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in particular, and then she surprised him and herself by telling him about her conversation the night before with Tatianna. She hadn't intended to tell him, but somehow, before she could stop herself, she did.

“I don't know why I just told you that,” she said, looking embarrassed. “Maybe I wanted you to know I stood up for you after all. Too late for us, but not too late for you. The stupid thing is that Tatianna backed down as soon as I took a hard line with her.” She looked apologetically at Liam. “I just wasn't ready to do it in July. Maybe I should have. And I know it's what you needed me to do. But at least I did it now.” She wasn't telling him to impress him, she just wanted him to know that she had finally defended his honor, and her own.

“It's all right, Sasha,” he said gently. “I understand. You were in a tough spot. We both were. It's funny how those things happen sometimes. Everything collides at once, the past, the present, the future. New people, old people, ghosts from the past. I get confused sometimes between my family and other people. It just hit a lot of buttons for me. She's just a kid, and she's your kid. I should have understood that. I do now. But it took me a long time. Too long,” he said sadly.

“Thank you for being nice about it,” she said with a smile. “I know it was awful for you. It was hard for me, too, but you're right. She's my kid. And the truth is, as far as you're concerned, she's an adult and didn't act like one. Maybe we all act like children sometimes.”

“I make a point of it,” he said with a rueful grin, and they both laughed. “In fact, I take pride in it. I've made a lifetime career of being immature.”

“What brought that on?” she asked, looking amused. He was funny sometimes. As she looked at him, she realized again how much she had missed him in the last four months, and always would.

“Old age, I think. I'm turning forty-one.” Listening to him, she groaned.

“Please, don't tell me your sob stories. I'm turning fifty in May. Shit, how did I get this old?” And this stupid, she wanted to add. Suddenly she wished she had confronted Tatianna in July, but the timing wasn't right for her, and wasn't in the cards at the time.

“You're not old, Sasha. You're still young and beautiful. I don't know why everyone gets so cranked up about their age. I do too. I keep wanting to pretend I'm a kid, and I'm not. I'm growing up, much as I hate to admit it. I don't know why we think youth is so wonderful. If I remember mine correctly, it sucked. So did my judgment then. Things are better now.”

“I wish I could say the same.” She sat back against the banquette and looked at him. It was odd. They had gone from lovers to art dealer and artist, and maybe now, in the end, they'd wind up friends. She could talk to him better and more easily than she could to anyone she knew. Except maybe Xavier. But he was her son. There were things she could admit to Liam that she would never say to him. “Sometimes I think the older I get, the less I know.”

“You know a lot. You're the smartest person I know, about a lot of things. And the best damn art dealer in the world.”

“We make a good team,” she said, and then caught herself, realizing what she'd said, and suddenly embarrassed. She didn't want him to think she was pursuing him. She wasn't. She was making a concerted effort not to, which wasn't easy. “About art, I mean.”

“We didn't do so badly at other things. Most of the time. We just got out of whack sometimes.” It was a mild understatement, from Sasha's point of view. Out of the eleven months they'd known each other, they'd been separated twice, for a total of six months, which meant that most of the time, they didn't get along.

“You're being generous,” she said, and then finished her tea. They had sat in the bar at the Carlyle for two hours. It was time to go home. They couldn't drag it out any longer, the bar was closing.

The doorman hailed a cab for them, and he dropped her off at her place. She would