The drive up into the hills was glorious. The day was bright and clear, and Eric took his time, entranced by the rugged landscape studded with the ruins of many ages. The road went higher, the temperature dropped, and he stopped to put on a sweater. The view was magnificent: the snow-capped Pyrenees seemed very close.

San Lorenzo turned out to be a small town with a large fortress-like outer wall and a distinct medieval flavor, perched dramatically on the edge of an ancient volcanic rise. Remnants of a ruined Romanesque church and castle guarded the entrance to its narrow streets, so narrow, in fact, that several times he was forced to labor the car around in a U-turn and retreat. Few people were on the streets, and those who were stared at him without expression. As he rounded the blank side wall of a two-story building, he saw why.

In front of him, in the tiny main square he’d inadvertently blundered into, were assembled most of the town’s two hundred or so inhabitants, surrounded by produce and animals both dead and alive. It was market day. The last piece of civilization before Talmidge’s place, thought Eric. Better check it out.

An attempt to leave his car in a pocket of shade against one wall of the square appeared not to be popular with two old women selling vegetables, so he drove several streets away and tucked it under an overhang of foliage and stone and walked back.

To Eric, the scene seemed as ageless as the ruins he had so often glimpsed from behind the wheel that morning. Men and women dressed in an assortment of dark-colored garments bargained and socialized at makeshift tables which held comestibles of all sorts. Children chewed chunks of bread and chased each other round the dried-up fountain in front of the small stone church. Two young bloods sporting U2 T-shirts lounged outside what was obviously the in place in town for vino and tapas. A chipped hand-painted sign proclaimed its name to be “El Lobo” - The Wolf.

Hungry, Eric settled himself at one of the rusty tables outside the bar. The young men eyed him with open curiosity but no hostility. He smiled at them. They looked a little embarrassed but smiled back.

“Americano?” the braver one asked.

“Sí, “ said Eric. Then, “Es posible comer aquí?”

Yes, they told him with words and sign language, food was served, but he had to go inside to request it.

Inside, the bar was dark and grimy. A large brown dog of unknown ancestry sprawled across the floor and scratched. Eric stepped over him with some trepidation, but the dog ignored him, so he went up to the bar and ordered a bocadillo of ham and cheese, and a cerveza to wash it down. When it was ready, he carried the sandwich and beer outside to his table. The U2 boys had obviously been talking about him, and they looked over at him shyly as he began to eat.

“Good, yes?” one asked him.

“Very good,” Eric replied,

“Serrano ham is the best,” the youth told him. “You have come to see the castle?”

“The castle is very pretty,” Eric told him, “pretty” being a completely inappropriate description of the twelfth-century ruin, but one of the few adjectives he had memorized. “But I have come to visit the hospital.”

They nodded sagely. Many made such a visit, they said. The sick ones stayed at the hospital, but the others stayed here at the hotel. He did not look sick. Would he then stay at the hotel?

Hotel?

St. El Lobo. Upstairs there were rooms.

Eric explained that he was a medico, a doctor.

This news was treated with respect. He was to work in the hospital then?

Yes, Eric lied.

This seemed to reassure the two young men, who now rose and introduced themselves, and Eric did the same. “My aunt works in the hospital,” Vincente explained. Felipe nodded. “Many people from the village work there,” he said.

“Many?”

“Oh, yes. At least twenty.”

“Is your aunt a doctor?” Eric asked, interested.

The boys laughed good-naturedly at the idea of a woman being a doctor. “She cooks the food,” Vincente said. “She cooks for all the patients.”

“That must be a lot of work,” Eric offered. “There must be many patients.”

“Not so many on this side,” said Felipe expansively, “But on the other side . . .”

Then he caught Vincente’s eye and stopped abruptly. Vincente rose. Felipe followed. They both smiled, held out their hands politely, and were gone.

Eric sipped his beer, his face expressionless, but inside he was exultant. The other side. Of course. That’s how Talmidge would have set it up.

He went into the bar to pay, nearly tripping over the dog, which looked up at him with the patient scorn of the native for the tourist, and returned to the market square, where he bought a dozen oranges and a string bag to carry them in. He moved almost automatically as his mind danced, and his heart racketed around in his chest - the other side. Yes. Of course.

It took him twenty minutes to find his way through the tiny streets to the narrow road the Spanish government laughingly called a third-class highway - he kept arriving back at the main square - but at last he was switchbacking his way up the ridge. The landscape around and below him spread out like a living map, beautiful but barren. Then he came around a final curve and there before him, like a mirage, was a low, wide, modern structure with a cleanly white cinder-block exterior and a wide, paved turning circle in front. Off to one side was a parking area which held several cars, including a sleek black limo. A neat standing sign welcomed him to the Reproduction Institute and directed visitors toward the solid oak double doors set centrally into the facade.

A feeder road led left off the turning circle, and Eric followed it around to the side of the hospital, where it dead-ended in a small cul-de-sac beside an unobtrusive metal door. He drove back to the front of the building and parked next to the limo. He sat in the car and studied the building; detectives in books always deduced a lot from such observations, as he recalled.

Eric observed that the windows were clean and unbarred, but he couldn’t see inside. He deduced that there were curtains on the windows. He observed that the only way he could see if the back of the building looked like the front was to walk around behind it. He deduced that, by now, people were aware of his arrival and that if he walked around to the back instead of going in through the front door, some large person would emerge from the Institute and kick his ass off Talmidge’s property.

He opened the car door and got out, then reached back in for the bag of oranges before swinging the door shut. He wasn’t quite sure why. Perhaps the altitude was getting to him. Carrying the oranges, he walked back through the parking area and followed the edge of the turning circle to the front door.

He looked for a bell or a knocker, but found none. How do people get inside this place? he wondered. Maybe they sent you one of those computer keys when you registered. Maybe they only opened the doors when they were expecting you.

Eric took a deep breath. It’s kinda way-out, kid, he told himself, but maybe you push on the doors, and they open. You know, like in a hospital. He pushed on the doors. They opened.

The walls were a somber grayish brown, unrelieved by lighter accents. The space was cramped and dark: there were no windows. In one corner, a large figure loomed threateningly. Frightening and savage, with gaping scarlet jaws and protruding eyes, it was chained by the foot to an iron spike set low in the floor. Next to this apparition was a door, its brass handle ancient and dented. Slowly the handle turned, and slowly the door opened; a shaft of white light flashed out in a widening arc.

“Come in, Charles,” said Dr. Brian Arnold.

Making a wide path around the towering figure, Charles Spencer-Moore entered a large, cluttered living room.

“What you see in those things I’ll never understand,” he said.

“He’s worth a fortune,” Arnold replied. “I stole him from under the nose of the director of the Chicago Museum of Primitive Art.”

“He gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Charles complained. “This whole place does.”

Admittedly, Brian Arnold’s apartment was not to everyone’s taste. A fanatic collector of African art, he had filled every inch of his living space with museum-quality pieces: statues, furniture, paintings, wall hangings. A late-night thunderstorm experienced in such surroundings would not easily be forgotten.

“What are you drinking?” asked Brian, opening the door of a low cabinet decorated with what he claimed were authentic shrunken human heads smuggled out of Uganda.

“It’s a little early for me,” Charles replied.

“Nonsense. It’s nearly noon.”

Charles seated himself in a zebra skin chair facing away from the heads. “All right,” he said ungraciously. “Scotch. And do me a favor, will you? Put it in a glass, not one of those things with dead monkey paws around it. I’m nervous enough right now.”

“So she got a little overexcited,” said Arnold, pouring Scotch into two tumblers.

“You didn’t hear her last night,” said Charles. “She went ballistic on me in the middle of a dinner party for the Ingersoll people, said it’s been haunting her. She kept asking me if it could walk and talk and think. She calls it a zombie.”

Arnold handed him his drink - Scotch and ice in a plain glass - and Charles examined it suspiciously. It looked normal. He risked a sip, then continued.

“She wanted to know if it could live outside the lab. Then she accused me of not being able to love her if she weren’t perfect-looking.”

“You told her it couldn’t and you could, of course?”

“Sure, sure,” Charles said morosely. “But I don’t think she believed me.”

“Well, give her time,” said Arnold, settling himself into the cushions of a deep leather sofa, drink in hand.

“I never should have told her about it in the first place.”

“Sounds like you told her too much. Is there any real danger, do you think?”

Charles’s reply was forestalled by the shrilling of the telephone at his elbow.

“Pass it over here, will you? . . . Hello, this is Dr. Arnold . . . She what? . . . How long ago? . . . OK, I’m on my way!”

Handing the phone back to Charles, Arnold relaxed into the sofa again and took a long pull at his drink. Charles looked at him in some surprise.

“That beautiful Hungarian idiot,” said Arnold testily. “May-Ann, the famous model . . . ever hear of her?” Charles nodded vaguely. “Well, she came in for a vitamin shot this morning and never told me she’d already taken half a dozen uppers. From a prescription bottle with my name on it.”

“Vitamin shot?”

“Well, it has vitamins in it too.”

Arnold’s vitamin shots were famous among those with a need for such things. His treatments were expensive but much safer than going out on the street for what they contained. He treated nervous disorders, weight problems, and general angst among the well-heeled, and a large number of celebrities in various fields called him Brian. He enjoyed being on a first-name basis with such people, and it paid for a lot of carvings and artifacts. So far, he’d had no real trouble with the AMA’s ethics committee. And he didn’t want any.

Charles put down his drink. “We can talk about it later,” he said. “I’ll call you.”

“Sit,” Arnold ordered. “Let her stew for a while. Teach her a lesson.”

He went to the cabinet for more ice.

“A refill, Charles? No? Oh, don’t be alarmed. She’s safe in a hospital ward . . . she won’t like that, I can tell you. When I get there, I’ll have her put in a private room and give her a little lecture. I do have my reputation to protect.”

“Such as it is,” said Charles.

“Indeed. Now, what shall we do about Vivienne?”

Charles thought for a moment. “She’s suspicious,” he said, “but I don’t think she’s actually dangerous to us. Still . . .”

“Calm her down, Charles. Calm her down and shut her up.”

“I’ll try.”

“Try hard. Otherwise . . .”

“Otherwise what?”

“Otherwise you might suggest she try some vitamin shots.”

Charles blanched. “This isn’t one of your bimbos,” he said fiercely. “This is the woman I’m going to marry.”

“Save the histrionics, Charles,” said Arnold, “You asked for this meeting. Now I’m telling you the cold hard truth: you’ve got to keep her quiet, any way you can.”

He set his glass down on the coffee table, a slab of glass supported on four ibex horns, and stood up, stretching his long, lean frame.

“I suppose I’d better get down to the hospital. And,” he added, sensing a movement from Charles, “taking a swing at me won’t change anything. There’s just too much at risk: my license, your Ingersoll merger. How’s that going, by the way?”

“Fine,” said Charles sullenly.

“A very old firm, aren’t they, Charles? One of the last of the major family-owned banks, yes? Quite conservative, I believe. Upright and moral and all that. Very particular about whom they do business with.”

Charles said nothing.

“So you’re close to a deal?” Arnold continued. “Worth quite a bit of money, I’m sure. And prestige. But, of course, the merest breath of scandal . . .”

He headed for the door, grabbing his coat and briefcase from the chair where he’d tossed them the night before; his enthusiastic date had given him no time for neatness.

Charles followed more slowly. Arnold was right, of course. They both had too much to lose.

The studio was buzzing with rumors. May-Ann had been arrested. Deported. She’d been hit by a bus, a taxi. She was in the hospital. She’d overslept. One thing was certain: she wasn’t in the studio.

Vivienne was. Angela had called her frantically at a quarter past ten, when everyone had become reconciled to May-Ann’s non-appearance and decided on a substitute instead of a postponement.

“We’re not the same type at all,” Vivienne had said, surprised.

“Yeah,” said Angela. “Like, you show up on time. I know it’s not your first cover, but you might act a little pleased.”

“I’m sorry, Angie. I didn’t sleep much last night. I gave this dinner party for Charles’s clients and in the middle of it we had a terrible fight, all my fault, and . . .” She broke off, feeling guilty. This was Angie’s first week back at work, and she was feeling the effects of the chemo; she probably wasn’t sleeping well either.

“Tell me about it later, toots,” said Angie. “The meter’s running.”

“I look truly awful, Angie.”

“That’s why God invented makeup artists. Now, grab a cab and get your buns over there.”

“Angie, I really don’t feel like working today. I feel distracted, and . . .”

There was a brief silence; then, “Excuse me,” Angela said, “can I please talk to Vivienne Laker? You sure don’t sound like her.”

“It’s stupid, I know. But Charles . . . and then this lab thing . . . it’s all making me a little crazy, Angie. I can’t seem to concentrate on anything.”

“Look, sweetie,” said Angela, “if I can work, you can work. About the lab, well, maybe you’re making a big something out of a big nothing. You don’t know, you can’t know. Meanwhile, you have a life to live here. So get your act together and get down to the studio. And bring an umbrella. It looks like rain.”

“Yes, Mother.”

And so here she was in the makeup room, becoming a lot more beautiful than she felt.

Out on the studio floor, a giant loft space in the heart of SoHo, the magazine’s art director was conferring with the fashion coordinator about background colors while a studio assistant pulled out roll after giant roll of colored cyclorama paper for their approval. Bert Maylor, the photographer, was checking the lighting setup with his camera assistant.

“I still think the crumpled silk is more interesting,” he told the magazine people. The assistant began pulling out samples of parachute cloth.

Everyone was eating. Bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon. (You didn’t call it “nova” in the glamour business.) Buttery cinnamon Danish, bursting with raisins. Melon slices and strawberries. And coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee.

“Want some more, Vivienne?” the makeup man asked.

“Thanks, Jeremy, but any more caffeine this morning and they’ll have to scrape me off the ceiling.”

“Thought you looked tense,” he said. “Got a lot on your mind, huh?”

“Not exactly,” said Vivienne. “Just some stuff I have to work out.”

“Boyfriend problems? Can I help?”

“Would that you could, Jeremy lad,” Vivienne told him.

“Try me,” he offered.

Oh, sure, she thought to herself. She’d worked with Jeremy before; he was a sweetie, but he dearly loved to gossip. Anything you told him you might just as well be put on the ten-o’clock news.

She couldn’t help but smile a little as she pictured it: Flash! Bulletin! This Just In! At a dinner party at the elegant home of model Vivienne Laker, her fiancé, the wealthy man-about-town Charles Spencer-Moore, left his bride-to-be throwing up in the kitchen sink while he went back to his pals and proceeded to open bottle after bottle of red wine until the entire company finally floated out to sea around three in the morning. Then Chuckie baby informed the fair Miss L. that she was nutty as a fruitcake, obsessed with something called “The Institute,” and that she should forget all about it if she knew what was good for her. Just before he stormed out into the dawn, he suggested they postpone the wedding. Yes, girls, Charles Spencer-Moore just might be back on the market!

Maybe I am being a little obsessive about the Institute, thought Vivienne, but I’m no fruitcake. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

Jeremy shrugged. There was a short pause as he applied more base. Then, “Did you hear why May-Ann didn’t make it today?” he asked, now remembering that Vivienne was one of the closemouthed ones.

“I heard a lot of guesses,” said Vivienne.

“She OD’d,” said Jeremy with relish. “Her doctor left her in a ward - can you imagine? - for over two hours before he had her transferred to a private room. She was furious.”

“That’s terrible,” Vivienne said. “I mean about her overdose. What did she take? Will she be OK?”

“I heard it was a combination of what she took and what she was given,” said Jeremy mysteriously. “They say she’ll be fine, though. I’m gonna go see her after the session. Want me to say hi for you?”

“Sure. I mean, I don’t really know her, not well.”

“Who does?” Jeremy shrugged philosophically. Suddenly he looked worried. “I sure hope she doesn’t kick up a fuss about Dr. Feelgood and mess it up for the rest of us.

“Dr. Feelgood?”

“Brian Arnold, the vitamin doctor. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of him, darling. He gives these divine shots. They’re magic!”

“Vitamin shots?”

“That’s what we call them!” Jeremy gave her a conspiratorial wink, then sighed theatrically. “The man is too gorgeous. But straight, unfortunately. What a waste! But I hear . . .”

Warming to his subject, he chattered away about Brian Arnold’s sexual proclivities, but Vivienne was no longer listening. She was wondering why Charles would choose such a man as his doctor. Surely Charles didn’t take such shots. Did he?

“Ready, Viv?” One of Maylor’s assistants stood at the dressing-room door. Behind him lurked the wardrobe woman and the fashion coordinator.

“One sec more!” Jeremy applied a final coat of lip gloss.

The wardrobe woman chose a red silk suit from the pipe rack of clothes. “This first?” she asked the coordinator.

“Yes. And no blouse underneath the jacket. We’re going for sexy.”

Viv stood up quickly and turned toward the rack, knocking over the remains of Jeremy’s coffee. The brown liquid ran everywhere.

“Merde!” Jeremy jumped back, saving his white linen pants by seconds.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry!” Vivienne exclaimed, grabbing for tissues.

“Leave it, leave it!” he said. “You’re making it worse. Never seen you so wired.”

Under the lights, the jumpiness and sense of distraction got worse. “Loosen up, kid!” Bert smiled at her. “Jeremy, pat her down. She’s getting shiny.”

The art director whispered in Bert’s ear. He didn’t look happy. Viv could see Bert doing his reassuring act. He’d been an art director himself, years ago; he was good with clients.

“Let’s take ten minutes,” said Bert finally. “Save the lights!”

With the giant lights turned off, and the high casement windows opened, the studio began to cool. Bert put his arm around Vivienne and led her aside.

“Babe, you’re not getting it across,” he told her. “You’re looking at the lens, not through it. . . there’s, like, this wall between you and the camera. You worried about something? You want a Valium?”

“God, no, Bert. I don’t use that stuff.”

“Well, concentrate, sweetie. You look beautiful, absolutely great, but you’re so . . . withdrawn. And your whole face is sort of tight, you know? Are you nervous because this was supposed to be May-Ann’s cover? Don’t be. When you walked in front of the camera, they all started whispering about how lucky they were that she didn’t show up. They love you.”

“They don’t love me.”

“They will if you just relax and do what you do so well. Make them love you, babe. You know how to do it.”

He gave her a little hug and a reassuring grin. “We’re in this together, babe. Come on, make me look good!”

Vivienne gave him a big, grateful smile. As though the great Bert Maylor needed anyone to make him look good. The opposite was true: he made every model look great, if she just gave him a chance.

“I’m really sorry, Bert,” she said, “I’m being a jerk. Let’s try again. I promise I won’t let you down.”

“I know you won’t, babe.” He turned her around toward the shooting area, calling to his assistant, “Okay, Lenny, let’s go!”

The rest of the session went well; Vivienne forced herself to turn her attention outward. They wanted sexy, she gave them sexy. Good. Let’s change the outfit. They wanted warm, she gave them warm. Good. Now the blue and white with the blouse. They wanted saucy, she gave them saucy. You’re a genius, Bert, they said.

But in the dressing room afterward, she again grew preoccupied, absentmindedly pulling the elaborate one-of-a-kind blouse over her head and smearing it with make-up.

Jeremy gasped in horror. “Honey, you’re a mess!” he exclaimed. “You got your monthly?”

Vivienne shook her head.

“Well, you almost blew it in there, sweetie, and now you ruin this sample. I don’t want to guess what it cost. You need help. You in therapy? I could recommend somebody. No? Hey, why don’t you go see Dr. Feelgood? He’ll fix you up. I’ll write down his number,” And Jeremy reached for a pencil.

“I already have it,” Vivienne said softly.

A sudden look of understanding came over Jeremy’s face. “I see,” he said knowingly. “Well, you call him right away and tell him you need another shot, and fast! You can’t go on like this, honey.”

That’s right, thought Vivienne. I can’t.

She changed back into her jeans and shirt, apologized profusely for the damaged sample, and called Brian Arnold from Bert’s office. At least I can tackle one part of the problem, she thought.

* * *

Berta greeted her warmly as she entered the empty waiting room. “Vivienne, how nice to see you again! Diet Coke? Coffee? No? Well, make yourself comfortable, and I’ll tell Dr. Brian you’re here.” But Vivienne was too nervous to sit. What if he won’t answer my questions? she thought. What if he will?

She watched the nurse disappear into the corridor which led to the examining rooms. She peeked around the corner in time to see the woman enter one of the rooms, then ducked back as Brian Arnold stepped out into the hall. She was demurely reading a magazine by the time he came into the waiting room looking puzzled but pleasant.

“The lovely Vivienne!” he said, as he had the first time they’d met. She hadn’t liked it then; she didn’t like it now. She smiled. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” she told him.

“You told my nurse it wasn’t a medical problem you wanted to discuss. Is that right?”

“Yes. I, er, want to talk about the Institute . . .”

A bell rang somewhere, and Berta came hurrying back into the waiting room, reaching for the release buzzer under her desk.

Arnold glanced toward the street door. “Let’s go somewhere more private,” he suggested. He led her toward the examining rooms, then made a sharp left turn and entered a small office filled with color-coded file folders on open metal shelves. As she followed him into the room, Vivienne heard the front door open and close and the sound of voices. Arnold seated himself behind the small steel desk; next to it stood a dented file cabinet. He offered her the only other chair, steel gray and plastic like his own. She looked around; the floor was covered with linoleum, the windows clean but uncurtained.

“I don’t usually bring patients in here,” he told her. “Just suspicious young girls.”

Vivienne turned back to him, flushing with embarrassment, but he smiled reassuringly. “You’re not the first to wonder what all that blood-test hocus-pocus was about,” he told her. “Just ask me what you want to know. I’ll answer if I can.”

“Great,” said Vivienne, surprised. “Thank you.” She marshaled her thoughts. Where to start? “OK, first question: Why all the mystery about the Institute?”

“Beats me,” Arnold told her, his eyes wide and innocent. “Never did understand it myself.”

“It must be because of what they’re doing.”

“You’re probably right,” Arnold agreed.

“Well, what exactly are they doing?”

“Ah, now there you have me,” he told her. “Unfortunately, I haven’t the remotest idea.”

“But that’s impossible. I mean, you take the samples . . .”

“Yes, and that’s all I do. I take them, I ship them, good-bye.” He sighed. “I often wish I did know more, I must admit to a strong curiosity.”

“Charles says they make genetic blueprints. He says they’re alive.”

Arnold leaned forward. “Really? Fascinating!”

“You mean you really didn’t know?”

“Of course not. What else did he tell you?”

“I can’t believe you don’t know!”

“Believe what you like,” said Arnold, leaning back as though resigned to learning no more than what she had just told him.

“But you said you’d answer my questions!” Vivienne protested.

“Well, I’m trying to,” Arnold told her with an air of injured innocence. “Just ask me something I know about.”

Right, Vivienne thought. I know something you know about. “Vitamin shots,” she said. “What’s in them?”

But it was not so easy to discomfit Arnold. “Vitamin shots contain vitamins, of course,” he said with a smile.

“Not your shots,” she replied. “May-Ann had one just before she OD’d. Vitamins don’t do that.”

“She also took a lot of pills before she had the shot.”

“Did you prescribe them too?”

“I never told her to take them all at once. Look, Vivienne, if you think that insulting me professionally is going to make me spill my guts, you’re mistaken. I do what I do. I give vitamin shots. I take samples for the Institute. Both those activities make me lots of money and lots of friends in high places. I don’t actually give a rat’s ass what they do at the Institute. All I care about is the thousand dollars they pay me for each sample.”

“A thousand dollars? Isn’t that an incredibly high fee for a blood test? Doesn’t that make you suspicious?”

“Only if I think about it,” he said evenly. “So I don’t. ‘Take the money and run,’ that’s my motto.”

Her line of questioning effectively deflected, she looked idly around the room, hoping for new inspiration. “You’ve got an awful lot of files,” she said. “You must send them an awful lot of samples.”

“Those are my vitamin patients,” he said.

How about that file cabinet? Vivienne thought. More vitamin patients? Or something more interesting? If I could only figure out a way to . . .

“Well, if that’s it,” Arnold said, rising from his chair and moving toward the door, “I do have a patient to see . . .”

Vivienne rose too and stretched out her hand. “I’m awfully sorry if I came on too strong,” she said. “It’s just, well, it seemed so weird, you know? I didn’t realize you weren’t in on it.” She smiled, pouring on the charm. “Do forgive me.”

“Of course,” Arnold told her, taking her hand between his. His eyes gazed deep into hers, and he began to stroke her hand suggestively with the tips of his fingers. Vivienne was shocked; he knew she was Charles’s fiancée. But she held her smile steady. Let him think you trust him, she thought. You’ve got to get back in here again. Make him think you like him.

He moved close to her. His gaze was hypnotic. Still holding her hand in one of his, he reached over and caressed her breast. She was motionless with shock and embarrassment; her nipple was hardening under his touch. He felt it too and smiled challengingly as he squeezed it between his fingers. It hurt. He saw the expression of pain cross her face and pleasure flooded through him. What beautiful violence they could do to each other! He intensified his stare; she was like a rabbit caught in the glare of oncoming headlights. He squeezed harder, but the new pain jerked Vivienne out of her trance, and she pulled away with a gasp.

“I’m going to leave now,” she said, all pretense gone. “Move out of my way.”

“Of course,” he said smoothly, stepping aside. “Perhaps someday when you have more time . . .”

Vivienne didn’t bother to answer. She brushed past him quickly and almost ran through the waiting room, out the front door, and past the doorman sorting mail in the lobby. When she stopped at the corner to catch her breath, she found she was shaking with indignation and disgust.

Back in his office, Brian Arnold hesitated before tackling the erratic screenwriter who was his next patient. He reached for the phone, then recradled it without dialing. Telling Charles would do no good, he decided. No, he’d have to deal with Vivienne himself.