'No,' I said.

She stopped and raised an eyebrow, the smile still on her lips.

'Look, I'm sorry, Diane. This isn't right. I've got to go. Now.'

I turned, grabbed my tie and searched for my jacket and briefcase.

Diane leaned against the wall. 'Stay, Simon,' she said quietly. 'You know you want to. Stay.'

'I'm sorry. I just can't. It's not you. It's…' I blurted, unable to string together a coherent explanation of why I wanted to go. But I knew I had to leave.

I found all my stuff, and rushed for the door. 'Bye, Diane,' I said, and ran.

22

I was ten minutes late for the meeting. Everyone was as fresh as a daisy, except me. Diane treated me as though we hadn't been entwined on her sofa only a very few hours before.

I couldn't concentrate. I just wanted to get out of there and think. Once again I was following in my father's footsteps. I had meant my marriage vows when I had made them seven months before. Yet I had come very close to breaking them in less than a year.

The meeting ended at eleven to give the Tetracom people time to get to the airport for their flight back to Cincinnati. I didn't join Diane on the brief walk back to the office. Instead I headed for the Public Garden. I gave her no reason. I don't know what she thought.

It was a bright, brittle late-autumn day. A cool breeze brushed the trees, which tossed handfuls of yellow leaves to the ground in its wake. The sun was shining, but it scarcely warmed the air. Winter was not far off.

Had I really done anything wrong? Lisa had abandoned me to the police. She had rejected my support. She didn't deserve my loyalty. The marriage was over, she had implied that. Well, she could take the consequences if something did start between Diane and me.

I sat down on a bench by the lake, Boston's mini-Serpentine. Tufted ducks drifted through the fronds beneath the willow opposite me, cruising for breadcrumbs, while the upper floors of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel poked out above. I raised my face to the sun and closed my eyes.

I could feel my marriage slipping away. It wasn't surprising, it had happened to my parents, and to Lisa's, and to millions of people in Britain and America. I could quite easily let it slide: there was nothing to stop me sleeping with whomever I wished as often as I wished.

But what I really wanted was to get Lisa back. It would be difficult to do. I might receive no help from her, quite the opposite. I might have to swallow my pride, forgive her for walking out on me, forgive her for the things she had said and would say in the future. And I would have to make her believe that I hadn't murdered her father. All this would be difficult to do, maybe impossible.

Was she worth it?

I remembered her voice, her face, her laugh.

Yes, yes, yes!

I hadn't been back at my desk for more than five minutes when my phone rang. It was Diane. She wanted to see me.

I entered her office with trepidation. But she gave me a friendly smile, and immediately launched into a discussion about Tetracom. Gil had made two calls that morning to venture capitalists who backed up Hecht's story. They wouldn't touch Murray Redfearn with the proverbial ten-foot pole. One of them questioned Hecht's judgement for linking up with Redfearn in the first place. A fair point, but not enough to sink the deal. The remaining calls were to the West Coast, and they would have to wait a couple of hours, but Diane was now confident that Tetracom's cupboard was bare of skeletons. A deal was probably less than a week away.

Our conversation finished, I stood up to go. I was almost out of there, when Diane stopped me.

'Simon?'

'Yes.'

'About last night.'

'Um…'

She held up her hand. 'No, it's OK, I don't want to talk about it now. But why don't you buy me a drink sometime?'

'I'm not sure that's a good idea,' I said.

'Oh, come on,' Diane said, with a reasonable smile. 'You owe me at least that.'

She was right. I smiled quickly. 'Yes, of course.'

'Good. Friday?'

'Fine.'

'OK. Thanks for your help, Simon,' she said, and I was gone.

As I returned to my desk, I wondered what Diane was up to, what she wanted. Her reputation suggested she was used to conducting inter-office affairs. She certainly seemed to know how to handle them professionally. But what about me? Was she just in it for the sex? Was she looking for a toy-boy? Did she get a kick from snagging married men?

But despite her reputation, I had difficulty thinking of her as that cynical. We genuinely liked each other. There was an undeniable physical attraction between us. For my part, I didn't know whether it had always lurked there unacknowledged, or whether it had only developed after Lisa's departure. I wondered how Diane would take me pulling back. Perhaps it would harm my chances of making partner in the new regime? Well, if it did, that was just tough. It would serve me right. I had been wrong to go as far as I had with her, and I wouldn't do it again.

I wasn't looking forward to Friday.

I faced the work in front of me, and closed my eyes. How could I have let things go so far? Sure, we hadn't had sex, but we had come very close. How could I have jeopardized even further a marriage that I was fighting so hard to save? Even if Lisa never found out, I would always know. It would be something lurking between us, threatening to flare up at any time.

No. I would never, ever let anything like that happen again.

'What's up, Simon?'

It was Daniel, looking at me with extreme curiosity. 'Don't ask,' I replied. I glanced over to John's empty desk. There was a lot I needed to talk to him about. 'Where's John?'

'Out at National Quilt all day,' Daniel answered. 'He left a number.'

'That's OK,' I said. 'It will wait.'

I checked my e-mails. There was one from Connie saying I was invited to Gil's club for a drink at seven that evening. My first thought was panic. Gil had somehow found out about me and Diane. But it was extremely unlikely that Gil would choose that venue for a dressing down. I had never been invited to Gil's club before, and I didn't think the other two associates had either, although I knew Frank had been a number of times. I wondered what it was he wanted to talk to me about.

The Devonshire Club was almost empty. It was still early, only seven o'clock, and I was tucking into a beer and a huge array of crisps and nuts, dishes of which had been perched on the small table in front of me. The bar was small and cosy, red and leather. A comprehensive collection of obscure single malts guarded the entrance. The atmosphere was similar to a London club, a carefully contrived balance that made members feel at home, and guests feel slightly awkward. The club reeked of class, social exclusion, and, because this was America, not Britain, money.

Three men in suits and striped ties came and sat at the table next to me. Two sported beards the like of which you hardly see these days, full bushy affairs. If the men were born in the early nineteen fifties, their beards were at least sixty years older.

Gil arrived exactly ten minutes late. He shook my hand, sat down and caught the waiter's eye for a martini.

'Thanks for coming, Simon,' he said. 'How are you holding up?'

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