“I can't.”

“That's bullshit. Why not?”

“I don't have the time.”

“You're twenty-five years old and you have a problem.”

“It's not one I can't live with.”

“You're not living, you're existing.” But slowly, she was getting angry too. He had no right to make judgments on how she was living, just because she didn't want to make love with him.

“Maybe it'll get better.” But she didn't sound as though she really cared and that disturbed him.

“By itself?” She nodded. “I doubt it.”

“Give it time, Adam. This is only the first time.”

He sat silently for a long time, watching her. He saw more than she wanted. “There's a lot you're not telling me, isn't there?”

She smiled, sphinx-like. “It's not that important, Adam.”

“I don't believe you. I think you live your whole life behind a walled fortress.”

“I used to … a long time ago….”

“Why?”

“Because there used to be a lot of people out to hurt me.”

“And now?”

“I don't let them.”

He looked sorry for her, and leaned down to kiss her with a gentle hand on her shoulder, as they sat on the edge of her unmade bed, where their passion had been so unsuccessful. “I won't hurt you, Hil … I swear …” There were tears in his eyes, and she wished she could feel something for him, but she couldn't. She couldn't feel anything for anyone, and she knew that now, except perhaps if he awoke some unborn passion in her, but she couldn't imagine that either. “I love you …”

She had no answer to those words, and only looked at him sadly. And then he smiled at her and kissed her again. He understood, and that touched her. “It's okay … you don't have to say anything … just let me love you….” He lay her back against the pillows, and gently sculpted her body with one finger, drawing it close to her center, and then moving it away, drifting around her breasts and all the way down her belly, and then up again, touching her with his tongue and his heart and his fingers, but with nothing else, and after hours of it, she was writhing and begging him for something more, but he wouldn't do it. Instead, he let her feel him, and touched her gently with his throbbing organ. He ran it over her like a satin hand, and she bent down and began to kiss it, and touch him gently until he was writhing as she was, and then first with his lips, and then with his fingers, he touched her and felt her grow frightened and rigid.

“It's all right, Hil … it's all right … I won't hurt you … I … please, baby … please let me … please … Oh, God, you're so beautiful …” He crooned to her like a mother with a baby and slowly he Entered her and soothed her until he came, but he knew that she had not joined him. But at least it was a little better. “I'm sorry, Hil …” He wanted more for her, he wanted everything that he felt, but it was too much to ask for.

“Don't be. It was lovely.” She lay quietly beside him, and eventually he slept and she watched him, wondering if she would ever feel for him what he wanted, if she could even feel it for anyone, or if her body was too filled with hatred.

He left the next morning before she dressed for work, and asked her to lunch later that morning, but she said that she was too busy. He wanted to see her that night, but she had a meeting. And in desperation he asked her to join him on Sunday with his boys. They were spending the weekend with him. She looked strangely hesitant over that, as though she were about to say no, but he looked so hurt that she accepted.

“They're great kids, you'll love them.”

“I'm sure I will.” She smiled. But she was filled with trepidation. She had avoided children for years, and she was not anxious to get to know his, or grow too attached to them. She had had her fill of children long since. The only two she had ever loved had been taken from her.

They arranged a meeting place in Central Park, and on Sunday morning she wore jeans, and a T-shirt, and went out to meet him. He had promised to bring the baseballs and the picnic and the children. And as she spotted them beneath a tree, the littlest one on his lap, and the six-year-old sitting beside him, she felt something stir in her heart that was so long gone she almost couldn't bear it. She stopped in her tracks and wanted to run, but she couldn't do that to him. But as she approached it only grew worse. What she saw in his eyes was the kind of love she had had for Megan and Axie.

She never made it to lunch. She watched them throw baseballs for half an hour, and then she pleaded a terrible headache. She ran from the park in tears, and went all the way back to her apartment without stopping for a light or a car or a person.

She lay in bed all day and sobbed, and then forced herself to realize again that Megan and Alexandra were gone from her life forever. She had to make herself remember that. There was no point hanging on to them. No one knew where they were anyway and it would have been close to impossible to find them. There was no point torturing herself now. And they were no longer children, they were women. Alexandra would have been twenty-two by then, and Megan would be seventeen. But there was no point thinking about them anymore. They were no longer lost children, and she was never going to see them again. But she didn't want to see any other children either. She couldn't bear it.

And when the phone began ringing that evening, she quietly took it off the hook and left it there. The next day she acted as though nothing had happened. She was pleasant and businesslike and friendly, and distant and Adam never knew what had hit him. As planned, he was transferred on to sales the following week, and he never went out with Hilary again. She saw to it that they never even ran into each other. And she never took his calls. It was as though none of it had ever happened. And what she didn't know was that he felt sorry for her. But he finally realized that he couldn't help her.

For the next several years Hilary concentrated even harder on her career. She had risen to a higher production position by then and was twenty-seven years old, and she had carefully kept away from all liaisons since her brush with Adam. She was too busy working her way up to want anything else in her life, and all of the men she met seemed to be divorced and have children. Until she met William Brock, CBA's newest anchor. Tall, blond, and handsome, he had been a major football star and had been recently hired by the network. Twice divorced, he had no children, and no desire to have them. He dated his way around the station with gusto, until he got to Hilary, and her ice-like green eyes fascinated him. He treated her with caution and respect, and sent her everything from flowers to a fur coat.

“That was cute, Bill.” She dropped it on his desk, box and all, on her way to her office one morning.

“Not your size, darling?”

“Not my style, Mr. Brock. In every possible way.” She was not given to romances at the office, or anywhere else for that matter, and becoming a notch on Bill Brock's belt was the last thing she wanted. He invited her to Honolulu for a week, Jamaica for a weekend, skiing in Vermont, dinner at the Côte Basque, and anything else he could think of. But he didn't stand a chance, until one stormy night, when she couldn't get a cab home and he gave her a lift in his Ferrari. He started heading downtown from the network, and Hilary tapped him on the shoulder. “Nice try, Bill. I live on Fifty-ninth Street.”

“I live on Fifth Avenue and Eleventh.”

“Congratulations, now take me home, or do I have to get out and walk?” She wasn't kidding and he skidded to a stop, but before she could say anything further, he kissed her.

“Your place or mine, Madame Producer, or shall we do something really crazy and go to the Plaza?” She laughed at his outrageous spirit, and demanded that he take her home, but she was no longer surprised when he stopped on the way, to take her to dinner. They stopped for a hamburger at one of his favorite hangouts, and she was surprised at how intelligent he was, beneath the playboy veneer, and the overdeveloped male body. “And you, pretty lady? What makes you tick behind those green eyes that look like emeralds?”

“Ambition.” He was the first person she had been that honest with, but for some reason she thought he'd understand that.

“I've had a taste of that myself. It's addictive once you get started.”

“I know it.” But it was all she had to keep her going … getting to the top so that nothing could ever get to her again. She wouldn't feel safe till she got there. But that she didn't explain to him. “There's nothing like it, is there? Were you sorry to give up football, Bill?”

“Sort of. It's a great game, but I got tired of having my knees kicked around and my nose broken. You can't take that kind of abuse forever.” He smiled at her in just the way that melted most women's hearts, and points south, paid the check, and escorted her back to his Ferrari. He dropped her off at her place without a fight, and she was almost sorry as she let herself into her apartment. Somehow, she had expected a little more than that, an attempt at least, something. She was already undressed and in her nightgown, half an hour later, when the bell rang.

“Who is it?” she asked on the intercom.

“Bill. I forgot to ask you something about the show tomorrow.” She frowned and then grinned. He sounded sincere but it was probably a ploy. She decided to keep it that way, and let him stand in the snow while he talked to her.

“What is it?”

“What?”

“I said what is it?”

“I can't hear you!” He started to buzz frantically and she tried to outshout him on the intercom and then finally gave up, and buzzed him in. If it was a ruse, she would put him in place, and quickly. She was waiting in the doorway when he came up, red-faced, smiling, and covered with the snow that was still falling. “Something's wrong with your intercom.” He was out of breath and devastatingly handsome.