She offered an elderly American woman a chair, and patted a little dog, and eventually set her empty cup back on a table. A waiter offered Olivia another cup, but she smiled and shook her head graciously as she declined it. There was something wonderfully gentle and luminous about her, as though she had just drifted to earth and were really an angel. It was hard for Peter to accept the fact now that she was just a woman. She looked too peaceful, too gentle, too perfect, too mysterious, and when people came too close to her, too frightened. She was obviously ill at ease under close scrutiny, and she seemed happiest when no one was paying attention to her, which no one was that night. She was so unpretentiously dressed, and so unassuming standing there, that even the Americans in the crowd didn't recognize her, although they had seen her hundreds of times in every newspaper and magazine in the country. She had been every paparazzi's dream for years, as they leapt out at her, and caught her unprepared, particularly in the years when she had been with her sick and dying child. But even now, she intrigued them, as something of a legend, and a kind of martyr.

And as Peter watched her continually, he couldn't help noticing that she was drifting farther and farther back, behind the other guests, and he actually had to strain now to see her. He wondered if there was a reason for it, or if she had just moved back there without thinking. She was far from her husband and his entourage by then, and they couldn't have seen her at all, unless they moved back themselves and tried to find her. More guests had returned to the hotel, from late night restaurants or nightclubs like Chez Castel, or simply from dinners with friends, or the theater. And gawkers had come to see what was happening. The whispers in the crowd blamed it all on King Khaled. There was an important British minister in the hotel too, and there had been a rumor that it could have been the IRA, but someone had supposedly planted a bomb, or said they had, and by order of the police, no one was going back into the hotel until the CRS found it.

It was well after midnight, and Eastwood had long since left to sleep in his trailer on the set. He wasn't going to waste the next few hours standing in the Place Vendome, waiting around until morning. And as Peter glanced around he noticed Olivia Thatcher slowly move away entirely from the guests of the hotel, and drift nonchalantly to the other side of the square. She had turned her back on the people standing there, and then suddenly she seemed to be walking smoothly and swiftly toward the corner. And he couldn't help wondering where she was going. He looked to see if she had a bodyguard in tow, he was sure that if anyone knew what she was doing, they would have sent one. But she was clearly on her own, as she began to hurry, and she never once glanced over her shoulder. He couldn't take his eyes off her, and without thinking, he moved away from the crowd himself and began to follow her to the corner of the Place Vendome. There was so much activity outside the hotel, and spilling everywhere, that it appeared that no one had seen either of them leaving. What Peter didn't realize was that for a few steps at least, a man was following him, but at the sound of a flurry in the square, he lost interest and hurried back to the heart of the action, where two well-known fashion models had put a CD player on and had started dancing with each other, in front of a nervous-looking CRS. CNN had arrived by then, and they were in the process of interviewing Senator Thatcher about his views on terrorists abroad and at home, and he told them in no uncertain terms how he felt about it. In view of what had happened to his brother nearly six years previously, he was particularly unsympathetic to this land of nonsense. He gave a rousing little speech, and the people around him who heard applauded him when it was over, and then the CNN crew went on to interview some of the others. Interestingly, they never asked to speak to his wife, they felt that the senator had obviously spoken for both Thatchers, and then the crew hurried over to the dancing models and interviewed them right after Andy. They said they thought the evening was great fun, and it should happen at the Ritz more often. They were staying in the hotel for a three-day shoot for Harpers Bazaar, and they both said they loved Paris. Then they sang a little song, and did a mock soft-shoe in the Place Vendome. It was a lively group, and despite the possible danger presented by the missing bomb, it was a festive night.

But Peter was far from all of it by then, as he followed the senator's wife around the corner and out of the Place Vendome. She seemed to know where she was going, and she didn't hesitate for a moment. She just kept walking. She walked at a good clip, and Peter took long strides to keep up with her, but he let her keep ahead, and he had no idea what he would say to her, if she stopped and turned around, and asked him what he was doing. He had no idea what he was doing, or why. He just knew that he had to be there. He had been compelled to follow her from the Place Vendome, and he told himself he wanted to be sure she was safe at that hour of the night, but he had no idea at all why he seemed to feel he should be the one to do that.

He was amazed when she walked all the way to the Place de la Concorde, and then stood there, smiling to herself, as she looked at the fountains, with the Eiffel Tower lit up in the distance. There was an old bum sitting there, and a young man strolling by, and two couples kissing, but no one paid any attention to her, and she looked so happy as she stood there. It made him want to go over and put an arm around her, and look at the fountains with her. But instead, he just stood at a polite distance from her, smiling at her. And then much to his astonishment, she glanced over at him, and there were questions in her eyes. It was as though she knew suddenly that he was there, and why, but she still felt he owed her an explanation. Clearly, he had followed her, and she looked neither angry nor panicked, and much to his embarrassment, she turned and walked slowly toward him. She knew who he was, she had recognized him as the man from the pool the night before, but he blushed in the darkness as she came toward him.

“Are you a photographer?” She looked up at him and asked very quietly. She looked very vulnerable and suddenly very sad. It had happened to her before, a thousand times, a million, ad nauseam and infinitum. Photographers followed her everywhere, and felt victorious each time they robbed her of a private moment. She was accustomed to it now, she didn't like it but she accepted it as part of her life.

But he shook his head, having glimpsed how she felt, and he was sorry to have intruded. “No, I'm not…. I'm sorry … I … I just wanted to be sure you …It's very late.” And then suddenly, looking down at her, he felt less embarrassed and more protective. She was so incredible and so delicate. He had never met anyone like her. “You shouldn't walk around alone so late at night, it's dangerous.” She glanced at the young man and the old clochard, and she shrugged, looking up at him with interest.

“Why were you following me?” She asked it very directly, and the brown velvet eyes were so soft as she looked at him that he wished he could reach out and touch her face.

“I … I don't know,” he said honestly. “Curiosity …chivalry …fascination …foolishness …stupidity …” He wanted to tell her that he was overwhelmed by her beauty, but he couldn't. “I wanted to be sure you were all right,“ And then he decided to be direct with her. The circumstances were unusual, and she looked like the kind of person you could be straight with. “You just walked away, didn't you? They don't know you're gone, do they?” Or perhaps they did by now, and were scurrying everywhere, but she didn't really care and she looked it. She looked like a mischievous child as she looked up at him. He had seen what she did, and she knew it.

“They'll probably never know the difference,” she said honestly, looking unremorseful, but surprisingly full of mischief. Even from what he had seen, she was truly the forgotten woman. No one in her group ever paid any attention to her, or spoke to her, not even her husband. “I had to get away. Sometimes it's very oppressive to be … in my shoes.” She looked up at him, not sure if he had recognized her, and if not, she didn't want to spoil it.

“All shoes are oppressive sometimes,” he said philosophically. His were too at times, but he knew that hers were far more so. And then he looked down at her sympathetically again. Since he had come this far after her, there was no harm in going a little further. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” It was an old line, and they both smiled, and she hesitated for a long moment while she tried to decide if he meant it, or was just being funny, and he saw her hesitation, and smiled warmly. “It was a sincere offer. I'm relatively well behaved, and can at least be trusted for a cup of coffee. I'd suggest my hotel, but they seem to be having a problem.”

She laughed at that, and seemed to relax as she watched him. She knew him from the hotel, in the elevator and at the pool. He was wearing an expensive shirt and it looked clean, and he was wearing suit trousers and good shoes. And something in his eyes told her that he was both respectable and kind, and she nodded. “I'd like a cup of coffee, but not at your hotel,” she said primly, “it's a little too busy for me tonight. How about Montmartre?” she said cautiously, and he grinned. He liked the suggestion.

“That's a great idea. May I offer a cab?” She nodded, and they walked to the nearest taxi stand, and he helped her in, and she gave the address of a bistro she knew that stayed open very late, and had tables out on the sidewalk. It was still a warm night, and neither of them had any desire to go back to the hotel, although they both seemed a little shy with each other. It was she who broke the ice first, as she looked at him with a teasing expression.