As she prepared for her date, Annie stood in a set of delicate silk lingerie and made herself face what this was all about whilst contemplating what would be an appropriate outfit to wear for such a rendezvous. How could she pretend that this was anything other than her accepting an offer for sex from a younger man? She hardly knew this person; they had barely exchanged a few sentences during the treatment. Her only reaction to him had been physical; he was a very attractive man and had aroused her sexually.

As she slipped on a simple well cut black dress, she tried to rationalize her behaviour, holding an internal dialogue with her conscience:

He asked me to dinner. That's how I get to know him. No one's talking sex here.

But you're thinking it.

Yes, but I'm frustrated. It doesn't mean I would actually behave in such a fashion.

What if he makes a pass - are you going to say no?

 I don't know. 

Then you better start thinking fast or you'll simply let this happen.

So what, if it does? No one will ever know...

She brushed her hair rather roughly and tried to stop the rambling conversation. For God's sake, I'm a grown woman! If I wish to have dinner with a man, go to bed with him even - I can! I can just do it! Like he can just do it. Why shouldn't I?

With a simple row of pearls at her neck and nothing overtly ostentatious about her style, Annie picked up her purse and steeled herself. Just dinner. Nothing else was obligatory. Unless she wanted it...

In the restaurant, Annie walked head high trying not to attract attention as she crossed the elegantly decorated room to the table where Jens was sitting. He looked wonderful, dressed in a smart jacket and pants with a silk T- shirt underneath. When he caught sight of her, he jumped to his feet and smiled. His behaviour was courteous and polite, a kiss to both cheeks, holding her chair as she sat down, complimenting her on how lovely she looked. It wasn't difficult for his pleasant and non-threatening manner to put her at ease.

They ordered dinner, shared a good bottle of wine, and talked widely about a variety of fairly superficial topics. He was twenty eight and had been a fitness instructor and masseur for five years. His plan was to open his own health resort in his native Norway but it was a large investment and he needed to build up his funds and reputation. He admitted that he did modelling on the side to add to his savings - and that some of it involved what he rather coyly referred to as 'glamour' modelling. She imagined he would make a fortune in gay magazines.

Annie for her part said little of her private life. Yes, she had been married. Yes, she had children. But her closed answers soon put him off delving further. Mostly they kept to safe areas; films, music, books, health issues - he was a fount of information about all the latest diets and regimes. The evening passed quickly and by the time they had finished their coffee and brandy, the restaurant was fairly empty and the engagement was drawing to a natural close. Annie realized with a sudden dart of nervousness that one way or another decisions were soon going to have to be made.

In the end, Jens made is very simple. "Thank you for a wonderful evening, Anna. It would be my pleasure to take it further if you wished. May I escort you to your room?"

How civilized. How very European. It also occurred to Annie that it was a rather bloodless proposal. If you are intending to get naked and dirty with a man in the most intimate of ways this social niceness seemed to be a bit of a sham. It reminded her of the language of the parlour, Austen and Dickens novels, when people cloaked their intentions in some strange etiquette and then behind closed doors behaved completely differently.

It wasn't anything like what she was used to. Her mind went back to dating Terry all those years ago and how the electric spark of sexual attraction had always been rippling in the air about them, sparkling in their conversation, revealing itself in touch and body language or just the look in their eyes. Whatever they said or did, there was no doubt they were anticipating that moment when they could be alone and all the passion they were feeling could be released.

Tonight with Jens, it was as if she was making an appointment with the dentist.

"I've had a lovely time. Thank you for your company. Yes, perhaps you would like to come back for a while...?"

She heard herself continue in the same vein, saw the curve of a smile begin to form on his lips, watched the change in his eyes as he gave her a more openly sexual gaze. It still all seemed a little fake and rehearsed to her. Like a performance where the actor had just been given the correct cue and was almost overeager to plough straight on with his bravura delivery.

Jens stood up and held out his hand, raising her to her feet, picking up her purse and tucking it under his arm as he led her out of the restaurant. Annie remembered that there had been no sign of a bill and mentioned it. Jens merely smiled and she took that to mean he had settled it already. He was certainly a slick operator.

One or two remaining women sitting at tables raised their heads as the couple moved through the room. Annie saw the smirks they gave her. Lucky girl, they seemed to say. Who's going to have fun tonight? She hated that they could read the situation so clearly. This was a sexual arrangement pure and simple and it was just something others gossiped about: 'You see her, the pretty dark haired woman? She shagged that big blonde trainer last night. Looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, doesn't she? How old do you think she is? Well preserved - but I bet she's old enough to be his mother...'

But then, thought Annie ruefully, wouldn't she have said exactly that had she been an observer? We all do it.

Jens seemed totally oblivious to how this seemed to others. Even though everyone there down to the waiters and hotel staff knew he was an employer and also what was going on here, he still acted like this was a perfectly acceptable situation, almost as if all he intended to do was lead her to her room, kiss her hand and withdraw. She had the distinct impression this was not the first time he'd behaved like this and she wondered exactly how many lonely women he'd given the benefit of his beautiful body to before her. It was nothing really, was it? He was young and wanted to get laid. They were old and wanted to get laid. What's the big deal?

Outside her room door, he handed her purse over and she took out her key card; he deftly claimed it and swiped the door for them both, holding it open. "May I?"

It was faintly absurd, this asking for permission, as if he was making sure every possible care was taken that this would only ever look like her decision. He was not forcing it nor was he there because he had pushed too hard. The thought of a vampire struck her. You have to ask them in or they can't cross your threshold. A momentary indecision stopped her and she found herself wavering. This was her last chance to exercise some self-restraint.

He must have detected her lack of confidence for, at that moment, he reached over and kissed her softly, his right arm running round to pull her close while his left hand played with her hair. "You are so beautiful, Anna, I want you so much...ever since I first set eyes on you..."

His kiss was intoxicating. He smelt clean and fresh, with breath tinged by the brandy they had just drunk. It went to her head. He went to her head. His body, towering over her made her feel weak - he had to be well over six foot, a beautiful mountain of a young man, way taller and bigger than Terry. She felt fragile, girlish, desirable - and she responded, sliding her arms around his neck and pulling him even closer into her embrace. With a slight hitch, he lifted her off the ground, stepped in the room and kicked closed the door, still kissing her passionately.

Heat was rising between them as their hands began to search for each other's nakedness. She slid her fingers up under the silky T-shirt and felt his naked flesh- it was solid and warm, smooth and inviting. His fingers returned to the gentle stimulation of her breasts that he had begun earlier in the day.

Resting her down gently on the bed, he stepped back. She thought he was going to remove his jacket but instead he pulled out a small PDA, flipping it open. "It's better to get the details out of the way first, don't you think?" he said softly. Annie frowned, not sure where this was leading.

"Details? Is this about safe sex?" she asked.

He gave her a bemused look. "Not quite. Just tap in your debit number here and it will only take a moment. The figure's on the screen. I'm sure you prefer this part out of the way quickly and we can get on with the pleasure, hey?"

"This part? Debit number? What....?" And then the startling truth hit her. This was more than just some convenient sex arrangement. Jens was a male prostitute. His glamour modelling comment had been added to the conversation to establish without a shadow of a doubt what this transaction was all about. She had to pay for sex? It wasn't a younger man picking up an attractive older woman for mutual pleasure?

No, it was a stud servicing a client and the whole thing had been a charade. Everything he had said had merely been what she was paying for. A very personal service which he was prepared to hand out to any woman who paid his fee.

"You're a gigolo?" Annie gasped.

Jens shrugged. "It isn't a word I like much. I'm an escort. A male escort. It is very respectable and refined. I thought that you understood..."

"You want ME to pay YOU?" she exclaimed.

Jens smiled at that. "Well, yes...of course. This was hardly a date now was it?"

"You bought me dinner!"

"I think you will find that appears on your room bill. They handle that side of things very discreetly..."

"I paid for dinner?" She was so stunned that she could do no more than parrot his word back to him.

"Of course. Anna, let's not make this unpleasant. Tap in the numbers and we'll go back to where we were. You're a very beautiful woman and this is a real pleasure for me - I can assure you it is rarely such a delightful evening's work..."

"WORK? WORK? Get the fuck out of here! What do you take me for? Get out! Get out!"

She picked up her shoe and threw it at him. He ducked and simply raised his hands in the air. It mattered very little to him. He'd got a free dinner out of it anyway. "As you wish...but you do actually owe me for my time..."

"Fuck off! I'll call the bloody management and have you thrown out...!"

He turned to go. "I won't make an issue of it but I doubt this will go down well with them. They expect clients to know the score here..."

"Oh they do, do they? Well, as I'm leaving in the morning then that's just too bad, isn't it? They won't have the pleasure of treating me like a pariah because I don't approve of their pimping. What's the cut for the hotel? The usual ten percent?"

But he didn't stay to hear her rant. The door closed; she went over and hit it with her fists clenched. He had expected her to pay for his services! She was just a woman way past it who couldn't get her kicks any other way. Her husband needed younger women while she couldn't get anyone - her age or younger. That was what happened to women in the end - they were just thrown on the scrap heap unless they were prepared to lower themselves to the humiliation of a male prostitute.

The tears came, tears of shame, anger and frustration. It seemed that the very last of her self esteem was being poured out with them. Once she had lost Terry, she had lost everything. Now she was really on her own.

The party broke up about one thirty and they took the launch across the harbour. It was a beautiful night, late spring after a hot clear day and the breezy air was welcome after the relentless high temperatures of the day. The sound system was playing some rather smaltzy collection of romantic ballads of yesteryear. Nick grabbed her and danced around the deck singing in a heavy Italian accent into her ear along with the singer:

Every day I start out, then I cry my heart out
Lonely is a man without love
Every day I wake up, then I start to break up
Knowing that it's cloudy above
Every day I start out, then I cry my heart out
Lonely is a man without love

She threw her head back and laughed wildly as he waltzed her round, hamming up the Latin lover image and shifting almost seamlessly into the original language as he lowered his voice and sang breathily:

Quando m'innamoro
io do tutto il bene
a chi e' innamorato di me,
e non c'e' nessuno
che mi può cambiare,
che mi può staccare da lei.

"You speak Italian, Nick?" she asked him, fascinated to hear that unexpected part of him, his normal Strine replaced by a rolling Italian intonation.

"Some. Can get by. My Greek's better...Mama always talked to us in Greek at home..."

"Really? Gosh, that's fantastic! We must go to Greece one day. I would so love that...!"

He smiled down at her. "So would I. We'll do it. Holiday in the islands next summer. Hire a boat and just sail around and go native. Live like locals...I'll be your Adonis and you can be my Aphrodite..." he added flamboyantly.

They danced under the moonlight until the short journey was over. The boat pulled in at the jetty that fed several of the beachfront properties on their stretch and strolled up the wooden stairway hand in hand.

About half way, where the stairway broadened out and a narrow path led off to a house set lower on the cliff, a man loomed up at them. He appeared to have been crouched in the darkness. Zoe felt him jerk on her hand and pull her against him. Then she felt the knife drawn against her neck.

"I just want money...or she gets it...!"

Zoe hardly had time to feel fear or even begin to gather her thoughts before she found herself thrust to the side and the knife scudding away.

Nick had reacted like lightening merely lashing out to remove the knife from the situation with one carefully placed kick and then taking the attacker's legs out from under him with his next leap. In seconds he had pummelled him savagely before hauling him up by the neck and throwing him back down the wooden stairway. Zoe rose to her feet in horror at the severity of his response.

From down below she could hear the boat men who must have heard the sounds of the assault and returned to check all was well. They ran right into the body as it bounced down, the man lying groaning, badly injured.

"What happened, sir?' One of the crew shouted up to Nick. "Are you both all right?"

"Fine. Deal with the bastard. Throw him in! Let the sharks have him..."

"No!" Zoe screamed. "You can't do that! Please...take him to hospital!"

Nick laughed mockingly. "He was going to slit your throat for my wallet..."

"It doesn't mean we have the right to kill him! Good God, Nick, he's probably high on something! He probably doesn't know what he's doing, the poor bastard..."

"Tell that sob story to someone who actually gives a fuck, sweetheart. Let's go home..." He snatched her hand and dragged her away.

"What about him, sir?" A voice from down below reminded him of the problem. 

"Up to you, lads. Just keep my name out of it, hey?"

Nick didn't stop to see what their decision was, merely hauling her roughly down the path and along home. Stinker came bounding forward as they neared the gate and only then did let go of her hand to play with the dog.

"Nick..."

He turned round and cut her dead. "..Not now! Don't question my judgment in my field of expertise. Ever..! Go inside, I'll be up in a minute..."

It was a while before he came up; she had heard him take Stinker for a walk on the beach and had watched the pair of them for cavorting around. The clear starry night framed their antics; she could not help but smile to watch man and dog playing. Nick had such a tender boyish side at times, rolling over, still dressed in the expensive outfit but seemingly unconcerned as he let the dog shake his sandy wet body all over him wrestling on the shore line.

She wondered what he was thinking as he jogged along with the dog bounding ahead, if he was having trouble coming down from his explosive burst of violent energy or whether he was just trying to get over his annoyance with her for calling him on his behaviour.

When he finally did come to join her, she was lying in the darkened room, half intending to act asleep. But something in her couldn't play that game. "Nick? You okay?" she asked as he sloughed off his damp clothes and took a quick shower. He didn't answer.

Shortly after, he slumped into bed beside her. "Nick?"

"Go to sleep! It's three."

"I can't sleep. I want to talk."

"I don't."

"Well, I'm still going to talk..."

He sat up with a grunt, snapped on a light and sat with his arms folded. "So talk."

Zoe sat up next to him, propping herself up on pillows. They both stared straight ahead. "This is stupid. Nick, I know that guy was dangerous. I was scared to death. I'm supposed to have a black belt in Wu Shu and look what happened? I just froze..."

"Bloody good job and all...he'd have had you if you'd tried anything," Nick replied impassively.

"I didn't really see what you did. It all happened so fast but you simply took him apart. It scared me to see you like that. I never realized what you would be like in that mode. You looked like a ruthless killer. You showed no fear or remorse - no real emotional reaction at all. It just frightened me. Almost as much as the man himself did."

Nick sighed and rubbed at his eyes. "There was emotion. I was scared to death he would hurt you. I was angry that he had touched you. I was pissed that he forced me to show you that side of me...but, Zoe, you gotta understand something about me. I'm a killer. And if someone challenges me, I will kill them."

He spoke quietly, staring straight ahead but not ducking the question this time. Zoe bit her lip, aware that he was disclosing something very private that few people had ever heard from his own mouth.

"What do you mean, Nick? A killer?" She had to ask the question. His use of the word had raised an alarm bell in her head. Was he coming closer to really revealing what he did for a living here?"

At first he said nothing. Then he licked his lips nervously before looking across at her. "I joined the army when I was seventeen. Next thing I knew they had reassigned me to special forces. I was only just over eighteen then. A kid. I knew nothing about anything. Like an empty book. I was smart. High IQ, they told me. Spoke a few languages. Physically impressive. Good athlete. Quick learner. Perfect eyesight. Crack shot.... Zoe, I was the perfect package. Like a robot you design for a specific task. So they groomed me -and blokes like me - made us study, pass exams, train to unbelievably high levels of fitness, undergo crazy and humiliating tests of endurance, built us up, knocked us down, made us suffer hours of interrogation simulation, forced us to work as a team and then made us strike out on our own....It was complete and utter mind games along with technical training at the highest level of military accomplishment. No money was spared. We were the elite. We were taught to despise the ranks. We were filled with stories of our own invincibility if we followed their lead. We were brainwashed by their propaganda. I could go on and on. But at the end of it all, they were left with a lot of bloody good soldiers and a few secret weapons. I was one of the latter. They'd recognized early on that I had certain characteristics that they could manipulate - and so they did. In the end I became a killing machine. That was my job. To kill people."

Zoe had listened in growing horror at his words. For underneath the rather blunt and matter-of-fact account, she knew lay layers and layers of deeper and more worrying issues that he was not explaining. "Kill people...? Like...an assassin...?" she gasped.

He smiled at that. "They called it 'an exterminator'. I was sent to Afghanistan with a small group of similar head cases and we went under deep cover for months. We lived in the wilds, like natives, grew long beards, wore native gear, slept rough, crapped in holes, caught food, skinned it and cooked it on open fires...the weather in the summer was so hot, it was like being out at Ayers Rock or something. But in the winter it was well below freezing. I swear there were nights I thought I would freeze to death. And all the time we were hiding and watching, tracking and uncovering nests of terrorists. We weren't there to arrest or information-gather - we just found them and killed them and moved on, like a silent killing machine that fed on the carcasses of these sorry bastards. Sometimes they were with their families. We took them all out regardless. They were our orders. After a while you don't even need orders. You're like fucking animals. Like a pack of wolves. You feel nothing. You live only on basic urges. You eat, sleep, piss, crap, kill....and if you get a chance..."

 He didn't finish the sentence but she knew what he meant. If you get a chance, you rape some woman who falls into your hands. Nick didn't seem to be particularly ashamed about it nor was he proud. He was just telling her some facts about himself. He wasn't asking her to approve or condemn him.

"What does that do to a man?" she whispered.

He made a rueful face. "I don't suppose the Afghans liked it much either. Christ, Zoe, it's war! Don't pretend you couldn't work it out for yourself. The image of the noble soldier and the reality of what he is really called on to do are very different things..."

"I know. But that was not a usual experience for most men in the army...you were working at the very edge of civilized behaviour and breaking every rule of war there is..."

"Yeah...I know...."

"How did you rationalise it at the time?" she asked, interested in more than just Nick's reminiscences. This was an incredible insight into the mind of a super soldier. How often does anyone get a chance to interview someone like that? She realized that this was engaging her intellectual curiosity, too.

He laughed at that. "You don't. What's to rationalize? Someone gives you carte blanche to do whatever the fuck you like and tells you it's for the good of the world? That's about all you need. Remember - by the time we were sent there we were already ruthless and highly efficient operatives who had been trained NOT to question but just to carry out orders and withdraw."

"What happened in the end?"

"We lost a few. If the locals got us, you can imagine what your fate was. A very slow and painful death with every form of torture and humiliation thrown in. You knew you dare not fail or that was waiting for you. Every day, every night, you had that pressure hanging over you..."

"Do you feel fear?"

"Not sure. An absence of feeling becomes second nature. If there is fear, you're channelling it. Until you get so used to the high of adrenalin that you live for it. It's like a drug, Zoe. It feeds your addiction."

"You become addicted to killing? Is that what you're saying?" she asked him.

He shrugged. "Not the kill, but the process. It was like hunting. Stalking and hunting. Waiting with sweat coursing down your back for that moment when you strike. It's hard to explain. But that is what I was. A killer. And that is always there. That ability to disassociate from the accepted norms of behaviour. It will always be a part of my psyche if I'm threatened. Or if the people I care about are threatened..."

"It sounds like how an animal responds, not a man..." she observed.

"That is exactly what it is. We are all animals somewhere underneath. But some of us are closer than others...or trained to be..."

"How did you get out of it all?"

"Your Dad recruited me for a mission in SE Asia. It was dangerous and I was there to use my singular talents as much as ever but it was a very different kind of work with very different kinds of men."

"Is that how you lost your hand?"

"Yes."

"And after that?"

"Your father helped me to find a new career in intelligence. I was not aligned to any particular agency but a part of a looser body that is highly secret and little known about."

"What was your brief?"

"Dirty tricks." He didn't shirk that one, whatever he actually meant by it.

Zoe paused and wondered if this was where she should stop. His answers were becoming more monosyllabic and she detected that he didn't really wish for her to go to deeper into this part of his life. "Have you killed people since you left the army?"

"Yes." There was almost a note of challenge on that one word as if he was daring her to take it further. But she did not want to know. If he had been some kind of secret agent then she would be naïve in the extreme to imagine that the taking out of certain targets would not have been part of his brief.

"Thank you for telling me this. I think I sort of guessed really but was hiding from the truth of it. But I can't hide anymore than you can. I needed to know this, Nick."

He nodded. "Does this make a difference to us?" She could hear the desperate edge in his voice, even though he was trying to appear cool.

Taking his head in her hands, she knelt up by him, stroking his hair back and touching his face tenderly. "No. It makes no difference to us except in this. You've trusted me enough to tell me what you were hiding from me. That means a great deal to me. Now it's my job to spend my life healing all the damage that was done to that young boy who joined the army. They warped you, Nick. You are not to blame. And you're making it right now by getting out and using your skills for good. You're the bravest man I've ever met. And the bravest thing you've ever done was here tonight in this bed. I know that. "

He listened to her words but could not reply, simply rolling her over and coming on top of her. He was too emotional to express his gratitude for what felt to him like absolution. She could take it all away, cleanse his soul of sins. His physical nature took him over then; he wanted nothing more than to be inside her and feel the sense of purity and peace that only she could bring. There was nothing in this world he wouldn't do for this girl.

Nothing.

"So, what's Mum up to?" Finally Liam got round to the question that Terry had been dreading all night. The boy had been so full of other things that he hadn't mentioned her so far.

"Your mother? She's...in England." He felt himself frowning as he replied and saw Liam immediately notice that; he sat up straighter and his thought processes seemed clear on his face.

"Grandma all right?" A note of concern. Liam was looking for answers.

"As far as I know, yes..."

His son pursed his lips. "Is Harry's kid due yet? Jackie was well on when I saw her last. I stayed over a couple of days while he was on a short overseas jaunt. He didn't want her alone and Auntie Pen was on hollies..."

"A few weeks yet. December. No, Mum hasn't gone for that. I hardly think Penny would appreciate her presence when the time comes..."

Liam laughed. "They hate each other, don't they?"

"There's not much love lost. But I wouldn't go so far as to say hate..."

"Then why's Mum in England? I mean, why didn't she stay with you if you had something on here?"

"It's a long story..."

"Dad....what's up?" It was impossible to put Liam off when he scented something was not right. Even as a child he had been the king of asking "Why?" In that sense he had never changed.

Terry lit up a cigarette even though he knew it wasn't allowed in the restaurant. No one objected, however, so he continued. "Liam...I have something to say which isn't easy. So I'm going to just say it straight out. But it will shock you. Your mother and I are living apart. We've separated."

The news stunned Liam. He sat blinking rapidly as if trying to work out if his father's words could possibly mean something else other than what they appeared to.

"It's not possible! Why? Why would you leave her? Why?"

"I didn't leave her. She told me to go. It isn't what I want. You know that."

Liam blew air out slowly and began to rub his hands through his hair. It was a nervous habit he had had as a child, scratching at his scalp if upset about anything. "Is this because of me? Did you fight because of me...?"

"No....this is not about you, Liam. Please, don't try and blame yourself...."

"Zoe...it's because of Zoe and Nick? She said you went crazy and beat Nick up when you found out...did Mum go mad because of that...?"

"Come on, Liam! Don't blame your sister! This is because of me and your mother. No one else. I'm so sorry..."

"But why? Why would she ask you to leave...why?" He was very distressed and near to tears; it had been too great a shock to drop on him in this public place.

"Liam...some things are personal. I can't discuss them with you..."

He saw the light dawning in his son's eyes. "You've had an affair? Mum found out? Is this about some tart you've been with?"

Terry winced. "No, I have not had an affair. But, yes, I was unfaithful. Once. It was a mistake but your mother, as is her right, was not prepared to forgive me..."

"What? She's going to break up a marriage over one night? She can't do that! You've got to sort this out, Dad...go and see her, you can work things out....Why the fuck didn't you say something before!"

Terry stubbed out the cigarette and called for the check. "I didn't want to worry you. Liam, you just have to trust me on this one. When I say she doesn't want to see me, that's exactly what I mean and I have to respect that until she changes her mind. Look, I'm leaving for the Middle East in two days' time. I'll be away a couple of months. Maybe in the New Year, she might be in a more conciliatory frame of mind...I just don't know..."

"New Year? What about Christmas? You can't be apart at Christmas! Aren't you going to be around when Harry and Jackie's baby arrives either? What's going on? The whole family'll be pulled apart..."

"...Not because of me. Don't accuse me of that, mate. I'm not responsible for Zoe's crazy act of self-destruction nor will I be blamed because I have a job to do. I fucked up with your mother. I accept that and the matter is between us. I'm sorry if this hurts you, Liam, but that's something you'll have to face..."

"I know that. But Christ, Dad, you're not still going on about Zoe and Nick, are you? Nick's a decent bloke, Dad. I thought you and he were friends. Okay, he's a bit wild but he loves her...I mean really adores her. They're so happy..."

Terry went for his wallet as the waiter brought the bill. Liam reached out and tossed some cash onto the plate. "That's mine, mate..."

"No, I'll get it..."Terry insisted, but Liam shook his head.

"I want to. Please..." He indicated to the waiter that he should accept the cash payment.

His father relented and smiled across.

"Thanks. Appreciate it. Look, Liam, with the greatest respect, my reasons for not accepting the presence of Costello in her life are rather complex..."

"...Another confidential thing you can't tell me? Don't you get tired of all that top secret shit? Dad, Nick's okay. He's the one responsible for my break. He called this rock star he knows and sent him my album and then arranged for me to see him....Jesus, Dad, he was fucking amazing how he went out on a limb for me! I still don't even know why he did it. He's just like that. You never know with Nick. And he regards us as family..."

"Yeah, well, I would rather not face the future with that bastard as my son-in-law, thank you very much. So, you're in his pocket as well now, hey? I might as well just sign everything I've got over to him. He's taken everything else I care about..."

Liam observed his father as the waiter brought the change and he sorted out a tip. Stuffing the extra notes back into his pocket, he watched as Terry fought some internal battle to control himself. He won but Liam realized that he was far from his usual controlled and composed self.

"What do you mean 'everything'. Has Mum got something to do with this?" A suspicion was forming in Liam's mind that there was a much deeper problem lying around her somewhere.

"No."  His father's answer came a little too fast; Liam knew he was hiding something. He recalled the lyric of one of his songs. It had been written about a friend who had ruined a good relationship after his fiancée had found him in bed with her best friend. He wondered whether he would ever sing it again in future without thinking of his father's adultery and the devastating consequences.

 "I've let your mother down in the worst way and will pay the price for what I did for the rest of my life. I cheated on the one woman in this world who deserved better from me and I can't say I blame her for kicking me out. What can I say? I've tried every approach I know but she just won't listen. I did a lot of damage and if I could only rerun time...but I can't, Liam. No one can. You do what you do and then you live to regret it. It's too late, Liam. I guess I just used up all my chances with her..."

Billy's leaving today (don't know where he's going).
Holds his head in disgrace (he can't escape the truth).
He knows the price that he's paid.
He admits that it's too late to admit that he's afraid 

Once he was a lover sleeping with another.
Now he's just known as a cheat.
And he wish he'd had a mirror; looked a little clearer.
Seen into the eyes of the weak.
Tomorrow comes. Sorrow becomes his soul mate.
The damage is done. The prodigal son is too late.
Old doors are closed but he's always open,
To relive time in his mind.

Oh Billy. *

"Dad, I want to say this to you. I am not going to take sides between the two of you. But nor am I going to go along with the blame game just because you screwed up. Everybody makes mistakes - women, too. It doesn't excuse your guilt - and you have to deal with that, Dad. But Mum has to see this set against the years you've spent together and all the things you both mean to each other. One moment cannot shatter all that. She is wrong. Men are men, women are women. A couple have to find a way to make that work together - and running away at the first sign of a breach in trust is no more acceptable than what you did in the first place. You let her down - but she's letting you both down with this. And I will tell her so when I see her."

Terry smiled and put his hand on his son's face, unconcerned what the touch might appear like to any observer. "You don't know what it means to hear you say that. But, don't be too hard on her. She's fragile and desperately unhappy. Don't bring her down, Liam. Help her. She's had a really bad deal. And this is my fault, not hers. We can't lose sight of that."

"Fuck, Dad! A one night stand? It means fuck all!"

"To you and me, maybe, because we're men, but not to a woman - or most women, anyway. And when you marry someone, you give up the right to simply take a bit when you feel the urge, for the consequences are that you put everything you care about on the line for a few hours of self-indulgence - and a quick bang is never worth that. Ever."

They left the restaurant and strolled back through the dark cold streets to their hotel, still talking. It was probably the most personal conversation they had ever had, both revealing aspects of themselves the other had never seen. As they parted and went to their own rooms, Terry reflected on the fundamental shift in his relationship with his son that had taken place. Whatever he had lost with his wife and daughter, this young man was never going to turn his back. It was as if he had suddenly been given some powerful incentive to refocus his life. Time would tell about the women he loved but he was going to have to pull it together for his sons. Both of them. Each with their own needs. It was enough to build a future on for any man.

Zoe flew to London en route to Boston as being the slightly less onerous of the two possible directions from Sydney. It was also on her mind that she could then make a quick trip to France on her return journey to see her Mum and Dad. Two months on from the terrible scene with her father, she had fully calmed down from her anger and knew she had to start some attempt at reaching out to him. He had tried to contact her many times and her rejection to those approaches had been infantile and selfish in the extreme.

Inside, she knew she still needed them both and that anything he had done had been motivated, however misguided it had been, by a concern for her welfare. No matter how much she felt for Nick, she herself now had some lingering reservations about his past and many questions about his former life, not to mention the volatile and disturbing aspects to his personality that worried her from time to time. Her father's worries seemed only what any loving parent might feel if they viewed Nick from outside. She knew Nick swamped her with his dominating presence, manipulated her in so many ways even when he didn't know he was doing it, threatened to ride roughshod over her ambitions and independence.

And part of her didn't even give a damn anymore. Was that how love was meant to be? Is that what her mother had discovered with her father? That if you find a great love then it does change your life forever and you accept that as a consequence of the special gift you have received?

Or was this just some temporary blip, more infatuation than real love? What if she married him, had a baby and then woke up one day to the truth that she had given up her chance to be herself? Other women seemed to see that as the likelier outcome. Was she naïve or were they just cynical? It all seemed too confusing.

When she was with Nick, everything seemed clear and simple. The moment he was not there, her brain began to dwell on things he had said or on different ways of looking at the matter, until she felt worn out by it all. Wasn't love supposed to be fun? This felt like such a weight at times that it dragged her down. Nick was so emotionally intense, his mood swings so unpredictable, his opinions so hard to fathom that he seemed to have removed all the normal parameters until she couldn't even make a simple decision for herself anymore.

More and more she felt she needed to touch base with her mother. All her life she had used her Mum as the sounding board for everything she did and now, at the most crucial juncture in her life so far, she had simply turned away and acted as if her parents had nothing of value to say to her on the subject. How childish! How ridiculous! Zoe had an urge to curl up on her mother's lap, suck her thumb as she had done as a little girl, and just let it all out. She knew in her heart her mother would be there for her and that, unlike her father, she wouldn't react as emotionally. Of the two of them, Zoe had always thought of her father as more sensitive and easily hurt. Mum had a healthy resilience about emotional matters that Dad did not. Maybe that was a man-woman thing?

At Heathrow, with a few hours to spare, she called the number of their French home repeatedly, but there was no reply. Finally she got an answer from their cleaning lady, Marie-Louise, who informed Zoe that Madam was en Angleterre.

She hastily tapped out the number of the London apartment. It answered after a few rings.

"Mum?"

"Zoe? Oh my God! Where are you?" Annie exclaimed.

"Heathrow. I've got a flight to Boston leaving shortly. Will you still be here in a few days? I'll be back on Thursday afternoon....I could stay for a night or two before I go back then...."

"...Go back? To Boston? Why have you been in London?"

Zoe swallowed hard and then took the bull by the horns. "I've been living in Sydney with Nick. Writing up my thesis. I'm just off to show it to my prof before I get the final draft underway... and then I go home to him..."

"Sydney? With Nick?" Annie merely repeated her words, shocked that she had had no inkling of what had been going on. "You left Boston?"

"It's a long story. Look, Mum, they're calling my flight. I have to go. I'll be back on Thursday and I'll see you then. Mum....there's so much I need to say... but most of all...I'm sorry...tell Dad, I'm so sorry..."

She hung up and left Annie holding the phone, tears running down her face. Sorry? How to even begin to make amends? She didn't mean Zoe, either. She meant herself. She had torn her family apart - and her daughter apologises to her for falling in love with someone? While Terry apologises repeatedly for telling her the truth?

Sinking to the floor, amidst the chaos of her packing, she sobbed at all the terrible mistakes she had made and how she had let them down. But what could she do now? It was too late. Too late.

But what would her daughter say when she told her what she had done?

It had been a day for telephone calls of a rather sensitive nature.  Annie had earlier received one from Terry. His voice on the other end of the telephone line always knocked her back a few steps.

"Hi, it's me. Everything okay?"

"Is this a social call or is something up?" Annie asked, falling into the distant and reserved manner she found herself always using with him now.

"No problems. I just wanted to say I'm going overseas for a couple of months. I won't be on the usual channels. If you need to contact me, use the scrambled line..."

"Why would I need that?" she rasped back and didn't even know why she had said it, other than to turn the knife a little more.

He paused and she knew he was trying to keep the emotion from his voice. Her heart faltered a little, imagining his face and the tight set to his jaw as he held himself together and acted the tough boy. "In case of emergency. You are still technically my next of kin..."

His barb cut deep. She hadn't really been listening. Where had he said he was going? Was he involved in some bad shit again?

"Where are you going?"

"Classified." She knew he could have told her. She knew he would have told her in the past. She also knew she deserved this.

"Take care, Terry. Please, take care..." 

"Yeah, right...well, you know me...so that's about it then. Oh, I saw Liam. He was fine. Told him about us. Now he's not so fine. I think he'll get in touch. If it's any consolation, Annie, I took the full blame. I didn't try to lay any of this at your door..."

"...I would hope not! There is nothing to lay at my door, as you well know..."

"No, of course not. You aren't responsible for any of this shambles we have made with our lives in any way, are you? Which is why I shouldered the blame. As I always do. That is what I was trying to say. If you hear from Zoe, send her my love. She won't open my mails or answer my calls. But I do miss her and hope she's well. Right then...I'll let you go...you okay for money? I noticed you hadn't been withdrawing any from the accounts or using your cards..."

"I'm fine. I have a job. I'm selling the apartment. In fact, it is sold. I move out next week...."

"What? Our home? You have sold our home without even asking my permission...?"

"I didn't need to. It's in my name."

"Yeah, I know. But, as you know, I paid for it..."

"You paid for everything, Terry. We both know that. If you insist on your half then I will, of course, let you have it. But as I don't intend to ask you for anything else, so..."

"...Where will you live? What the fuck are you doing with your life? With my life? With our children's lives?"

His comment hit her hard; she knew he was right. "You should have thought of that before you fucked that whore!"

"Take the fucking thing! Throw it all away. I don't know if I even give a shit anymore. I have to go. If you need anything....you know it's always yours. But maybe from now on we leave it to our lawyers to discuss the financial settlement? I'll be onto it when I get back..."

He slammed down the phone and then threw it across the room. Maybe he'd been too gentle with her. Let her contemplate that awhile. Tough love.

Or had he just put the final nail in the coffin?

He had known he would miss her but couldn't quite believe the extent of his sense of solitude. Even with that bloody dog running wild about the place, he still felt her absence like a physical pain. It reminded him of the years after he lost his hand when he would get a sudden ache as if it was still there or he would actually feel the throb of blood where no living limb existed. Zoe was now part of him and wherever she was, he could feel her life force.

Loneliness had never been an issue in his life. He had always lived alone ever since he had left the army and had loved it after years of sleeping in close proximity to other men, having to shower and shave in communal washrooms, use toilet blocks that were usually rank and never have any time when he was not surrounded by others.

Even when he had women over, there were many times he slipped out of bed after the sex and spent the night in the spare room. He had never much liked sleeping with women. Sure, it was a pleasure to feel a soft warm body in the night, to smell a woman close by and roll around their smooth, silky soft forms. He was like any other man in the sensual appeal of that. But sleep was a time when he had to let his guard down. And that was one of the few things that scared Nicholas Costello. Someone getting the jump on him.

He hated that feeling of being watched, or touched as he slept, waking with a start and occasionally making some instinctive defensive block and frightening some woman half to death. That never happened with Zoe. He always knew it was her no matter how deeply asleep he was. The bed felt so empty now.  He found himself lying awake for hours just staring at the ceiling. Everywhere there were reminders of her presence as if she had only stepped out into the next room, her aura vibrant and even her fragrance on the air.

But he was alone. And the hours when he was back from the office weighed heavily on him. What had he used to do when he had time on his hands?

Get stoned. Get drunk. Get laid. Spend money. 

Is that all he had done with his life?

None of it interested him in the least anymore. He would come home, go for a run with Stink along the beach. Have a swim. Find something to eat - he'd even started making things for himself. Mostly sandwiches but occasionally a simple pasta. Zoe had made him start to learn and go to the supermarket. Somehow doing things like that in her absence made him feel that she was still here.

Then he lay about watching TV, DVDs, reading or just listening to music. But she was never off his mind. He called her many times a day just to hear the sound of her voice.

And slept with Stinker every night.

They had been looking at houses off and on but hadn't yet seen anything that really grabbed them. Nick was very specific in his requirements as he was about everything, insisting that he would know when he found it. Zoe had been a little bewildered by the parade of upscale properties they passed through. She had wished for a little place of her own somewhere and wasn't in many ways mentally ready for the responsibility of being mistress of her own spacious residence.

His agent had rung and said a property had just gone on the market that was exceptionally suitable and would be snapped up. Nick acted quickly. One viewing and he knew it was the one. He matched the offer asked that same day, not even bothering to try and bargain them down. To him, used to New York real estate prices, Sydney still seemed remarkably cheap. By the end of the day, his offer was accepted, pending searches and surveys, but it wouldn't take long for this to be finally theirs. The owner was happy to see it all done quickly; he was already living elsewhere. Nick decided not to tell Zoe about the good news. When she returned he would surprise her - and this house would be his wedding gift. Because he knew now he was ready. There was no question but that he was going to get down and ask her the big question.  What was the point of waiting? He couldn't even last a week without her. There was no chance for the rest of his life.

A visit to a prestigious jeweller's was on the cards for the following day. He was ready to commit at last and he would never look back again.

The two women sat together on the silk Persian carpet with the remains of a takeaway Chinese meal lying on the low mahogany coffee table along with the empty bottle of wine. Zoe was opening another. Her mother was sitting with her knees drawn up, leaning her head on them, crying quietly. She had just told her daughter about the break up and the general outline of the aftermath. Zoe sat in a stunned silence, still reeling from the news of the sale of their home even before the incredible story of the end of her parents' marriage.

Annie raised her head, sniffed, wiping her nose on the back of her hand, and fumbled for her cigarettes. She lit one, her hand still shaking and drew deeply on it, exhaling slowly. "You didn't ask me why." Annie observed.

Zoe looked away. "I don't suppose it's any of my business," she replied cautiously. She already knew the reason why but there was no way for her to acknowledge that without hurting her mother even more. Yet the question still bothered her. How had Mum found out?

Despite her distraught state, Annie still recognised that her daughter was hedging. It was the sort of neat little platitude Terry would come out with if he was sidestepping an issue. What did she know that she wasn't saying?

"Doesn't sound like you. Liam wanted to know everything. You were always as inquisitive as he was. What do you know, Zoe?"

"I don't know anything. I just don't want to force you to say things that might be painful for you. You don't have to reveal intimate secrets of your personal life to your children. We all make mistakes, Mum. No one's blaming you..."

Annie blinked a few times at her answer. It didn't quite make sense. What was she getting at?

"Blaming me? Why would you think this was about me?"

"I...don't mean you alone....Dad too..."

"Zoe, stop beating about the bush. What do you know? Tell me. I'm sick and tired of half truths and secrets. If you know anything - tell me! It can't be any worse than it is already."

The younger woman leaned over and helped herself to a cigarette, lit it and then lay back against the chair. Annie poured out fresh glasses of wine. "When Dad attacked Nick after he found out about the two of us, I went to Washington to confront him. There was a woman with him in his hotel. I sort of guessed then that he was seeing someone else..."

"But you didn't think to tell me? You let me find out from that bitch herself...?" Annie couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice.

"You met Deborah Stavin?" Zoe asked. "She told you?" Her eyes were round with surprise.

"Of course, she did. She wants him. She knows he won't leave me. So she played her hand well. Approached me and, in some sham act of doing her civic duty, let me into their little secret."

Zoe groaned. "Oh God, Mum...what a way to find out!"

"Well, the nail marks on his back had already given me a clue..." Then she wished she hadn't said it. It wasn't right to say things like that about him to his daughter. He was still her father and there was enough lying between them at the moment without her adding to it.

The girl winced at that. "I didn't tell you because I didn't know how. I thought it was just some passing thing. What good would it have done in the long run? I might have been angry with him but I didn't want to hurt you. There were enough bad words between us that night without me making it worse. I'm sorry, Mum."

She shrugged. "Well, it's nothing I didn't already know. I confronted him, he told me some lies, I refused to believe him and then he finally came clean. A lot of sordid details followed."

"But Mum...can't you get past this? I mean, you said yourself, he would never have left you for another woman. He loves you. You're his wife. He owes you his loyalty...you've just played into this woman's hands, really!"

"Don't you understand? I don't want him to stay with me because I'm his wife and he's this noble sort of man who does his duty by those he cares about! I don't want to be the wife of a man who secretly has to take lovers because I don't fulfil his needs any more! I want him to want me. Like he used to. When I used to drive him wild. I want him to feel that passion for me that we used to have. I'd rather never see him again than know that all that lies between us is some respect, friendship and the children we had together. I can't live with him like that. It's too painful. I feel too much for him to accept that kind of compromise, some sort of payment for the years I gave him, all the time knowing that he'd rather be sleeping with some other woman..."

"Mum!" Zoe reached over and shook her shoulders gently. "That's not how it is! He adores you. You know he does! But guys do things sometimes. They think with their dicks. It doesn't mean much. Maybe he just needed to feel that he was still attractive to younger women...we all feel like that. I mean, you know? Haven't you ever wanted a younger man? Just to see if you still had it?" Zoe chose her words carefully. She couldn't exactly say anything more than that but there was no doubt her mother needed to remember what had happened with Nick - and that had been a much more shocking act of infidelity that what her father had done.

"What do you mean by that?" Annie's head shot up. "What do you know?" All along she had wondered why Terry had made that allegation about Nick Costello. If he had suspected at the time, she could not have imagined he would not have said something back then. That meant this had been a fresh piece of news to him. Her mind ran over the evidence rapidly. Terry had knocked Nick around. Zoe had found out and gone and challenged him. What was the common link here?

Nick Costello.

What the fuck had Costello said?

"Did Nick tell you something about me and him? Did you repeat what he said to your father?" Annie asked her daughter, her helpless tears suddenly giving way to clarity of thinking.

"Er...look, Mum..."

"TELL ME WHAT HE SAID!"

"I...I...can't, Mum..." Zoe backed off.

Annie screamed and held her head in her hands. "He told you we slept together back then in Valparaiso, didn't he? The bastard! The fucking bastard!" She was fiery now, beginning to see her way and rising up with anger at how Nick had manipulated the situation.

"But...but...he said..."

"Do you really think that could be true? Are you so stupid! Are you so blindly falling for his Svengali act? You've known him a few months. Yet, somehow this man....this man whom you know is a complete sociopath, a man with no moral compass, a selfish and arrogant predator....can persuade you that the father you have known and loved for all your life is the bad guy...? And he even goes so far as to make serious accusations about your own mother...? And you never once stop and think...these are not the people I know!  My parents do not behave like this! He's playing you! It's his business to fool people. He's trying to alienate you from everyone you love so that he owns you body and soul! And you let him? An intelligent girl like you?"

Zoe just sat there speechless. She couldn't even begin to defend herself. Every word her mother said rang true. She herself was struggling against a dawning awareness that something was not right in her relationship with Nick and she knew that it all revolved around the questions she had never dared ask him. He might have told her some truths but she realised instantaneously that these were carefully selected ones guaranteed to pull at her heart strings. She herself had censored her own tongue in case she had to raise issues that might prove he was not all she wished him to be. The burning question that she had never asked him only the other night, for instance, had been: "Have you killed anyone since you met me?"

 She hadn't asked because in her heart she already knew the answer. Just as she knew now that Nick had distorted and warped her thinking all along. Why had her father been able to take Nick, this so called super-killer, down so easily without apparently a scratch on him? Dad might be good but in a fight with a man like Nick, he would have taken a beating himself. Nick had let him have him. Then he had acted reluctant to tell her the truth. She had 'prised' it out of him and, when she had been ready to blow, had whispered his foul lies about her mother - and done the final damage. She herself had used that cruelly to wound her father and then, when her father's indiscretion came to the surface, he had thrown this lie back at his wife.

And so the circle was complete. Nick's machinations had worked and he had hardly had to do anything more than whisper insinuations here and there. She even began now to look at what he had done for Liam in a different light. Blood money. Bribe him in advance and get him on your side. Nick had been tearing them apart from the first minute in a conscious effort to draw her away from them and to himself.

His behaviour was sinister and unhealthy, even apart from the malicious damage he had done to innocent lives. She had trusted him. Was he actually some kind of monster?

"Mum....oh God, Mum...I told Dad....about you and Nick...I did it to hurt him...oh Mum...did I cause this?" Zoe burst into tears and flung herself on her mother. The two women held each other. Annie was no longer crying, just holding her daughter as she sobbed, putting together the sorry chain of events.

"No, you didn't cause it. Your father caused it. Deborah Stavin assisted it along. Nick Costello played his part. The rest of us were innocent dupes. I won't have you or Liam or even myself take the blame for what happened. But we sure have to deal with the consequences. All of us."

Zoe nodded. "But this means you can talk to Dad and try and work things out..."

"Does it? Does it really change anything? I don't really think it does." Annie replied softly. In the end the things that had driven them apart were still there.

"Why would Nick lie about you? I thought he cared about you and Dad..."

"He cares about himself more.  He's very clever and a past master at manipulation and lying. He doesn't know when he's doing it anymore. In Chile, Nick was a very confused and bitter young man. He got rather fixated on us. To him we were the perfect family. He loved Terry like an older brother, father even. I was a mother figure to him but still young enough for him to have some confused sexual feelings. You kids were the first children he had ever really known as an adult and he seemed to love your innocence and purity after the life he had been leading. He wanted to be part of it. He hung around for too long. We didn't mind but we knew he was hiding and also attaching himself to us in a way that wasn't quite healthy. But, your Dad cared about him so we let him stay. One day he made a pass at me in the kitchen while you were all on the beach. It was pretty overt and I stopped him dead. He knew he had to leave after that and a few days' later he did. He has used that incident and distorted it to put the blame on me. And it was close enough to the truth even to make your father wonder at its veracity, never mind you...But just remember this! You were all there, too. You knew what that time was for us. How could any man have come between me and your father then?"

From the hazy corners of her memories of that far off time which had always seemed to be the best part of their lives, Zoe began to revisit the past with the perception of an adult and she realised so clearly that what her mother had said was true. Her Mum and Dad had been lovers then. She had been at an age when she was first noticing sexuality between others and who better that her parents to observe at close quarters? There had been times when she had been embarrassed at moments she had witnessed between them, others when she had pruriently watched then together with strange feelings in her own body. Her father had fascinated her in a way even then she had known was not quite right for a daughter and his casual lack of propriety as they lived like beach bums had fed her curiosity.

He had been easy about nudity. She had begun to notice his nakedness in a different way. Then Nick had arrived and she had passed her obsession over to this younger man, eager to attract his attention in the way her mother always seemed to be able to draw her father's away from her. She remembered feeling jealous of her Mum who was so pretty, so clever, had a woman's body and the men dancing round her. Zoe had felt awkward and childish at times.

Images flashed through her brain, snapshots of the past, moments she had forgotten re-emerged. Never in this world would her mother have looked at any man but her father at that time. Nor any time since. How could one word from Nick have destroyed the evidence of her own eyes and ears over years? The proof of love that they had demonstrated time and time again?

But why had Daddy believed it when she had said it?  She knew the answer straight away. Lovers, no matter how secure they appear to be, have their own frailties. She knew she had attacked a man where it hurt him the most. At the heart of his fragile masculinity. It wasn't so much that he believed the story but that he believed it might be the case. That he wasn't man enough for this woman he loved so much. Just as he wasn't man enough to keep his daughter's love once Nick had entered her life.

They were both stuck in the same place. Mum and Dad. Both insecure that they were not good enough for their partner and the apparent proof was there for all to see.

"Mum, you have to stop this! Someone has to stop it! You have to go to him and make him see. You have to forgive him. It wasn't such a terrible thing set against a lifetime together! And he will believe you if you tell him about Nick. I will tell him too. I will make Nick admit it was a lie. Because if he doesn't then it's all over between us...!"

Annie breathed deeply. "I'm not sure I want to go back. I'm not sure I can. Part of me wants to have everything as it was...to be in his arms and never let him go again... but another voice in my head won't let me do it. I'm getting old. I want to be able to get old. I don't even mind getting old. But I can't live in that place where each year that passes makes it less and less likely that I can keep his attention as a woman. And that is how it began and what I want it always to be. I would rather have nothing than lose his romantic love...Call me a fool but that is where I am now..."

They drank back the wine and sat awhile, both unsure where they went in the conversation now. Zoe had no idea what you say to a woman in this frame of mind. She was finding it hard even to make her own way with a man, let alone solve someone else's problems.

"When you called me you said you needed to talk. We've never talked about you and Nick. What's going on? I know you love him. I can't pretend I'm thrilled but I can see his charms and well, I know that I'm not privy to what he's like when you're alone. Men like Nick can be very different beneath the façade. I know. I married one." Annie smiled sadly at that.

"He wants us to get married. Have a baby. That's what I wanted to talk about to you..."

Annie held her breath and stopped herself from responding instinctively. She wasn't going to make the errors Terry had done. "Why would you talk to me about that, sweetie? It's between the two of you..."

Zoe sighed. "Mum, I love him. Even though I know he's bad news. Even after what he's done to Dad and you. Is that sick? But I can't help it. I love him. But...Mum, I don't know if I'm ready to be a wife. Or a mother. I want to do this for him so much but...it doesn't feel right...did you feel like that? Can you understand what's my problem?"

Annie drank her wine and thought a while. "Love is one thing. Commitment is another. I knew your father longer before we even got close to where Nick thinks he is now. Did I want to marry him? If I were honest, the answer would be yes. From the beginning. I knew he was like no other man I would ever meet. I knew he needed stability and love. I also knew it would never be the easy option living with a man like him and having to deal with the lifestyle. But Terry isn't Nick.  Terry took a lot of persuading. Part of him was not interested in even trying to pretend he could have what other people have and the other part of him loved me too much to ask it of me. But I wanted it. Yes, I wanted it. I just never thought he'd ask." She smiled at the memory. "But I was older than you...ready for something permanent...you're really still a very young woman to be in this position already..."

"Mum... what made him change his mind? Why did he decide to take the plunge in the end?" Annie realised how little she had ever said about that part of their lives to the children. The bad memories still cloaked the time too much for her to have ever simply rambled on as families do.

"It's a bit complicated. Dad's career leaked into our private life in a bad way and there was a threat against me that shook him up profoundly. I think he just knew that it was time to make a final bid for what his heart really wanted and he knew I needed that from him too. But...even then, not long after we had got married, when he started nagging me for a baby, it wasn't what I wanted at all. I wanted to have my career and put off family indefinitely. A man like your father had a very different vision. He immediately wanted domestic bliss, a houseful of babies, roses growing round the door, a meal on the table when he came home, his shirts all ironed in the closet...Zoe, marriage isn't easy. Motherhood takes its toll on a relationship. If you aren't even sure before you start...I don't think it bodes very well for the long run. Not in my experience anyway. Tell Nick you need to wait a while. He has to accept that. As your father did. It's your body and in the end you will be the main carer of children with men like these. Nick has to be patient."

"You've never said anything bad against Nick. You've not tried to talk me out of being with him..."

Annie put her arms round her daughter. "You love a man - and it really isn't for me to say you shouldn't. There were those who were against me and Terry together. If you love Nick and he loves you, then no matter how difficult a choice it is, there is absolutely nothing anyone else can do or say to change that. Just keep your own integrity and do not let his will force you where you know you shouldn't go. A relationship must be equal. Once it begins to swing away from balance then you have to exert pressure to restore equilibrium- or you'll be the one to go under, Zoe. It will never be him. That is the only word of caution I can give you."

Zoe rested her head on her mother's chest while Annie played with her hair. "I love him so much, Mum. And he loves me so intensely that it's wonderful to see. One thing I do know for sure. He would never harm me. He's a dangerous man. A difficult man. A deeply flawed man. But I am his world. I am the one person whom he will never harm..."

Annie gave her words some thought. "Just be careful that you do not become the repository for all the darkness inside him. You cannot carry his soul, Zoe. Don't take on that burden..."

Terry sat in the hotel café lounge lost in thought waiting for the arrival of his translator. He had a long and laborious negotiation ahead of him which was going to be extremely difficult, although he suspected ultimately successful. He knew that what he was offering and what they would concede were already dead certainties but his opposite number here would be under strict instruction to delay and obfuscate, crying foul at every step as only a man with the blood of Arab trader ancestors in his veins knew how. The point of this was not ever about the goal but the establishment of supremacy, the honouring of archaic codes of  respect and deference and the constant reminder that westerners were lying dogs who would barter their own wives and mothers if they saw something in it for themselves. There would be plenty of humble pie to eat, occasional attempts to unsettle him with unpredictable and possibly threatening behaviour and always the danger that his extended presence in this city would make him a target for the renegades who were opposed to the government and would do almost anything to prevent men like him from deal making.

So, plenty to think about.

But he still couldn't get her off his mind. 

Stirring sugar into his thick black coffee, he wondered how she was and what she was doing. She had mentioned a job. She had bought a new place. Should he set the wheels in motion to find her? He decided not to. Time enough to do that later. Let her have her notion of freedom for awhile. What could it possibly give to her that he couldn't? Had he ever stopped her doing anything she wanted? She had money, freedom, his support, his love...what had she felt was lacking?

But he was too honest a man to fool himself. He knew that bit by bit over the years she had let her own dreams go and taken on his. He had seen it happen and been grateful for it, manoeuvring her where he could to have her where he wanted. It hadn't seemed like something unfair when he had done it. It had always been the logical thing, the way a man thinks, eliminating what seems like the lesser issues and simply seeing the overall goal.  The goal had been their lives together, all four of them, and for it she had given away her hopes to succeed in a demanding and competitive field in which she had worked hard for years. Yet, he had simply dismissed it from his mind. She could never earn what he could so it wasn't worth the sacrifices in the end to have her career as more than an occasional hobby.

How callow young men are in the pursuit of their single-minded desire to forge a family life to their own blueprint and how deep is the commitment a woman is prepared to give to the man she loves and the father of her children! He shook his head and tried to make some sense of it all but he couldn't in all honesty regret a single thing. That was the tragedy. He had loved every single minute as it was and never wanted to see it change. Even now.

"...Well, what is the appropriate line, Terry? Some thing about 'In all the gin joints you had to pick this one'...?"

He startled and almost gave away the shock he felt at the sight of her. Not only had he missed her approach but of all people in the world to be faced with this woman was the final insult.

"What the fuck are you doing here? Isn't the world big enough to keep us apart?"

She smiled, settled down next to him and ordered a coffee. "It's very simple, Terry. You're waiting for your translator and I am she. Policy, Terry. You pick the best man for the job....and the best woman..."

"Oh no...no fucking way! I am not working with you. You tell your boys that they get me someone else on the next plane out or I'm walking..."

"There's no one else. Not with my credentials. Not with my expertise. And not who could blend in to the background. She's just his woman. No harm at all..."

"My woman?"

"Hard to believe I'd be fool enough, but there you go. This is a job, Terry. Lives are at stake. Innocent lives. Just like my initial contact with you was a job - but you took it very personally. This time, act like the professional you claim to be. Or are you going to continue with this petulant tantrum every time we meet? You never had to work with someone you didn't like before? Imagine my feelings? Working with the man who raped me..."

"I don't give a fuck about your feelings. Nor did I rape you. As in all things you have a taste for the cruel and sordid. I just obliged. If you're involved in this assignment, then I already know the agenda is skewed. I'm here in good faith and I cannot have one of your CIA dirty tricks games fucking up these sensitive negotiations - nor have I got the time for you and your own warped little plans..."

"I assure you we have the same goals.  Surely you didn't expect to be here carrying this level of authority to deal without some monitoring from our side?"

"Of course I knew I'd have the usual toadie on me but that does not mean you..."

"...High level decision.  I have the best cover. Even you can see that. I'm staying. You're working with me. Or people will die because you can't keep your private life out of your public affairs..."

Terry eyed her coldly. "Okay, I'll work with you. But I'll tell you now. We're not a team. I'm not watching your back and I'd appreciate you keeping off mine. You translate and I'm warning you I know enough Arabic to tell if you're changing the gist. And these guys also speak English as well as you do- they just choose not to. So don't fuck with them either. They're not as patient as I am - especially with women who misbehave. Meeting's over. 0800  tomorrow down here and we are ready to roll. I talk to you when I've something to say. Otherwise, I say nothing. Keep out of my face the rest of the time. Good day, Ms. Stavin."

He stood up and made to leave. Deborah sat back sipping her coffee with a smug expression of triumph.

"Good day, Mr. Thorne. Have a good one, y'hear!"