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generosity and kindness. Sending her the puppy was a loving gesture and she knew it had been well meant. For all his wild ways, he was a good-hearted person. The moment Eugénie left the room, Sasha picked up the phone. She got him in his studio, on his cell phone.

“I can't believe you did this. You are totally insane. And you spent a fortune, Liam. What am I going to do with a dog?”

“You need someone to keep you company. Or at least while I'm in London. Is she all right?” He ignored the comment about what he'd spent. That was none of her business. He had wanted to spoil her. She deserved that and more, in his eyes.

“She's wonderful. Liam, that's the sweetest thing anyone's ever done.”

“I'm glad.” He sounded pleased. He had been a little worried she would be furious, and was immensely relieved that she wasn't. She was still in shock. “What are you going to call her?”

“Socks,” Sasha said, sounding delighted, and Liam laughed out loud.

“That's perfect. Now I won't have to wear mine. She can just wear hers.” He remembered the four matched snow-white paws.

“You are a totally silly person. And this is probably the craziest thing anyone in my life has ever done.”

“Good. You need a little confusion in your life. You need some nice surprises, and a little less control.” As he said it, Socks looked up at her new mistress with interest, squatted, and peed on the rug again. It was obvious to Sasha that she no longer had any control at all. Neither over him, herself, and surely not over the dog. The puppy was only eight weeks old, and wouldn't be housebroken for months. She was going to have to roll up her rugs at home.

“She was a wonderful surprise, Liam. I'm still a little stunned.” She wasn't even sure how to react, or why he had done it. But she appreciated the gesture nonetheless.

“I was wondering if I could come and see her this weekend. Now don't get nervous. I'm not coming to see you. Just the dog.”

Sasha hesitated, and there was a long moment of silence at her end. He hadn't sent the puppy to pressure her, it had been an outpouring of love for her. Now that he'd been to Paris to visit her, he realized how lonely her life really was. The silence and solitude in her house had made him sad for her. He thought the little dog might help. And if she let him, he wanted to help, too. “I don't know,” Sasha said honestly. “Liam, I'm scared. It's just too crazy if we get involved. I think we'd both regret it in the end.” Particularly she would, if he found a woman closer to his age, after she fell head over heels in love with him. She could easily imagine him with a twenty-five- or thirty-year-old, rather than a woman her age. An affair between them, from her point of view, could only come to a bad end.

“It doesn't have to be that way. Sasha, stop being so obsessed about my age.”

“It's not just that. It's everything. I represent you. If this goes sour, it could screw up our whole working relationship. You're not divorced. You could go back to Beth any day. I'm nine years older than you are, you should be with a woman half my age. You want to be a wacky artist, and my life is so conservative and boring, it would drive you insane.” These days it even bored her. Besides, she couldn't take him anywhere without feeling foolish, and she had no idea how he would behave, but she didn't say that to him. “There is absolutely no part of this that makes sense.”

“Does love always have to make sense?” he asked, sounding disappointed. She ticked off her list of concerns like deal points in a contract she was refusing to sign. But that was how her life worked, and how she saw it.

“It should make sense. Relationships are hard enough without taking two people who are as radically different as we are, and trying to make it work. I just don't think we can. And besides, this isn't love, it's physical attraction. It's some kind of insane chemistry that makes me lose my mind whenever you're around.”

“You didn't lose your mind this weekend,” he reminded her. “I wish you had. But you didn't. I thought we were very well behaved,” he said proudly.

“And just how long