“It means I think so. It means I'm more or less regular. It means I haven't slept with anyone for two years so I'm not totally certain if the regularity is regular or only that it hasn't been put to the test.”

He looked incredulous. “You're joking,” he said in a disbelieving voice. “You were joking before, right? Look,” he went on with a quick shrug, “it's none of my business, really.”

She slowly shook her head. “No joke.”

His brows arched in astonishment over narrowed eyes: “Not you, Honeybear.” Not only recent events but carefully preserved memory fostered his incredulity. “Don't expect me to believe that,” he crisply added.

Molly shrugged, innocent of deception, calmly acceptant of her own idiosyncracies. “They have to appeal. I told you and I mean it. And appeal is mystical, esoteric, an inexplicable feeling with me as the only authority.”

“They?” he said with territorial maleness, his black on black eyes piercing, jealous and edged with worldly cynicism.

“He,” she corrected, knowing even with Bart it had never been like it was with Carey. But she wasn't foolish enough to inform him of that fact. “He,” she repeated. “Don't get agitated,” she teased. “I always take men one at a time.”

“That's reassuring,” he mocked. “But not for what-two years?” His skepticism was blatant.

“Nope.”

And that single word inexpressibly gave him more pleasure than a thousand Cannes Film Awards. He didn't realize how moral he could be.

“Unlike you,” Molly returned. And despite her best intentions, an edginess came through. “Your prowess with starlets, models, Italian countesses is world news. Wasn't there a Berber beauty at the last location in Morocco? You see how busy the paparazzi are keeping us titillated Stateside.”

His own good mood restored, Carey reached out to smooth away the hostile line between Molly's pale brows. “Honeybear, I don't care about all those women. They're just there. It goes with the business.”

Mild affront greeted his casual disclaimer and too many photos over too many years colored her reply.

“Don't try to tell me there's no enjoyment in all that adulation.”

“They all want something,” he said, speaking deliberately. “Most of them, anyway,” he added, “and it's not necessarily me. They'll go after anyone who can give them a role, a job, a chance in a film. A lot of those beautiful women have been trained from birth to sniff out the scent of power. Understand? But no one has ever come close to touching what we had. You've always been in my heart, my soul, in hidden corners of my mind.”

“Tell me about Sylvie,” Molly said with impudent bad manners. Until today she'd never allowed herself to deal with the jealousy that had eaten at her when she first saw the wedding pictures splashed across the tabloids. The timing had been disastrous. Bart had just moved out of the house the month before for the first of their trial separations.

Carey grimaced. “A very bad mistake,” he said with rue in his voice. “I should have known better; but I'd turned thirty… thought maybe I should consider settling down. She'd moved into the villa and was… well, insistent.”

“And you married because some pretty German countess was insistent?”

“No, not really. If that was the case, I'd have been married any number of times. But don't forget, love,” he added to forestall the flashes of fire in her eyes, “insistence does play a role occasionally. Remember Bart? Hmmm?”

“Touchй,” Molly admitted, her temper deflected by the reminder.

“You lasted a long time. What-six, seven years?”

“Eight. I was dumb. Stubborn. Believed in marriage till death do us part. And then there was Carrie. She needed a mother and father. Or at least I thought so.”

“What finally changed your mind?” he asked curiously.

Molly sighed. “The proverbial straw was when one of his girlfriends came over to the house to return the wallet Bart had ‘forgotten.' He told me he was going out of town on business. Arizona in winter. The girl had a beautiful tan. At that point, I decided Carrie would have to make do with a one-parent family, anxieties or no anxieties. It was better than having a murderer for a mother.”

“I'm sorry,” Carey said quietly. “I wish I could have been there to help.”

“It probably was better I went through it alone. I grew up beaucoup fast. Finally recognized the frustration as counter-productive, started shifting priorities and revising my notions of marriage to more accurately reflect my reality, not someone else's. I learned to take care of my own life and enjoy the freedom. It was, as they say, educational.”

“And Bart?”

“Bart who?”

“Does your daughter miss him?”

“He was never home much.”

“Oh,” Carey said, startled. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be, or I'll have to be sorry for you and Sylvie,” Molly responded pertly.

Carey broke into a grin. “That would be a great waste of emotion.”

“Ditto, in my case. Underlined, exclamation points.”

“Do you think we made a mistake somewhere down the line, Honeybear?”

“I'd be inclined to conclude perhaps our judgment in spouses had a flaw or two,” she agreed with an easy smile. “Although,” she went on, her tone less facetious, “my marriage wasn't so different from others I knew. None of my friends adored their husbands. No one thought marriage was made in heaven. We all agreed that marriage was a mutual compromise, a great deal of hard work and an occasional sweet, tender moment in a hectic schedule. All the men had their flings, and lots of the wives did, too. That was life. We were mature adults. We read the statistics on marital fidelity and understood life's passages. I didn't expect to have a marriage different from anyone else's. But…” She seemed to reflect for a moment, considering.

“But what?” Carey inquired, wanting to know everything about the years he'd missed: how she felt, what she cared about, how she lived. He stroked her back, for the pleasure of feeling her warmth, for the reassurance.

She propped her chin on the flattened back of her hand, gathered comfort from the solid feel of his chest beneath her palm, and tried to explain her coming of age in America. “I finally decided,” she said very softly, “I wanted more. More, in capital letters. It wasn't a sudden revelation. Just a small germ of an idea that grew and wouldn't be set aside. I realized in the slow evolution of this concept that I didn't care what other people were settling for-the house in the right neighborhood, the new cars, boats, vacations, memberships in the clubs that mattered, the trade-offs for the void in their marriages. I didn't want to be in a marriage that was just okay. Even being alone, I decided couldn't be any worse than ‘just okay.' And hell, I thought, it could be a whole lot better. At least I wouldn't be running into any more girls with winter tans returning my husband's wallet.”

“Was it better?”

“It was great. It was hard work and scary sometimes when the money was low, but independence is primo.”

The warm glow in her eyes was just as he remembered. She was so intensely alive that other women seemed pale in comparison. He used to go through the intellectual games occasionally when his spirits were disastrously low, because thinking of Molly was like popping a pleasure pill. And he'd mentally catalog all her charming assets: her radiant beauty; how she could make him laugh; the way she felt when she clung to him, lush as silk, hot and wanting him with a ferocity that matched his own. And her smile. It was the eighth wonder of the world.

“How independent has your independence become?” he asked cautiously, remembering her fierce streak that had generated many clashes that summer when his own independence met hers. They'd never quite learned to deal with it then.

“I'm not eighteen anymore,” she said and looked him straight in the eye.

“In that case, a quick refresher in the Queensberry rules might be in order.” One dark brow rose in provocative challenge.

“Is that the sound of the bell?” she asked, but her eyes were amused.

“We'll have to see how much you've learned in ten years. How many rounds can you go now before I win?”

“What makes you think you'll win?”

“I always win,” he murmured. Her eyes were emitting little sparks now, so he touched her cheek with a caressing finger and whispered, “Used to win… And,” he said with a grin, “in the interests of future universal harmony, I'd better see that you get home, for your mom and dad and Carrie.” He glanced at the clock. “We'd better fly.”

“What about my car?”

Junk it, I'll get you a new one, he thought. “Someone will drive it back,” he said instead.

“Someone?”

“There's about two hundred people up here on my payroll. I'm sure one of them has a driver's license.”

“What if I say I'll drive myself back?”

Carey smiled. “I'd forgotten how difficult you could be. Don't you like to fly?”

“I'm used to running my own life. You get a taste for it, like rattlesnake meat.” She slid away from him and sat up.

“Okay, okay, no problem… I'll drive back with you and Jess can fly down and pick me up.”

“Carey!”

“Hey,” he responded, wondering what he'd said wrong now. “I'm being understanding as hell. You make your own decision.”

“From a list of your choices?” Molly asked testily.

“Look.” His voice was quiet, his glance placid. “Arrange it anyway you like, only I'm staying with you until you get home because I don't want to miss a minute of our first night together in ten long years. In the morning I've got to shoot come hell or high water. Delays cost eighty thousand a day. You have to work tomorrow, you already primly informed me; your daughter needs you; your mother and father expect you and your banker, who holds your note currently up for renewal, wants his interest money. Only until tomorrow morning, I'm going to stay with you. Now, should we try and eat quickly before we leave? You haven't tasted my fettucini since I learned how to cook and I love you no matter what you say, but keep in mind I outweigh you by at least ninety pounds when you decide how to respond.”