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Two

Chris Banks sat on the edge of the king-size bed in his hotel suite, staring at the telephone. He was contemplating what he knew was either the second-best or the second-worst idea he’d ever had in his life, and the circumstances that had brought him to the point of acting upon it.

Do it, Banks, he told himself. Just...do it.

He reached for the receiver.

Picked it up.

Pressed nine to get an outside line.

Then, meticulously, he punched out the seven-digit telephone number that he’d gotten from directory assistance less than a week ago.

One ring.

He hadn’t known where his ex-wife was living when he began exploring the possibility of becoming the executive legal counsel for an Atlanta-based philanthropic foundation. He’d picked up that information during a wholly unplanned—and not particularly pleasant—pre-Christmas encounter with Lucy’s former maid of honor, Tina Roberts.

It had happened at the perfume counter of one of Chicago’s biggest department stores. He’d been doing some last-minute holiday shopping.

“Can I help you?” a nasal female voice had inquired.

“I hope so,” he’d answered wryly, looking up from the mind-boggling display of fragrances he’d been examining. He’d felt a jolt of recognition as he focused on the saleswoman who’d addressed him. “Tina?” he’d blurted out. “Tina ... Roberts?”

The woman had stared at him. She hadn’t spoken.

It was Tina, he’d thought. She’d been about fifty pounds heavier and considerably blonder than the last time he saw her, but it was definitely she.

“You...probably don’t remember me,” he’d said after a few awkward seconds, debating whether to extend his hand. Something in Tina’s artfully lined eyes had warned him that it would more likely be snapped off than shaken. He’d opted for self-preservation over politesse and kept his hand by his side. “It’s been quite a while. I’m Christopher Banks. I used to be married to—”

Two rings.

“I know who you are.” The response had been curt. “And my name’s Tina Palucci now. What are you doing here? I heard you lived in New York.”

“I do.” He’d been startled by the fact that someone from Lucy’s neighborhood circle had apparently been keeping tabs on his whereabouts. He’d left Chicago for a clerkship in Washington shortly after his divorce was finalized. He’d then moved on to the partnership track of a well-known law firm in Manhattan. “I’m back visiting my family for a few days.”

“Oh. Right. Your family.”

His gut had tightened at the way she inflected the final word. Good sense had dictated that he terminate the conversation as quickly as possible. But he hadn’t been able to. Compelled by a combination of emotions too jumbled to sort out, he’d asked, “Have you seen...Lucy...recently?”

Tina had given him a scathing look, apparently deeming him unworthy to utter his ex-wife’s name. He hadn’t been inclined to challenge whether her hostility was justified.

“Lucy’s in Atlanta,” she’d said.

“Atlanta?” He’d been stunned to the point of stupidity by the coincidence. “G-Georgia?”

“Whaddya think? Atlanta, Wyoming?”

“You mean, she—she lives there?”

“That right. She’s the office manager of an agency called Gulliver’s Travels.” Tina had used the words like a gauntlet, clearly relishing the opportunity to smack him across the face with some salient facts about his ex-wife. “It’s a great job. She’s made a terrific life for herself. Lucy’s very successful.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” And he had been. “I always expected that she would be.”

Three rings.

Chris forked his free hand through his hair. The foundation had flown him to Atlanta for a final round of interviews yesterday. A firm offer had been made over breakfast this morning. He’d promised a firm answer within a week.

He’d intended to head back to Manhattan to mull his future. Mother Nature had had other plans. When he checked in for his return flight at Hartsfield International Airport, he’d been told that there’d be a departure delay because of weather conditions in the New York metropolitan area. About an hour later, his flight and scores of others had been cancelled.

Having less than no desire to spend New Year’s Eve camped out at the airport, he’d gotten on the telephone and started calling hotels. The first seven places had been booked solid by holiday revellers. The clerk at the eighth had perkily announced that there’d been a last-minute can-celation and she could offer him a suite. He’d snapped it up without asking the price, reeling off his credit-card number to guarantee the reservation. He’d then grabbed a cab and gone back into Atlanta.

So here he was, stuck in the city his ex-wife now called home, on what would have been their tenth wedding anniversary had he not behaved like a—

Four rings.

Pickup, followed by a whisper of static.

And then, a mellifluous female voice. It was a voice that Christopher Dodson Banks hadn’t heard for nearly a decade.

Except in his dreams.

“Hi, there,” the voice said, sending a tremor of response racing through his body. “You’ve reached 555-3827 and this is Lucy Falco’s answering machine. Unlike some of my kind, I have faith in humanity. I truly believe you’re going to do the right thing and leave your name, number and a brief message after the beep. But just in case you’re contemplating some other course of action, please be advised that I’m equipped with caller ID. This means that I have your number stored in my data bank and can track you down if you hang up on me. So be smart. Live up to my high opinion of you and leave a message.” Beep!

Chris’s heart was hammering against his ribs. He opened his mouth to speak.

Nothing came out.

After several seconds he closed his mouth. Then he replaced the phone in its cradle. His hands were shaking.

“Damn,” he whispered. “Dammit to hell.”

Chris sat motionless for nearly a minute. Finally he reached for his suit jacket, which he’d taken off earlier and laid beside him on the bed. He extracted a slim leather-bound appointment book and began thumbing through it. He was stalling, and he knew it. There was no need for him to look up the address of the business establishment he had in mind. Like Lucy’s home telephone number, he could recite it by heart.

Gulliver’s Travels. 2511 Peachtree—

Chris slapped the appointment book shut and glanced at his wristwatch. It was a few minutes before five.

Just about closing time, he reflected with a grimace. Maybe even past it, given that this was New Year’s Eve. Chances were, Lucy was long gone from her office. Chances were, she was out of the business mode and into the social groove.

He could imagine her, primping for a night on the town. Although she hadn’t devoted a lot of time to fussing with her appearance while they were together, there had been a couple of occasions during their short marriage when she pulled out all the stops.

Having never lived with a woman, he’d found himself utterly fascinated by Lucy’s grooming rituals. He’d been turned on by them, too, if truth be told. And as for what he’d felt when he got a gander at the finished product...

Chris clenched his hands. Despite his best efforts to block them, his mind’s eye filled with a series of images.

Lucy.

Brushing her long dark hair with slow, sexy strokes, then pinning it up in a style that just begged to be taken down.

Lucy.

Slipping on her lacy lingerie piece by provocative piece, offering a blood-heating preview of what would be waiting after the public partying.

Lucy—

Doing those things and more for another man.

Christopher Dodson Banks cursed under his breath, clamping down on a surge of jealousy he knew he had no right to feel. He’d had his chance, and he’d screwed it up.

He’d fallen head over heels in love with Lucia Annette Falco eleven and a half years ago. But as deeply as he cared for her, he’d lacked the insight—the sensitivity—to fully understand what kind of person she was and how she viewed the world. His failure to comprehend these fundamental truths had led him to commit an act of betrayal that precipitated the end of his marriage.

He checked his watch again. It was now five after five.

Gulliver’s Travels was an inexpensive cab ride away. He knew this because he’d mentioned its address to the hotel’s concierge and inquired about its proximity after he checked in. The concierge had consulted a small directory, then informed him that the location in question fell within something called the “convention zone.”

“It’s a flat fare if you take a taxi from this hotel,” the man had explained. “Quick trip. Very reasonable. You could walk it in, oh, twenty minutes on a nice day. But on a cold night like this...”

“I’m from New York,” Chris had returned. “Anything above zero is balmy to me.”

The concierge had smiled sympathetically. “I understand, sir. Still, we don’t recommend that our guests go out walking by themselves after dark.”

He had Lucy’s agency’s telephone number, Chris reminded himself. He could always call.

And then what?

Another hang-up? Or maybe an impersonal request that Ms. Falco contact Mr. Banks at her earliest possible convenience?

No, he decided. He needed to do this—whatever “this” was going to turn out to be—face-to-face.

He’d take the flat-fare taxi ride to the office where Lucy evidently had earned the professional success he knew she’d grown up dreaming about achieving. If the place was closed for the holiday, so be it. At least he’d know exactly where it was and what it looked like. If it was still open and his ex-wife was there...

He had to see her again.

It was that simple.

And that complicated.

He was poised on the threshold of a new year, a word away from embarking on a new job in a new city. What better time to try to atone for old mistakes?

Lucy hung up the phone with a sigh. Bad enough that she’d had to finesse her colleagues’ questions about her lack of holiday plans. Now her father and brothers—who, unlike her co-workers, were well aware of the reasons for her extremely ambivalent feelings about New Year’s Eve—had taken to haranguing her about the situation, too.

“You don’t have anybody to be with, you should come home,” her father had insisted in a call that came in shortly after she told the rest of the agency’s staff they could leave.

“I could be with somebody if I wanted to, Pop,” she’d countered through gritted teeth, deciding to sidestep the coming-home issue entirely. Although she’d moved to Atlanta more than three years ago, her father refused to acknowledge that she actually lived there. He regarded the town house she’d bought as a temporary address. A sort of residential aberration. “But I don’t.”

“Why not? You still carrying a torch for that ex-husband of yours?”

“No!” It was not an original notion. Her brothers had started hinting at the possibility shortly after she passed the big three-oh with no sign of a serious suitor lurking on the horizon. Several of her uncles and cousins had taken to alluding to it, as well. But this was the first time anyone had had the nerve to broach the subject head-on. “Of course not!”

“Good. Because after what he did to you—”

“Pop, I’m sorry.” She’d suddenly reached the end of her tether. She’d opted for an escape excuse that had proven effective in the past. “I’ve got a call coming in on the agency’s priority line. It’s probably my boss. Or a client with an international emergency. I have to go. Thanks for calling. Happy New Year. I’ll talk with you soon.”

Her eldest brother, Vinnie, had phoned five minutes later.

“Pop says you hung up on him, Lucy.”

“I didn’t hang up on him.” She’d soothed herself with an assurance that this was technically true. Hanging up on someone meant slamming down the receiver without saying goodbye. “There was a phone call I had to take. Urgent agency business.”

“Same kind of urgent agency business that came up the last two times I tried to talk to you?”

“Uh—”

“I hear you been usin‘ the ’I got urgent agency business’ line on Joey and Mikey, too. And some of the uncles. Even when they call you at home.”

Lucy had grimaced, realizing that she was going to have to come up with a new tactic for terminating conversations with her family. “I have a very demanding job. It’s important to me.”

“More important than your family bein’ worried about you?”

“I’ve told you before. There is no—repeat, no, that’s n-o—reason for anyone to be worried about me. I’m doing fine.”

“Right now, maybe. But when I think about the way you looked the night you walked out on that bastard Banks—”

“That was more than ten years ago, Vinnie!”

“So? You think the people who really love you are ever gonna forget the expression on your face? You think they’re ever gonna forget the sound of you cryin’ like you’d never stop?”

Lucy massaged her temples, her brother’s long-distance challenge echoing in her ears. She didn’t expect him to understand. She didn’t expect anybody to understand. How could she, given the tenuousness of her own grasp of what had happened and why?

She’d made a lot of mistakes on the night in question. Turning tail and retreating into the protective custody of her family had been the worst.

There was an awful irony about what she’d done. She’d expended a great deal of time and energy trying to persuade her many male relatives that she was more than capable of standing up for herself in what they universally agreed was a man’s world. But when push came to shove, she’d behaved as though her spine were made of over-cooked linguini.

For the first time in her life, she’d acted like a victim. Like a helpless, hapless female.

And she’d been paying for it ever since.

Lucy glanced at her watch. It was nearly half past five. Time for her to be off. She rose to her feet and began gathering up her things. Her purse. Her coat. Her scarf. The files she needed to—

The telephone on her desk started to ring. Every instinct Lucy had warned her that the individual on the other end of the line was one of her brothers. Or maybe one of her uncles, depending on how efficient the Falco grapevine was on this particular evening.

She hesitated for a moment, then made up her mind. “I love you, guys,” she said to the still-ringing phone. “But I’ll talk to you next year.”

She dashed out before she had a chance to relent.

Gulliver’s Travels was located in a small four-story building with a central lobby. The guard behind the security desk—a skinny guy with a mustache—leaped to his feet as she came around the corner, heading toward the main exit.