Annette, however, was content with Saigon. “I’m not about to go wandering around,” she said, “and get shot by a Vietcong sniper.”

Thomas asked her why she’d made this trip to Saigon alone.

She lit a cigarette, a recent habit she’d acquired. “Benjamin had meetings in Boston. He says he’ll join me as soon as he can, but I’m not going to hold my breath.”

She sounded petulant, and Thomas automatically sought to reassure her-patronizing on his part, he supposed, but he couldn’t resist. And it was what she seemed to want. He said, “I’m sure Benjamin doesn’t want to leave you here alone.”

“I’m almost thirty-four-hardly a baby.” She smiled suddenly and reached across the linen-covered table, brushing a long, manicured finger over the top of Thomas’s hand. “Besides, you’ll take care of me, won’t you, Thomas? You always have.”

She had deliberately misconstrued his comment. He had only meant that Benjamin, being her husband and caring about her, wouldn’t want to be apart from his wife any longer than necessary-not that Annette required protection from him or anyone else. Still, Thomas was amused and flattered that a woman nineteen years his junior-who’d called him a “proper prig” often enough-was bored enough to flirt with him. He’d been too busy and too angered and far too depressed by the developments in Southeast Asia to indulge in flirtations. And this one was harmless enough. Situated between Stephen and Thomas Blackburn in age, Benjamin had become friends to both men. In any event, Thomas could remember Annette when he was first married and she barely toilet-trained.

After dinner they went for a long walk, up to the basilica of Our Lady of Peace at the top of Tu Do Street and over to the French Embassy, then back to his apartment. The evening was quiet and warm, relentlessly romantic. Thomas felt a familiar loneliness stinging at him.

Annette’s hotel was just across the street, but he relented when she wanted to come up for a nightcap. It wasn’t much of an apartment, he explained, not apologizing, just a couple of rooms, a balcony, simple furnishings and hundreds of books. She loved it.

“I get so sick of Boston,” she said, running her fingers along the spines of a row of books. “All the meaningless cocktail parties, the agonizingly boring luncheons, Friday afternoons at the symphony-sometimes I could just scream. I want to do something with my life, Thomas, not just drop dead in a plate of crabmeat salad.”

“So-do something.”

“Like what?”

He laughed and poured two glasses of brandy. “Annette, that’s up to you.”

She grinned at him. “Maybe I’ll become a nun.”

“What would Benjamin say?”

“Oh, he wouldn’t care.” She spun away from the books and took the offered brandy. “He doesn’t want me anymore.”

Thomas felt awkward. “Annette-”

“We haven’t had sex in over six months.” Sipping her brandy, she looked at him dead-on over the rim of her glass, not even blushing as she enjoyed his obvious discomfort. “Does my language offend you?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I just never know what to make of you, Annette-what you’ll say or do next. Even when you were a little girl, you were unfathomable. Totally unpredictable.”

She shrugged. “I’m selfish and like to have my own way.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“And I want to be loved, Thomas,” she said, her voice cracking.

He cleared his throat. “A human predicament, I’m afraid.”

She sniffed and suddenly said, “What would you do if I stripped myself naked right now?”

Thomas was too shocked to speak.

She laughed, delighted with his reaction. And she put down her brandy and began to unbutton her blouse, slowly.

“Annette, don’t.”

“When I was about fourteen or fifteen,” she said, “I used to walk past your house and think about what it would be like to have you touch my breasts. Then as I got older, I wanted to feel your tongue on my nipples. Does that horrify you, Thomas?” She had her blouse completely unbuttoned and pulled it out of her skirt, so that it fell open. She had on a full slip and a lacy bra, but he could see the dark peaks of her nipples straining under the double layers of thin fabric. She smiled, her impossibly blue eyes shining with tears. “I’m awful, I know.”

“No, you’re not, Annette. You’re in a strange country, you’re confused-”

“I’m not confused. I know exactly what I want.”

“Annette…”

She peeled the straps of her slip off her smooth shoulders and down to her elbows, then wriggled free so that the bodice of the slip fell to her waist. A light film of perspiration shone on her bare midriff and arms. Her bra was lacy and expensive, and she unclasped it before Thomas had a decent chance to work up another protest.

Her breasts were full and well-shaped, her nipples very dark and erect. She dropped the bra onto the floor.

“Benjamin’s asking me for a divorce.”

Tears were streaming down her cheeks. It was so quiet in the warm, humid apartment Thomas could hear himself breathing.

“Make love to me, Thomas,” Annette whispered. “Please don’t turn me away.”

Distressed by his own evident arousal, Thomas nonetheless put down his brandy, swept up her bra and handed it back to her. “I’ll take you back to your hotel.”

“No!”

With a suddenness and fierceness that surprised him, she grabbed his hand and jerked him toward her, placing his palm on the soft swell of one breast.

“Love me,” she begged. “Please…Thomas, please!”

He tore his hand away. “Not like this, Annette. I’d hate myself for taking advantage of you. And you’d hate yourself.” His eyes bored through her. “We’ll forget this happened.”

She calmly put on her bra. “I won’t forget.”

She didn’t. The next night she was back in his apartment, and the next. Not stripping herself or begging, but telling him how her marriage had crumbled in the last year, how lonely she was, how determined to be a good mother to Quentin despite the impending divorce.

“I’ll get custody, of course,” she said. “And we’ll try to keep the publicity to a minimum. Benjamin and I just aren’t temperamentally suited to each other. There’s no point in preserving a bankrupt relationship.”

“I’m sorry, Annette. I like both you and Benjamin very much.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s for the best-really.” She gave him a brave smile that faltered after a few seconds. “I’m just afraid men won’t be attracted to me anymore. I know I’m not a ravishing beauty-”

“Don’t. You’re a lovely woman.”

She raised her eyes to him. “Then why did you reject me?”

He smiled. “Not because I wasn’t tempted, I assure you.”

It was all she needed to hear.

The next night, she brought Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington records, and they played them on his old record player and danced in his living room until midnight…and made love until dawn.

They were together every night for the rest of her ten-day visit to Saigon, and as much as Thomas was infatuated with her youth and optimism and smart-alecky ways, he couldn’t shake the feeling that what they were doing was wrong. Annette was still a married woman. There’d been no formal separation, much less a divorce. He felt she should extricate herself from one relationship before launching another, but remembering Jean-Paul Gerard, realized the idea of adultery wasn’t one that troubled her.

It was with both relief and sorrow that Thomas saw her off.

She promised she’d be back. “I adore you, Thomas,” she said, kissing him at the airport, opening her mouth even as he struggled to pull away.

But it wasn’t Annette who returned two weeks later; it was Benjamin Reed. He announced that his wife was now vice president of their company, and Winston & Reed had just landed a lucrative contract with the American government.

“Annette says we’ll make a fortune if there’s war in Indochina,” Benjamin remarked blithely.