t was late when Mimi and Jack finally wobbled out of Per Se. The bill for their meal was in the four-figure range, not that Mimi was surprised. She was so used to paying exorbitant prices for everything in her life, she sometimes complained when she discovered something was cheaper than she'd expected. "What do they think, that I'm poor?" she sniffed. "That I can't afford FIJI Water?"

Jack chided her for her extravagance. "It's the mistake of the nouveau riche, you know, believing that having a lot of money is the same as having an infinite amount of money."

Mimi stared at him incredulously. "Did you just call me nouveau riche?"

Jack barked a laugh as they got on the elevator. "I guess so."

"Bastard!" Mimi pretended to be terribly offended. "Our money is so old it's drawing social security. Bankruptcy's out of the question. We're flush."

"I hope so. Didn't you say Lawrence reported a huge dip in earnings? And I've listened in on the latest investor appraisals. FNN is down several points. It's not good news."

She faked a big yawn. "Don't bore me with details. I'm not worried."

They walked out into the night. Across the street, horses hitched to hansom cabs awaited clueless tourists. It was cold - the last dredge of winter. Vestiges of the most recent snowstorm remained in the form of yellowy, cracked ice on top of garbage bins and the sidewalks.

Jack raised his hand, and a sleek black Bentley as large as a hearse pulled up to the curb.

"Home?" Mimi asked as she slid into the seat.

Jack leaned over, his arm resting on the edge of the door. "I'll see you there in a bit. I told Bryce and Jamie I'd meet them at the club."

"Oh."

He bussed her cheek. "Don't wait up, okay?" Then he shut the door and rapped smartly on the window. "Take her home, Sully."

Mimi waved at him through the tinted glass, her good mood evaporating as she watched him walk across the street to catch a cab headed downtown.

"Home, Miss Force?" Sully turned around.

She was about to nod. She was tired. Home sounded like a good idea. Though she was a little piqued that she had to go home alone. She toyed with the idea of following him, but Jack had been so devoted of late...There was nothing to suspect ... He always met Bryce Cutting and Jamie Kip at the club...silly boys. And besides, she'd been watching him like a hawk in the past few weeks, ever since Venice, and had felt guilty because she had found nothing. What was she so worried about anyway?

But she had to be honest with herself. She was worried. "Not yet, Sully. Let's see where he's going."

The driver nodded. He'd heard this request before.

"Make sure he doesn't see us."

The car trailed the cab heading south on the West Side Highway. Block 122 had closed, and the new hot club of the moment, the Dante Inn, was located farther downtown, in the West Village, in the basement of one of those new glass buildings right off the highway. Mimi remembered Jack telling her how the family had bought an apartment there, as an investment. The place was currently being rented out to some celebrity.

The cab pulled up to the entrance, a velvet rope hooked between two fire escape railings and guarded by a tall man in a black greatcoat. The Dante Inn was a smaller venue, less flashy than Block 122, but even more exclusive. Jack got out and disappeared inside.

Mimi leaned back happily. "Okay, let's go." She watched as a white limousine drove up in front of them. God, people were so tacky. And Jack was calling her nouveau riche?

She tried to see if she could recognize the rowdy people from the limo - that one had to be a famous actor, because he was wearing a trilby hat like a moron - when she saw something else: someone emerged from the shadows and slipped inside the main doors to the building. A figure in a silver raincoat, with dark hair.

No.

It couldn't be.

It couldn't be Schuyler Van Alen. Could it? Of course it was.

Mimi felt her heart clench. It was too much of coincidence. Jack was in the club that was located in the basement of the same building Schuyler had just entered.

It couldn't be. Her mind raced; had she missed something? But he had been so indifferent, so cold to Schuyler. He couldn't still be infatuated, could he?

He doth protest too much.

Mimi was never a big fan of Shakespeare, not even during his lifetime, but she remembered the important lines. This was definitely the winter of her discontent.

She knew, without having it confirmed, that no matter what kind of front Jack put up to the world, what kind of lies he told her, there was a secret place in his heart that she could not read or fathom. A secret place that was devoted to someone else. A secret place inhabited by Schuyler Van Alen.

Strangely enough, Mimi did not feel betrayed, or stricken, or devastated. She merely felt a heavy sadness. She had tried so hard to help him. She had tried to keep him loyal to her.

How could he act with no fear of reprisal? He knew the laws as well as she. He knew what was at stake. He knew what he could lose.

Oh, Jack. Don't let me have to hurt you. Don't let us be estranged in this way. Don't make me have to hunt you down.