“You couldn't know his brother would be killed, or that he'd be dragged into it,” Peter said fairly.

“Maybe that's just an excuse, maybe it would have all fallen apart anyway. Who knows.” She shrugged, and looked away, out the window. The fishing boats looked like toys dotting the horizon. “It's so beautiful here …I wish I could stay here forever.” She sounded as though she meant it.

“Do you?” he asked gently. “If you leave him, will you come back here?” He wanted to know where to imagine her, where to see her in his mind's eye, when he thought of her during long, cold winter nights in Greenwich.

“Maybe,” she answered, still unsure of so many things. She knew she still had to go back to Paris and talk to Andy, though she was reluctant to do that. Having let the kidnapping myth grow for two days, she could just imagine the circus he would make of it when she got back to Paris.

“I talked to my wife yesterday,” Peter said quietly, while Olivia sat thinking in silence about her husband. “It was strange talking to her, after everything we said the other night. I've always defended everything she did …and her relationship with her father, although I didn't really like it. But after talking to you, it suddenly irks me.” He was so honest with her, so able to say anything he felt. She was so open, so deep, and yet she was cautious not to hurt him, and he sensed it. “She had dinner with him the other night. She had lunch with him yesterday. She's going to spend two months with him this summer, day and night. Sometimes I feel as though she's married to him, and not to me. I guess I've always felt that. The only thing I've consoled myself with is that we have a good life, our sons are great, and her father lets me do what I want in the business.” Oddly enough, it had seemed like so much for so long, and now suddenly it didn't.

“Does he let you do what you want?” She pressed him now, as she hadn't dared to in Paris. But this time he had brought up the subject. And now they knew each other better. His coming to La Favière had brought him even closer to her.

“Frank pretty much does let me do what I want. Most of the time.” He went no further. They were on dangerous ground. She was ready to leave Andy for reasons of her own, but he had no desire to rock his domestic boat with Katie. Of that much he was certain.

“And if Vicotec goes bad in the tests they're doing now? What will he do then?”

“Continue to stand behind it, I hope. We'll just have to do more research, although it will certainly be expensive.” That was the understatement of all time, but he couldn't imagine Frank backing down now. He thought Vicotec was brilliant. They'd just have to tell the FDA they weren't ready.

“We all make compromises,” Olivia said quietly. “The only problem is when we think we've made too many. Maybe you have or maybe it doesn't matter, as long as you're happy. Are you?” she asked, with enormous eyes. She wasn't asking as a woman, but only as his friend now.

“I think so.” He looked puzzled suddenly. “I always thought so, but to be honest, Olivia, listening to you, I wonder. I've given in on so many things. Where we live, where the boys go to school now, where we spend our summers. And then I think, so what, who cares? The trouble is maybe I do. And maybe I wouldn't even give a damn if Katie were there for me, but all of a sudden I listen to her and I realize she's not there. She's either out at a committee meeting somewhere, doing something for the lads or herself, or with her father. It's been that way for a while, at least since the boys left for boarding school, or maybe even before that. But I've been so busy, I never let myself notice. But all of a sudden, after eighteen years, there's no one for me to talk to. I'm here talking to you, in a fishing village in France, and I'm telling you things I could never tell her …because I can't trust her. That's a very damning statement,” he said sadly, “and yet …” He looked up at her pointedly, and reached across the table for Olivia's hand. “I don't want to leave her. I've never even thought of it. I can't imagine leaving her, or a life other than the one I share with her, and our boys …but all of a sudden I realize something I've never known, or dared to face before. I'm all alone now.” Olivia nodded silently. It was something she was more than familiar with, and something she had suspected about Peter since the first time they'd talked in Paris. But she felt sure that he'd been unaware of it. Things had just rolled along until suddenly he found himself in a place he had never expected. And then he looked at Olivia with the ultimate honesty, yet another thing he had discovered about himself in the last two days. “No matter how I felt, or how she let me down, I'm not sure I'd ever have the guts to leave her. There'd be so much to unravel.” Even thinking about starting his life all over again seriously depressed him.

“It wouldn't be easy,” Olivia said quietly, thinking of herself and still holding his hand. She didn't think less of him because of what he was saying to her. On the contrary, she thought more of him, because he was able to say it. “It terrifies me too. But at least you have a life with her, as flawed as it may be. She's there, she talks to you, she cares in her own way, even if she is limited, or too attached to her father. But she must have loyalty to you too, and to your children. You have a life together, Peter, even if it is less than perfect. Andy and I have nothing. We haven't in years. He's been gone, almost since the beginning.” Peter suspected that it was more than true and he didn't try to defend him.

“Then maybe you should leave.” He worried about her now though, she seemed so vulnerable and so frail. He didn't like to think of her alone, even here, in her quaint little village. He kept thinking how painful it was going to be not seeing her again. After only two days, she had become important to him, and he couldn't imagine what it would be like not talking to her. The legend he had glimpsed in the elevator had become a woman.

“Could you go back to your parents for a while, until things calm down again, and then come back here?” He was trying to help her work things out, and she smiled at him. They truly were friends, partners in crime now.

“Maybe. I'm not sure my mother would be strong enough to handle it, particularly if my father tries to fight me, and sides with Andy.”

“How pleasant.” Peter looked instantly disapproving. “Do you think he would do that?”

“He might. Politicians usually stick together. My brother agrees with anything Andy does, just on principle. And my father always supports him. It's nice for them, rotten for the rest of us. And my father thinks Andy should run for president. I don't suppose my defection would be viewed with approval. It's bound to hurt his chances, or knock him out of the race completely. A divorced president is unthinkable. Personally, I think I'd be doing him a favor. I think that's one job that would be a nightmare. A life from hell. I have no doubt in my mind about that one. It would kill me.” He nodded, amazed to be discussing this with her at all. As complicated as his own life was, particularly with Vicotec blowing in the wind, it was certainly a lot simpler than hers was. At least his life was private. But her every move was scrutinized. And no one in his family had the remotest intention of running for public office, except Katie for the school board. Olivia, on the other hand, was related to a governor, a senator, a congressman, and possibly a president in the not too distant future, provided she didn't leave him. It was amazing.

“Do you think you might stay, if he decides to run, I mean?”

“I don't see how I could. It would be the ultimate sellout. But I suppose anything is possible. If I lose my mind, or he has me bound and gagged and put in a closet. He could tell people I was sleeping.” Peter smiled at that, and they walked slowly out of the restaurant arm in arm after he paid for their breakfast. He was surprised by how cheap the food was.

“If he did that, then I'd have to come and rescue you again,” he said with a grin, as they sat down on the dock and dangled their feet over the water. He was still wearing a white shirt and the trousers to his suit, and she was still barefoot. They made an intriguing contrast.

“Is that what you did this time?” she asked, leaning against him easily with a broad grin. “Rescue me?” She looked pleased by the description. No one had rescued her in years, and it was a welcome gesture.

“I thought I was …you know, from kidnappers, or terrorists, whoever that guy in the white shirt was who followed you out of the Place Vendôme. He looked like a really shady character to me. I definitely thought a rescue was in order.” He was smiling at her, and the sun was hot as it shone down on them, swinging their feet as they sat on the dock like children.

“I like that,” she said, and suggested they go back to the beach. “We could walk to my hotel and go swimming from there.” But he laughed at that. He was certainly not dressed to swim in his trousers. “We could buy you some shorts or swimming trunks. It's a shame to waste this weather.”

He looked at her wistfully. It was a shame to waste any of it, but there were limits to what they had a right to. “I should be getting back to Paris. It took me almost ten hours to get here.”

“Don't be ridiculous. You can't come all this way just for breakfast. Besides, you have nothing to do there except wait to hear from Suchard, and he may not even call you. You can call the hotel for messages and call him from here if you have to.”

“That certainly takes care of it,” he said, laughing at her rapid disposal of his obligations.

“You could rent a room in my hotel, and we could both drive back tomorrow,” she said matter-of-factly, putting off their departure for another day, but Peter wasn't at all sure he should let her do that, though the invitation was more than tempting.