at the sight of a toy train set made of chocolate, each open car piled with molded chocolate creams in the shapes of toy soldiers, dolls, alphabet

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