But he was intrigued by her too. He was fascinated by her intelligent, thoughtful analyses, her perception of a situation from three hundred and sixty degrees. She saw all sides and expressed the risks and the advantages brilliantly. Together, they had put together a most impressive package for his clients. The deal had been made, and the company had done brilliantly and been sold for an astronomical amount five years later. By the time Sam and Alex met, he had a reputation for being a young genius. But she was gaining a powerful reputation too, though she was building solidly and more slowly than Sam was.

Sam's business allowed for more glitter and dazzle, and he liked that about it. He thrived on the high life, and the enormous power of his high-flying clients. In fact, the first time he took Alex out, he borrowed one of his clients' private jets and took her to Los Angeles for the world series. They'd stayed at the Bel-Air, in separate rooms, and he'd taken her to Chasen's and L'Orangerie for dinner.

“Do you do this for everyone?” she had asked, amazed at all his little attentions. She was more than a little in awe of Sam. She'd had one serious relationship with a boy her own age at Yale, and nothing but a series of meaningless dates during her brutally hardworking years in law school. The relationship while she was at Yale had dissipated by her junior year, and he had long since gotten married. But Alex didn't have time for relationships. She wanted to work hard and be someone. She wanted to be the best lawyer in her law firm. And Sam's wild flash and dash didn't quite fit with that profile. She could see herself with attorneys like the ones in her firm, who had gone to Yale Law School, like her, or Harvard, sober, quiet guys, who spent a lifetime as partners of Wall Street law firms. In his own way, Sam Parker was a wild man, a cowboy. But he was great-looking, nice to her, and fun to be with. It was hard to remind herself that he wasn't really what she wanted. Who wouldn't want Sam? He was smart, gorgeous, and he had a terrific sense of humor. She would have had to be crazy not to want him.

They had driven to Malibu before they left L.A., and walked along the beach, talking about their families, and their lives, and their futures. Sam's experiences had been interesting, and very different from Alex's. He had said, almost casually, but with a tense look in his jaw, that his mother had died when he was fourteen, and he had been sent to boarding school, because his father didn't know what else to do with him. He had hated boarding school, detested the kids, and missed his parents. And while he was away at school, his father seemed to have drunk himself to death and spent the last of his money. He died when Sam was in his senior year, though Sam didn't tell Alex what he had died of. Sam had gone to college then on the small amount of money his grandparents had left him. His parents had left him nothing. He'd gone to Harvard and done well, and he didn't say anything to Alex about being lonely when he was in college. He made it sound like a great time, though thinking about it, she knew that it must have been rough for him to have no family at all by the time he was seventeen. But it didn't seem to have hurt him.

After Harvard undergraduate, he had eventually moved on to Harvard Business School, and had been totally enamored with venture capital. He'd found a job the minute he graduated, and in the eight years since he had made fortunes for several of his clients.

“And what about you?” she had asked quietly, watching his eyes as they walked along the beach at sunset. “There's more to life than venture capital and Wall Street.” She wanted to get to know him better. She had just had the most exciting weekend of her life, and she hadn't even slept with him. She wanted to know more about Sam Parker before they disappeared back to their own lives after they left California.

“Is there more to life than Wall Street?” he laughed, slipping an arm around her. “No one's ever told me. What is there, Alex?” He had stopped walking and looked down at her. He was enormously taken with her, even then, but a little bit afraid to show it. Her long red hair had been flying in the breeze, her green eyes looked deep into his and made him feel a stirring he had never felt before. In some ways, it scared him.

“What about people? Relationships?” She knew he had never been married, but she didn't know more than that. She assumed, just looking at him, and watching his easy style, that he must have had hundreds of girlfriends.

“No time for those,” Sam teased, as he pulled her a little closer and they continued walking. “I'm too busy.”

“And too important?” she asked pointedly, fearing that he might be conceited. He certainly had every reason to be, but so far she hadn't seen it.

“Who said that? I'm not important, I'm just having a good time.”

“Everyone knows who you are,” she said matter-of-factly, “even here. Los Angeles, New York …Silicon Valley, for sure …Tokyo …where else? Paris? London? Rome? It's a pretty big picture.”

“And not exactly a correct one. I work hard, that's all. So do you. No big deal.” He shrugged his shoulders and smiled down at her, but they both knew there was a lot more to it than he admitted.

“I don't fly to California in my clients' planes, Sam. My clients come to me by cab. If they're lucky. The rest of them come by subway.” She grinned and he laughed.

“Okay, so mine are luckier. Maybe I am too. Maybe I won't be lucky forever. Like my father.”

“Are you afraid of that happening to you too? Losing everything?” It was an intriguing side to him, and clearly a motivating factor.

“Maybe. But he was a fool … a nice fool …but a fool. I think it killed him when my mother died. He gave up. He lost his grip, he was like that when she was sick too. He loved her so much that he just couldn't handle it when she went. It killed him.” He had long since decided that he would never let that happen to him. He would never love anyone enough to let them pull him down with them.

“It must have been awful for you,” Alex said sympathetically, “you were so young.”

“You grow up fast when you're the only one you have,” he said soberly, and then he smiled sadly, “or maybe you never do. My friends say I'm still a kid. I think I like that. It keeps me from getting too serious. There's no point getting too serious in life. It's no fun when you start to do that.” But Alex was, she was serious about her work, and her life. She had lost her parents by then too, although less dramatically than Sam had. But in her case, it had sobered her, made her feel more responsible. She had to be more grown up, more alert about her career, more intense about her work. It was as though she felt obligated to live up to their expectations of her, even now that they were gone. Her father had been an attorney too, and he had been so happy when she'd gone to law school. And she wanted to be the best attorney she could now, for him, even though he wasn't there to see her do it.

They were both only children, they both had important careers, they both had a lot of friends, which for both of them replaced family in some ways, though Alex spent a lot of time with friends of her parents', and families of her friends from law school. Sam's friends were mostly bachelors, people he worked with, clients, or women he'd gone out with.

He had kissed Alex for the first time on their walk down the beach in Malibu, and he had slept most of the way back to New York, with his head on her shoulder. She had looked down at him pensively, thinking that he looked like a long, lanky boy as he lay there beside her, but she was also thinking how much she liked him. Too much probably. She wondered if she would ever hear from him again, if this was a beginning or an interlude for him. It was hard to tell with Sam, and he had admitted that there was a young off-Broadway actress he was currently going out with.

“How come you didn't take her to L.A.?” Alex had asked candidly, shy, but never afraid to ask important questions. It was too much a part of her makeup not to.

“She was busy,” he said honestly, “and I thought it would be more interesting to get to know you.” He hesitated and then turned to Alex with a smile that melted her heart in spite of her best efforts not to let it. “To tell you the truth, I didn't ask her. I knew she had rehearsals all weekend, and she hates baseball. And I really wanted to be with you.”

“Why?” Alex had no idea how beautiful she was when she asked him.

“You're the smartest girl I've ever met … I like talking to you. You're bright and you're exciting, and you're not exactly hard to look at.”

He had kissed her again when he dropped her off at her apartment, but there was no commitment in the kiss, no promise. It was quick and casual, and in a moment the cab was gone, and Alex felt strangely let down as she walked into her apartment with her suitcase. She had had a wonderful time, but she figured that he was in a hurry to get back to his off-Broadway girlfriend. It had been wonderful, but she knew it didn't mean anything. It was just another fun weekend in the life of Sam Parker. She didn't think there was much room in his life for Alex Andrews.

Until he sent her a dozen red roses at the office the next day, and called her that afternoon and asked her to dinner. Their romance began in earnest after that, and in spite of the heavy cases she had to prepare, she could hardly concentrate on her work during her four-month courtship with Sam.

He asked her to marry him on Valentine's Day, almost four months to the day of the first time he'd taken her out to dinner. She was twenty-six by then and Sam was thirty-three. They got married in June, in a small church in Southampton, with two dozen of their closest friends in attendance. Neither of them had families, but their friends provided the warmth and celebration to make it an extraordinary day. They had gone to Europe on their honeymoon, and stayed in hotels that Alex had only read of. They went to Paris and Monaco, and spent a romantic weekend in Saint-Tropez. Sam had a client who was dating a minor movie star there, so they had a fabulous time, and went to a party on a yacht and sailed to Italy and back by morning.