id Daddy win?" Rachel raced into the living room, her red nightgown flying behind her, bare feet slapping the black and white marble floor.

Lilly reluctantly drew her attention from the television entombed in a pebbled gray cabinet. She had just finished redecorating the Coldwater Canyon home she and Eric had once shared. The doorways were now framed by Ionic columns topped with broken pediments, and the neo-Roman furniture was upholstered in white canvas. The light gray walls served as a background for first-century marble sculptures, French torchere lamps, and a wall-sized surrealistic canvas of a supersonic jet flying through the center of an enormous red apple. At first she had adored the new decor, but now she had begun to think so much neo-classicism was too cold.

"Don't run, Rachel," she admonished her daughter. "Why aren't you asleep? It's after nine. I hope you didn't wake Becca."

"I want to see if Daddy winned his Oscar. And I'm scared of a thunderstorm."

Lilly looked through the windows and noticed the trees were whipping in the wind. Southern California was having a terrible drought, and she suspected this storm would pass over without a drop falling as the others had, but she knew she would have trouble convincing her strong-willed daughter of that. "It's not going to rain, Rachel. It's just some wind."

Rachel gave her the mutinous look that seemed to be permanently stamped on her face. "I don' like thunderstorms."

In the background the Academy Award broadcast faded into a commercial. "There's not going to be a thunderstorm."

"Yes there is."

"No, there isn't. We're having a drought, for God's sake."

"Yes there is."

"Dammit, Rachel, that's enough!"

Rachel glared at her and stomped her foot. "I hate you!"

Lilly squeezed her eyes shut and wished Rachel would disappear. She couldn't handle her as Eric did. Yesterday when she'd picked the girls up at their father's, Rachel had started to go outside in her socks. When Eric had ordered her to put shoes on, she'd screamed that she hated him, but it hadn't seemed to bother him. He'd glared right back at her and said, "Tough luck, kiddo. You're still going to wear your shoes."

Lilly knew that she would have given in. It wasn't that she didn't love her daughter. At night when Rachel was asleep, Lilly could stand forever by her bed and simply gaze at her. But during the daytime, she felt so incompetent. She was like her own mother, a woman who simply wasn't maternal. Her mother had

left Lilly to be raised by her father, and Lilly was doing the same with her daughters. Sometimes it was better that way.

Even so, she found herself resenting Eric's relationship with the girls. She knew they loved him more than they loved her, but being a parent was easier for him. He never lost his temper with Rachel, and Becca's condition didn't terrify him the way it terrified her.

"Look, there's Daddy!" Rachel squealed, her quarrel with her mother temporarily forgotten. "And Nadia. She's real nice, Mommy. Not like when her and Daddy was in Macbeth and she screamed all the time. She gived me and Becca Gummi Bears."

The camera was panning the front rows of the star-studded audience that was packed into the auditorium of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Eric's date for the Academy Awards was Nadia Evans, his Macbeth costar. Lilly was jealous, although she knew she had no right to be. Eric had been a faithful husband; it was her infidelities that had ended their marriage.

Even after Eric had discovered she was having an affair with Aaron Blake, one of Hollywood's more exciting young actors, he hadn't insisted on a divorce. But Lilly hated the frustrations of trying to be a wife and mother, she hated the relentless intimacy of the marriage bed, and she hadn't seen any point in postponing the inevitable. Eric had never loved her—she knew he wouldn't have married her if she hadn't been pregnant—but he had treated her well, and having been the child of a hostile divorce, she wanted to retain at least the semblance of an amicable relationship with him.

Lilly studied Nadia Evans as the camera lingered on her and tried to take some satisfaction from the fact that she was just as beautiful as the actress. She was even slimmer now than she had been before her pregnancy, and she loved the deeper hollows in her cheeks. Recently she had been wearing her silver-blond hair in a ballerina's knot low on her neck to further emphasize her facial bones.

The Best Actor nominees were read off, and Lilly's resentment settled in deeper. She was a child of Hollywood, and every part of her yearned to be at his side now, sharing this moment,

"Mommy, do you think Daddy will win?"

"We'll see."

Rachel, for once motionless, stood in the center of the black and white marble floor and gazed at the television.

"And the Oscar goes to..."

Lilly snatched the remote control and punched up the volume.

"Eric Dillon for Small Cruelties!"

Rachel giggled and clapped her hands. "Mommy, he winned! Daddy winned!"

Lilly sagged back into the couch. This was what she got for divorcing him. She should have been the one sitting with him when he won, not Nadia Evans. If only they were still married, this would have been her night of triumph, too.

But it was too late for regrets. She remembered his icy fury when he had discovered she was having an affair and wondered what he would have done if he had known that Aaron Blake wasn't the only lover she had taken while they were married. Her stomach coiled in self-disgust. Every time she took a lover, she thought he would be the one who could fill up the empty spaces in her life. But it never happened. The only man who had given her lasting happiness was her father.

Nadia kissed Eric. He got up from his seat and took a hop step down the aisle, stopping as people rose to thump him on the back. When he got to the stage and received the Oscar, he turned to the audience and grinned, holding the gold statue high over his head.

The audience finally quieted, and he began to speak. "This shouldn't mean so much, but it does..."

She couldn't watch any more, and she snatched the remote control and punched the power button.

"I want to see Daddy!" Rachel protested.

"You'll see him tomorrow. It's bedtime."

"But I want to watch. Why did you turn off the TV?"

"I've got a headache."

A clap of thunder boomed outside the window, bringing noise but no rain. Rachel's finger plopped into her mouth, a clear sign that she was upset.

"Tuck me in, Mommy."

As Lilly gazed down at Rachel, her heart filled with love for this child who so seldom asked for any affection from her. They walked down the hallway together, temporarily at peace. She paused for a moment outside the door of Becca's room and gazed inside at the still little bundle lying under the covers.

What if that damaged child were punishment for her own sins? She tried to redirect the agonizing path her thoughts always took when she looked at Becca and found herself wondering what her life would be like if she hadn't let Eric talk her out of the abortion. But as she turned away from the room, she knew that no matter how ineffectual and resentful these children made her feel, she didn't regret having given birth to them.

They passed the group of enlarged photographs she had taken before she'd married Eric and abandoned her cameras. She had always meant to do portraits of the girls, but somehow she'd never gotten around to it. They entered Rachel's bedroom, which was decorated in pink and lavender hearts, although the feminine ambience was spoiled somewhat by Rachel's Hulk Hogan posters.

Rachel climbed on the bed, her small round bottom sticking up in the air for a moment before she slipped beneath the covers. Lilly was arranging them over her when another clap of thunder rattled the windows.

"Mommy!"

"It's all right. It's just thunder."

"Mommy, would you sleep with me?"

"I'm not ready to go to bed yet."

Rachel looked mulish. "Daddy lets me sleep with him. Daddy sleeps with me and cuddles me all night long."

Lilly froze. A painful, high-pitched noise began to whine in her head, gradually growing more shrill. She could barely summon the breath to speak. "What—What did you say?"

"Daddy... He sleeps with me if I'm scared. Mommy, what's wrong?"

The noise in Lilly's head became a great whirlpool sucking her into its center. The whirlpool spun her faster, and the noise shrieked in her brain until she felt as if she were coming apart. She collapsed on the side of the bed and tried to keep from fainting.

Rachel's voice called to her from far away. "Mommy? Mommy?"

The room began to settle around her, and she tried to tell herself there was nothing in Rachel's innocently spoken words to have inspired such a deep, unreasonable fear, but she felt as if she had been threatened at the most fundamental level of her existence.

Her fingers clasped the edge of the cover as she slowly pushed out the words. "Does Daddy sleep with you very often?"

Another clap of thunder rattled the windows. Rachel gazed out with trepidation. "Mommy, I want you to sleep with me."

Lilly tried to keep her voice from trembling, but the coldness in her limbs made that impossible. "Tell me about Daddy."

Rachel's eyes didn't move from the window. "Thunder's scary. Daddy says I don't have to be scared. His hair tickles."

Lilly's heart began to race so fast that she could barely breathe. "What—what do you mean his hair tickles?"

"It tickles my nose, Mommy."

"The hair on his—on his head?"

"No, silly. His tummy." She pressed her hand to the center of her chest. "Here."

Lilly's knuckles had turned white from gripping the edge of the cover."Doesn't Daddy—Well, of course he does." She tried to force a laugh through her stiff lips, but it emerged as a sob. "Of course Daddy has his—his pajamas on when you get in bed with him, doesn't he?"

Rachel once again looked toward the window. "I'm scared of boomers, Mommy."

"Listen to me, Rachel!" Her voice rose to a shriek. "Does Daddy wear his pajamas when you get in bed with him?"

Rachel's forehead puckered. "Daddy doesn't wear jammies, Mommy."

Oh, God. Dear God. She wanted to run from the room, run from the awful black whirlpool sucking her toward the unspeakable. Her teeth began to chatter. "Does Daddy— Has he ever... touched you, Rachel?"

Rachel's thumb crept into her mouth and she nodded.

Blood no longer flowed through her veins, but knife-sharp slivers of ice. She gripped her daughter's shoulders. "Where does he touch you?"

"Becca's asleep."

She wanted to disappear, to jump from her own skin and from the monstrous whirlpool that seemed about to carry her away, but she couldn't abandon her daughter. "Think very carefully, Rachel. Has Daddy ever touched you—" No! Don't say it. You're not allowed to tell. "Has Daddy—" Her voice

broke on a sob.

Rachel's eyes were wide with alarm. "Mommy, what's wrong?"

The words spilled out in a rush. "Has he ever... touched you... between your... legs?"

Rachel nodded again and rolled over, facing the window. "Go away, Mommy."

Lilly began to sob. "Oh, baby." She pulled her small daughter into her arms, covers and all. "Oh, my sweet poor baby."

"Mommy, stop! You're scaring me!""

Lilly had to ask the final question, the unspeakable one. Don't let it be true. Please don't let it be true. She drew back enough to see her daughter's face, no longer rebellious but pale with apprehension. Lilly's tears dropped onto the satin binding of the cover.

"Did Daddy—Oh, Rachel, sweetheart.... Did Daddy ever show you—show you his penis?"

Wide-eyed and frightened, Rachel nodded. "Mommy, I'm scared."

"Of course you are. Oh, my poor, poor baby. I won't let him hurt you. I won't ever let him hurt you again."

Lilly rocked her and crooned, and as she clasped her daughter's small body to her breast, she made a vow to protect her. She might have failed Rachel in some ways, but she wouldn't fail her in this.

"Mommy, you're scaring me. Mommy, why are you calling me Lilly?"

"What, sweetheart?"

"You said Lilly. That's your name. That's not my name. You said 'poor Lilly.' "

"Oh, I don't think so."

"You did, Mommy. 'Poor Lilly.' "

"Go to sleep, sweetheart. Shh.... Mommy's here."

"I want my daddy."

"It's all right, sweetheart. I won't ever let him hurt you again."

Eric didn't return home until seven that morning. There had been interviews, photographers, three different parties ending with a buffet breakfast. Nadia had finally given out at four, but it was the biggest night of his life, and he hadn't been ready for it to end.

He stepped out of the limo onto the cobbled entryway that led to his house. His collar was open, his bow tie undone, and the jacket of his tuxedo was draped over his arm. In his hand the gold statue of Oscar glimmered in the early morning sun. He had the feeling that everything in his life had come together. He had his work and his daughters, and for the first time since he was fifteen, he didn't hate himself.

The limo pulled away, and he saw Lilly standing by her car waiting for him. His euphoria faded. Why couldn't she have let him have one day to enjoy his success? But as she came toward him, his annoyance was replaced with alarm. Lilly was always meticulous about her appearance, but her clothes were wrinkled and her hair had come undone from its careful ballerina's knot.

He hurried over to her, noticing that she had eaten off her lipstick and old mascara had smudged under her eyes. "What's wrong? Is something wrong with the girls?"

Her face tightened, looking pinched and ugly. "Something's wrong, all right, you perverted bastard."

"Lilly..."

As he reached out to take her arm, she jerked away, snarling at him like a cornered animal. "Don't touch me! Don't ever touch me!"

"Maybe you'd better come inside," he said, forcing his voice to sound calm.

Without giving her a chance to refuse, he went to the front door and unlocked it. She followed him into the house, moving through the foyer and off to the living room on the left. Her breathing was heavy and agitated.

The room was sparsely furnished, with white walls, pale wood, and some comfortable sofas upholstered in light, nubby fabric. He laid his coat and the Oscar on a chair that sat near a rough-hewn cupboard displaying baskets, Mexican tinware, and figures of saints. The early morning sun streamed through the windows, casting rectangles of light on the floor. He walked into one of them.

"Let's get this over with so I can go to bed. What is it this time? Do you need more money?"

She spun toward him, her face pale with distress, her lips quivering. Guilt replaced his annoyance, the guilt he always felt when he was with her because she wasn't a bad person, yet he hadn't been able to love her the way she needed.

He softened. "Lilly, what's wrong?"

Her voice broke. "Rachel told me. Last night."

"Told you what?" His forehead puckered in alarm. "Is something wrong with Rachel?"

"You should know that better than anyone. Did you do it to Becca, too?" Her eyes filled with tears. She sagged down onto the couch, her hands crumpling into fists in her lap. "My God, I can't bear to think that you might have touched Becca, too. How could you, Eric? How could you be so sick?"

Genuine fear had begun to grip him. "What's happened? Jesus, tell me!"

"Your dirty little secret is out," she said bitterly. "Rachel told me all about it. Did you threaten her, Eric? Did you threaten to do something terrible to her if she told?"

"Told what? For God's sake, what are you talking about?"

"What you've been doing to her. She told me—She told me that you've been sexually molesting her."

"What?"

"She told me everything."

A deathlike stillness came over him. His voice was a soft rasp. "You'd better explain what you're talking about. Start at the beginning. I want to hear everything."

Lilly's eyes narrowed with hatred. Her speech was rushed and shrill. "Last night I was tucking Rachel into bed. There was some thunder, and she asked me to get in bed with her. When I said no, she told me that you let her sleep with you."

"Sure I let her sleep with me when she's scared. What's wrong with that?"

"She said you don't wear pajamas."

"I never have. You know that. When the girls are around, I sleep in a pair of briefs."

"That's sick, Eric. Letting her in bed with you."

His alarm was changing into anger. "There's nothing sick about it. What the hell's wrong with you?"

"So much righteous indignation," she scoffed. "Well, don't bother, because she told me all of it, you bastard." Lilly's face twisted until it was ugly with hatred. "She said she's seen your cock."

"She probably has. Christ, Lilly. Sometimes they walk in on me when I'm getting dressed. I don't go out of my way to flaunt myself in front of them, but I've never made a big deal out of it."

"You bastard. You think you've got an answer for everything. Well, that's not all she said. She told me you touch her between her legs."

"You're a liar! She wouldn't say that. I've never touched her—" But he had. Of course he had. Carmen usually bathed the girls, but sometimes he did.

"Listen to me, Lilly. You're putting some kind of sick interpretation on something that's perfectly normal. I've bathed those girls on and off since they were babies. That's what Rachel was talking about. Ask her. No, we'll ask her together."

He moved toward her, ready to drag her back to her house and his daughters if necessary, but she jumped up from the couch and the fear on her face stopped him.

Her teeth were bared, her too-thin face fierce. "You're not going to get within a mile of her. I'm warning you right now, Eric. Stay away from those girls or I'll have you thrown in jail so fast your head will spin.

I may not be much of a mother, but I'll do whatever I have to do to keep them safe. If I think you're posing the slightest threat to them, I'll go to the authorities. I will. I mean it. I'll keep quiet as long as you stay away, but the moment you come near those girls, you'll find this filthy perversion of yours smeared over every paper in the country."

She fled from the room.

"Lilly!" He started to go after her, but then he made himself stop. He had to pull himself together and think.

His cigarette pack was empty. Crushing it in his fist, he threw it across the room toward the fireplace.

The conviction he had seen in Lilly's eyes chilled him. She truly believed what she was saying. But how could she believe he was capable of something so obscene when she knew how much he loved those girls? He began pacing the floor, trying to remember everything he had ever done with his daughters, but it was so impossible, so ridiculous.

Gradually, he grew calmer. He had to stop reacting emotionally and think logically. This was another one of Lilly's trips off the deep end, and he should be able to prove that without any difficulty. The whole thing was so patently absurd. Fathers all over the country bathed their children and took them into bed when they were frightened. His lawyer would straighten it out in no time.

"I've been taking a crash course in child sexual abuse since your phone call, Eric, and I'm afraid this may not be quite as easy as you think."

Mike Longacre leaned forward over his desk. He was in his late thirties, but thinning hair and a tendency toward pudginess made him look older. He had been Eric's lawyer through the divorce, and the men had developed a distant sort of friendship. They'd done some deep-sea fishing together, played racquetball, but they had little else in common.

Eric shot up from his chair and thrust one hand back through his hair. He hadn't had any sleep; he was running on cigarettes and adrenaline. "What do you mean it's not easy? The whole thing is incredible. I would no more harm my daughters than I'd cut off my arm. Lilly's paranoia is the danger to them, not me."

"Sexual abuse of children is a tricky area."

"Are you telling me you actually think Lilly can make this stick? I told you what she said. She obviously twisted some innocent remarks Rachel made. There's nothing more to it."

"I understand. I'm simply advising you that we have to tread carefully here. Sexual abuse of children is the one area of the law where the accused has no rights. You're guilty until proven innocent. Remember that a sickening number of these charges are true, and the court's primary concern is protecting the children. Countless fathers are molesting their daughters every day."

"But I'm not one of them! My God, my children don't need protection from me. Goddamnit, Mike, I want this thing stopped before it goes any farther."

The lawyer toyed with his gold pen. "Let me tell you a little about what can happen here. Everyone used to believe that children never lied about sexual abuse, but we've discovered that they can be coached. Let's say the mother has gotten a lousy divorce settlement. Her husband is driving a BMW and she can't pay her grocery bill. Maybe he wants to challenge the custody arrangement, or he isn't making his child support payments."

"None of this applies to Lilly. I've given her everything she's wanted."

Mike held up his hand. "For whatever reason, women frequently feel powerless in divorce cases. Maybe the kid says something that starts her thinking. She begins asking questions. 'Daddy touched you here, didn't he?' She pops a piece of candy in the kid's mouth, and when the kid says no, she hands out another piece of candy. 'Are you sure? Now think hard.' The kid is getting all this extra attention and begins to fabricate to keep Mom happy. There have even been cases where mothers have threatened to kill themselves if the children don't say what she tells them."

"Lilly wouldn't do that. She's not a monster. Jesus, she loves the girls."

There was a moment of silence in the office. "Then what's going on here, Eric?"

Eric swallowed hard and looked up at the ceiling. "I don't know. God help me, I don't know."

He turned back to the attorney, struck by a new thought. "Rachel's a hardheaded little girl. Even though she's just turned five, I don't know how much she could be influenced. We'll hire the best psychiatrists in the field. Let them talk to her."

"In theory, that's a good idea, but in practice it backfires all the time."

"I don't see how. Rachel's well adjusted. She's articulate. She's—"

"She's also a child. Listen to me, Eric. We're not dealing with an exact science. Most of the professionals who specialize in child abuse cases are well trained and competent, but it's still a relatively new discipline. Even the most capable make mistakes in judgment. There have been a lot of scary cases. For example, a little girl is given an anatomically correct male doll. She's never seen anything like this before, and she pulls on its penis. Bingo. The overzealous expert takes this as a sign of abuse. I'm not exaggerating. These things happen all the time, and there aren't any guarantees. I'm sorry. I'd like to be able to reassure you that a psychiatric exam of Rachel would exonerate you, but I simply can't. The truth is, you'll be playing Russian roulette if you press the issue."

Mike gave him a slow, steady gaze. "You also have to remember that Rebecca would be questioned. I imagine she could be influenced quite easily."

Eric squeezed his eyes shut, his flicker of hope dying. His sweet little Becca would do anything or say anything if she thought it would please.

Mike's chair squeaked as he shifted his weight. "Before you even think about challenging Lilly, you need to understand the consequences. Once she goes public with her accusations, everything happens quickly and none of it is good. The girls will be taken away from you while the investigation goes on."

"How can that happen? This is America. Don't I have any rights?"

"It's as I said. In child abuse cases you're guilty until proven innocent. The system has to work that way for protection, and the best you can hope for while the investigation goes on is supervised visitation. The investigations themselves are supposed to be kept confidential, but the girls' teachers will be questioned, friends and neighbors, all the hired help. Anyone with half a brain will be able to figure out what's going on, and since you're involved, I can guarantee it'll hit the papers long before the courts get hold of it. I don't think I need to elaborate on what being accused of child molestation will do to your career as a leading man. The public will put up with a lot, but—"

"I don't give a shit about my career!"

"You don't mean that." He held up his hand and went on. "The girls will be forced to undergo medical examinations. A series of them if this drags on."

Eric felt sick. How could he put his babies through something like that? How could he hurt them that way? They were innocents. When they were born, he had thought he had broken the cycle, but once again it had caught him up. Why did he always have to hurt the innocents?

"The examinations will prove they haven't been abused," he said.

"Maybe in an ideal world. The truth of the matter is that in the majority of cases, there isn't any physical evidence. Most sexual abuse involves fondling or oral copulation. An intact hymen is no proof that a child hasn't been molested."

Eric felt as if the walls of the office were closing in on him. He hadn't believed—He hadn't even let himself consider the possibility that he might lose his daughters. Any minute now he'd wake up, and this would only be a nightmare.

The lawyer shook his head. "The minute these charges become public, a man has a loaded gun pointed at his head. For someone who's a celebrity, it's even worse. On the positive side, I've seen some fathers go bankrupt defending themselves in these cases, and you don't have to worry about that."

Pain and frustration made Eric's voice sharp. "Is that the best you can do for hope? That I can afford to defend myself? What the fuck kind of comfort is that?"

Longacre stiffened. "It probably wasn't wise for you to have taken your daughters into bed in the first place."

Eric's rage exploded. He vaulted across the desk and

grabbed the attorney by the collar of his shirt. "You son of a___"

"Eric!"

As he drew back his fist, the alarm in Longacre's eyes stopped him, and he forced himself to let go.

Mike gasped for breath. "You fool."

Eric was trembling as he pulled away. "I'm sorry. I—"

Unable to say more, he fled from the office and drove frantically to Lilly's house. He had to get to his children. But when he arrived at the house, everything was locked and the curtains were drawn.

He found the gardener working by the pool in the back. The man said Lilly had left the country. And she had taken the girls with her.

Three weeks later Eric flew to Paris, where his team of private investigators had located Lilly and the girls. As he stared blindly out the window of the taxi that was moving through the traffic on the quai de la Tournelle, he knew that the last weeks had been the longest in his life. He had smoked too much, drunk too much, and, in the wake of his Oscar triumph, been unable to concentrate on his work.

As the taxi crossed the pont de la Toumelle to the tiny He Saint-Louis that sat in the center of the Seine, the driver kept grinning at Eric in his rearview mirror. Eric had long ago accepted the fact that there were few places left in the world where his face wasn't recognized. He looked off to his left toward the neighboring He de la Cite's famous landmark, but Notre-Dame's slender spire and flying buttresses barely registered in his mind.

The He Saint-Louis sat between Paris's Right and Left banks where it formed the period to the He de la Cite's exclamation mark. The island was one of Paris's most exclusive and expensive neighborhoods and had housed a number of luminaries over the years, including Chagall and James Jones as well as current residents such as Baron Guy de Rothschild and Madame Georges Pompidou.

The taxi let Eric out in front of the address the investigators had given him, a seventeenth-century town house located on the fashionable quai d'Orleans. Across the Seine the Left Bank glimmered in the late morning light. As Eric paid the fare, he looked up toward the second floor windows and saw the draperies move. Lilly had been watching for him.

As desperately as he yearned to see his daughters, he knew the situation was too explosive for him to give in to the urge to arrive unexpectedly, and so he had called Lilly early that morning. At first she had refused to see him, but when she realized he was going to come whether she wanted him to or not, she had agreed to meet him at eleven when both girls would be gone.

The town house was built of limestone, and the intricately carved wooden front door was enameled a rich shade of blue. White shutters, their top halves open to reveal pots of trailing pink ivy geraniums, graced the long, narrow windows. He was about to lift the knocker when the door swung open and Lilly stepped out.

She looked tired and drawn, even thinner than he remembered, with faint purple smudges lodging in the hollows beneath her eyes. "I warned you to stay away," she said, hugging her arms beneath her silk blouse, although the morning was warm.

"We have to talk."

He saw a group of tourists coming toward them and turned his head away. The last thing he needed to do while he was trying to reclaim his life was sign autographs. He snatched a pair of sunglasses from the pocket of his white cotton dress shirt and shoved them on. "It's too public here. Can't we go inside?"

"I don't want you near their things."

The cruelty of her comment filled him with rage, and he wanted to strike her. Instead, he grasped her upper arm so hard that she winced and pulled her along the tree-lined quay toward a bench that faced

the river.

The setting was idyllic. Tall poplars cast dappled shadows over the walk. A fisherman stood on the banks near a graceful iron light pole. A pair of lovers walked by, their bodies so intertwined it was difficult to

tell where one began and the other ended.

She sat down on the iron bench and began clenching and unclenching her hands. He remained standing and stared blindly out toward the water. For the rest of his life, he would hate this beautiful city.

"I'm not giving in to your threats any longer, Lilly. I'm going public. I've decided to take my chances in court."

"You can't do that!" she cried.

"Just watch me."

He looked down at her. Her fingernails had been bitten so far down that the cuticles were bloody.

She gasped for breath as if she had been running. "The publicity will ruin your career."

"I don't care anymore!" he exclaimed. "My career doesn't mean anything without my children."

"What's the matter?" she sneered. "Can't you find anybody else who'll give you your sexual thrills?"

He grabbed her. She gasped, trying to pull away from him by cowering into the bench. His rage was a blinding white light, and he knew that if he didn't let her go, he would hurt her.

With a dark oath, he dropped her arm and whipped off his sunglasses. They snapped in his hands, and

he hurled them into the Seine. "God damn you!"

"I won't let you near them!" she cried, jumping up from the bench. "I'll do whatever I have to. If you go to court or do anything to try to get them back, I'll send them underground."

He stared at her. "You'll do what?"

A pulse beat frantically in a thin blue vein near her temple. "There's an underground system that protects children when the law won't. It's illegal, but effective." Her gray eyes darkened with bitterness. "I knew you'd try to get to them, so I've learned a lot about it in the past few weeks. All I have to do is say the word, Eric, and the girls will disappear. Neither of us will have them then."

"You can't mean that. You wouldn't send them into hiding with strangers."

"The strangers won't molest them, and I'll do whatever I have to do to keep them safe." Her face sagged. He saw how tired she looked, but he felt no pity for her.

"Please," she whispered. "Don't make me send them away. They've already lost their father. Don't make them lose their mother, too."

Beneath her exhaustion he saw determination, and he knew with sickening certainty that she wasn't making an idle threat. Her conviction in his guilt was absolute.

The ball of pain spun inside him, growing larger with each revolution. "How can you believe I'd hurt my daughters?" he asked hoarsely. "What did I ever do to make you think I'm capable of something like this? Jesus, Lilly, you know how much I love them."

Tears rolled down her cheeks. "I don't know anything anymore except that I have to protect them. I'll do that, even if it means giving them up to strangers. No little girls should have to suffer what they've suffered."

She turned to leave.

He took a quick step after them, his voice raw with desperation. "Just tell me how they're doing. Please, Lilly. At least do that for me."

She shook her head and walked away, leaving him more alone than he'd ever been in his life.