twenty-five-year-olds who are hysterical they haven't gotten married yet, thirty-year-old divorcoes who want someone to pay the rent, and forty-year-old women who are so desperate they scare me to death. I haven't met anyone I was this crazy about in the last twenty years, and I don't intend to sit here and let you tell me you're too old, is that clear, Countess Ossupov?” She smiled at his words, and laughed in spite of herself, as he went on. “And I warn you, I'm a very stubborn man. I intend to pursue you if I have to pitch a tent outside Axelle's shop. Does that sound reasonable to you?”
“Not in the least, Mr. Hirsch. It sounds totally absurd.” But she smiled as she said it.
“Good. I'll order the tent as soon as I get back to New York. Unless, of course, you agree to have dinner with me the night we get back.”
“I haven't seen my children in three weeks.” She laughed at him again. But she had to admit, she liked him a great deal. Perhaps he'd agree to being friends eventually.
“All right then,” he compromised, “the day after that. You can bring your children along too. Perhaps they're more sensible than you are.” He tilted her chin up to him and looked into the green eyes that had stolen his heart from the first moment he'd seen her at Schiaparelli's.
“Don't be so sure,” she was thinking of the children as he spoke, “they're very devoted to their father's memory.”
“That's a good thing,” he spoke quietly, “but you have a right to more than that in your life, and so do they. There's only so much you can do for them. Your son needs a man around, and your little girl probably does too.”
“Perhaps.” She would concede nothing as he walked her home, but he took her by surprise as he kissed her gently on the lips. “Please don't do that again,” she whispered with no conviction whatsoever.
“I won't,” he said as he did it again.
“Thank you.” She smiled dreamily up at him, and a moment later closed the door in his face, as he walked upstairs to his own cabin, with a grin on his face, like a schoolboy.
CHAPTER
37
The romance flourished in spite of her, as they sailed toward New York. They dined and they danced, and they kissed and they talked. And she felt as though she had known him all her life. They had the same interests, the same likes, and even some of the same fears. Axelle left them alone, and chortled to herself as she watched from afar, and on the last night, they stood on the deck and Simon looked sadly down at her.
“I'm going to miss you terribly, Zoya.”
“I'm going to miss you too,” she confessed, “but it's just as well.” She was enjoying herself too much with him and she knew it had to stop, but she no longer remembered exactly why. It had all made sense several days ago, but it no longer did. She wanted to be with him, as much as he wanted her, and now they were going back to New York to lead their own lives again. “We shouldn't have started this, Simon,” she said as he looked at her and smiled.
“I'm in love with you, Zoya Ossupov.” He loved the sound of her Russian name, and still teased her now and then about the title she hated to use, but did for work.
“Don't say things like that, Simon. It will only make things more difficult.”
“I want to marry you.” He said it quietly, without a shred of doubt in his voice, as she looked up at him unhappily.
“That's impossible.”
“No, it's not. Let's go home and tell the children we're in love.”
“That's crazy. We just met.” And she hadn't even let him make love to her yet. She was still frightened, and too bound by her loyalties to her late husband.
“All right. Then let's wait a week.”
She laughed at him and he kissed her again.
“Will you marry me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you're crazy,” she laughed between kisses on the deck. “You might even be dangerous for all I know.”
“I'll be very dangerous if you don't marry me. Have you ever seen a crazed Russian Jew go berserk on an English ship? It could cause an international incident! Think of the people you'll upset … I think you'd better say yes….” He kissed her again.
“Simon, please … be sensible. … You might hate me when you see me again in