one of the most desirable men in New York, and one of the most successful. Even here, in an out-of-the-way restaurant, people recognized him, and nodded recognition, and the headwaiter had considered it a real coup when he saw them. Sam Parker was one of the biggest fish on Wall Street.
“Why are you so patient with me?” he asked, as they ordered dessert and he ordered the restaurant's only bottle of Chateau d'Yquem at two hundred and fifty dollars a bottle.
“I told you,” she lowered her voice conspiratori-ally, “because I love you.”
“You're crazy,” he said, as he leaned over and kissed her. And then he toasted her with the Yquem. “To Simon's little cousin,” he said harmlessly, but what he wanted to say was “To the love of my life,” but he didn't. It would have been too disloyal to Alex. How could this happen to him? How could Alex get cancer and he fall in love with someone else all at once? It never dawned on him that the two events were related.
“I'm going to be very grateful to Simon one day,” he said conspiratorially, and she laughed.
“Or very angry. That's the bad thing about all this foreplay. You're building up an awful lot of expectations about me. I might turn out to be very disappointing.”
“Not likely,” he said confidently, aching to make love to her right then. Every moment they spent together was a tantalizing caress that tortured his body.
He walked her all the way home afterwards, but as always, he refused to go upstairs with her. They lingered forever, kissing on the doorstep, with her caressing him, and his hands covering every inch of her body.
“We might as well go upstairs, you know,” she tried to entice him with her lips and her hands, and he was about to burst with desire. “I think it might be a great relief to the neighbors.”
“It would be a great relief to me, I can promise you. I'm not sure how much longer I can stand this,” he said, kissing her again in desperation.
“Not long, I hope, sweet Sam,” she whispered in his ear, as her hands gripped his buttocks and pressed him to her. His body found her hot and throbbing against him, and he shuddered with desire when he realized she wasn't wearing any underwear, even in the cold November wind of a New York winter. It took all the strength he had to resist her.
“You're killing me,” he said, laughing hoarsely with the delicious agony of it. “And you'll catch pneumo-ma.
“Then you'd better keep me warm, Sam.”
“Oh God, how I want to.” He closed his eyes and pressed her against him.
He finally managed to tear himself away from her, though with ever greater difficulty, and he walked the twenty-five blocks home to regain his senses. It was nearly midnight by then, and Alex was dead to the world with the light on. He stood looking at her for a long time, silently apologizing to her, but his heart longed for Daphne, not Alex. He quietly turned off the light, and went to bed. And it was six o'clock in the morning when he woke to a strange grating sound. It was rasping and mechanical, and it went on and on and on, and no attempt to ignore it would keep him asleep. At first he thought it was a machine, and then he thought it might be the alarm, and then some crazy sense told him the elevator might be broken. But no matter what, the sound wouldn't stop, and when he finally woke up and turned over, he realized that it was Alex, vomiting and retching uncontrollably in the bathroom.
He lay there for a little while, not sure if he should bother her or not, and then finally, he got up, and stood in the doorway.
“Are you all right?” For a long time she didn't answer, and then finally, she nodded.
“Great, thanks.” She hadn't lost her sense of humor, but she still couldn't stop retching.
“Is it something you ate?” Even now, he still had denial.
“I think it's the chemo.”
“Call the doctor.”
She nodded and went on vomiting, and he went to shower in the guest bathroom. He came back half an hour later, and she had stopped and was lying on the bathroom floor with a cold cloth on her head, and her eyes closed.
“You're not pregnant, are you?”
She kept her eyes closed and shook her head. She didn't even have the energy to insult him. She