t was almost nine o’clock when Susanna Kosper pulled into her driveway and punched the button on the garage door opener. Even before the door slid up and she saw the other parking bay was empty, she knew Rip wasn’t home yet, because the big, cream stucco house was dark. When Rip was home, the house was lit up like downtown; he turned on the lights in every room he entered, then forgot to turn them off again when he left.

More often than not, now, Rip wasn’t home when she got home. And even when he was, he barely spoke.

Twenty years of marriage were going down the drain, and she didn’t know how to stop it. They had so much in common that she wasn’t quite able to grasp how they could drift so far apart. They both loved their careers, and they enjoyed the healthy salaries they pulled down. Even though her malpractice insurance rate had skyrocketed, along with that of every other ob-gyn in the country, together they did very well.

She had once gone through a scare when she thought they might lose everything they’d worked so hard for, but she had been doubly cautious about money since then, and her caution had paid off. Their house was a showplace, they had healthy retirement funds, and Rip made no pretense of not enjoying their success. They liked the same movies, the same kind of music; they voted the same way most of the time; they even liked the same college football team, the Ohio State Buckeyes. So what had gone wrong?

Susanna lowered the garage door behind her and let herself into the house, then keyed the code into the alarm system. She loved this moment when she first came home, when she saw the tastefully decorated rooms, smelled how clean and fresh it was, with the sweetness of potpourri that wiped out the smells of hospitals and antiseptics. She loved it even more when Rip was there waiting for her, but that seldom happened these days.

The most probable—the most clichéd—cause was another woman. A nurse, of course. Wasn’t that what usually happened? A successful doctor hits middle age, starts feeling less than vital, and looks around for a younger woman to give his sex drive a boost. The only difference in their situation was that in case of a divorce, Rip wouldn’t have to pay Susanna alimony, since her earning power equaled his, and she wouldn’t ask for alimony anyway. But his standard of living would go down, because of the loss of her salary. Susanna thought her own standard of living would stay about the same; she would, of course, keep the house. And insist that Rip pay it off. Divorce wouldn’t be a smart move on Rip’s part.

She didn’t want a divorce. She loved Rip. Even after all these years, she still loved him. He was funny and intelligent and warm, and though anesthesiologists usually had only brief contact with patients, he could establish a rapport and relax the patient better than anyone else she’d ever seen.

Maybe they should have had children. But when they were younger and struggling to establish their practices while still paying off their student loans, there simply hadn’t been either the time or the money for children. Especially no money; she shuddered to remember how tight things had been, how desperate. People thought doctors were rolling in cash, but that generally wasn’t true, at least for most. It took years to become a doctor, all the while taking on more and more debt to finance your education, then years more to establish a good practice. You struggled to pay the salaries of your office staff, your nurses, the overhead of rent and utilities and supplies, equipment, insurance. Sometimes the debt had seemed mountainous. But they had done it: paid off their student loans, gradually became more profitable, and finally had enough money to enjoy life.

But here she was, almost fifty years old, and it was too late for children. She hadn’t had a menstrual period in almost six months, which was a bit sooner than average for menopause, but not drastically so. She had scheduled a checkup with another doctor, of course, just to make certain nothing was wrong. Everything was normal, she was in excellent shape, but she was definitely going through menopause. Even that was going well: no hot flashes, no sweats, no disturbed sleep or emotional swings. Not yet, anyway. Some women sailed through, some women really suffered, then there were all degrees in between. Maybe she would be one of the sailors.

She and Rip hadn’t had sex in... four months? She wasn’t certain. It had been a while. Of course, he was fifty himself, and people did slow down. But their sex life had been fairly regular, enjoyable, and then—nothing.

There had to be another woman.

She was in the bedroom changing clothes when she heard the alarm beep as the garage door opened. Rip was home. She didn’t know if she was glad or dreaded seeing him. She was just stepping into the pants of her lounging pajamas when he came into the bedroom, his face lined and tired.

“Where have you been?” she snapped, though until she saw him she had planned to say not a word. “You were supposed to be home at five.”

“What difference does it make?” he asked without inflection. “You weren’t home, either.”

“I’d like to know where you are, in case there’s an emergency.”

He shrugged out of his jacket. “Then you should check your messages more often.”

“I checked my messages—” She stopped. She hadn’t checked them since she’d left the office.

“Obviously not.” He walked over to the answering machine and played the messages. There were two hang-ups, a long distance company, a friend inviting them to a party on Saturday night, then Rip’s own voice telling her his partner, Miguel Cárdenas, had come down with a stomach virus and was puking his guts up, so he was having to fill in on an emergency surgery.

Susanna almost felt ashamed. Almost. Just because he was innocent this time didn’t mean he was innocent all those other times he’d been out late. “What kind of emergency?”

“Car accident. Crushed pelvis, broken ribs, deflated lung, severely bruised heart.” He paused. “He died.”

He sounded as tired as he looked. He rotated his neck and flexed his shoulders, trying to get the kinks out as she had so often seen him do after a long day at the hospital. “Where were you?”

“Doing rounds. Felicia D’Angelo started spotting, thought she was having contractions, so I had her come in. I checked her out, ran some tests. She’s fine. Who’s your girlfriend?”

He didn’t miss a beat, didn’t even act surprised by the question. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Of course you don’t. That’s why you’re seldom at home, why we don’t have sex anymore, why you act like you can barely stand to speak to me. Because of this girlfriend you don’t have. Is it someone in your office? A nurse at the hospital?”

His eyes narrowed as heat came into them. “I’m not fucking around, Suze. Period.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Susanna didn’t want to beg, refused to beg, but the distance between them was killing her. “Is it because I’m going through menopause?”

“I didn’t know you were,” he said, and somehow that hurt as much as anything, that he’d paid so little attention to her.

“If it isn’t that, what?”

He was silent for a long moment; then he shrugged. “We’re just different people now. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” She thought she would explode from the emotions that swelled up in her, anger and frustration and pain mixing together and each feeding the other. “We’re different people? Just when did we become different? Who changed, me or you?”

“Neither of us,” he said softly. “That’s the kicker. Maybe I just found out we’ve been different all along.”

“Would you stop with the fucking riddles?” she yelled, clenching her fists. “I don’t know what’s going on! I don’t know what you’re talking about! All I know is we’re falling apart and it’s killing me! For god’s sake, just say it in plain language!”

“Leave it alone.” He sounded totally unmoved by her fury. “Just—leave it alone. I don’t plan on leaving you; we can rock on the way we always have, keep our lives the same.”

“Are you crazy? How can it be the same? How can you love someone one day and the next day it’s like we haven’t even been introduced?”

“I’ll tell you how.” Venom suddenly laced his tone. “I’ll tell you in two words: True Gallagher.”

Susanna actually fell back a pace, her mind going blank. “What?” Shock paralyzed her thought processes, leaving her standing there with her mouth open and nothing else coming out. Surely not. Surely he didn’t—

Rip didn’t say anything else, just watched her.

Then with an almost audible click her mind began working again, racing along at a feverish pace. “I’m not seeing True Gallagher! You think I’m having an affair with him? My God, Rip, I’m trying to set him up with Milla!”

Something moved in his eyes, flashed across his expression, so fast she couldn’t read it. “Leave Milla alone,” he said flatly. “She deserves better than him.”

“Why do you have such a hard-on for True? What’s he done to you? I swear, I promise you, I’m not cheating on you with anyone and certainly not with him!” She tried to think of the times she’d spoken with True in public, which weren’t many, tried to think of anything they had said or done that would give an onlooker the impression they were having an affair.

“Let’s just say I don’t believe you,” Rip said. “And leave it at that.”

He turned and left the room, and somehow Susanna knew he wouldn’t be sleeping in the same room with her anymore. Until now they had at least done that, though he’d been on his side and she’d been on hers, and not so much as a hand had strayed into the neutral territory between them.

She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. She wanted to throw something; she wanted to hit something; she wanted to hit Rip for being such a dumb asshole. He was being a jerk because he was jealous, of all things.

She couldn’t believe how backward she’d had it. While she was suspecting him of having an affair, he was suspecting her of the same thing. She knew she wasn’t. Unless Rip had accused her as a sly method of throwing her off his track, he wasn’t having an affair, either.

Her marriage wasn’t over, after all. It was just going through a rough patch. If she hung in there, things would eventually smooth over and he’d realize he was totally out of bounds with his suspicions, and they would gradually regain the warmth between them. Until then, she’d have to be very, very careful.

She didn’t use the landline phone, any extension of which Rip could look at and see she was on the phone. Instead she fished her cell phone out of her bag, closed the bedroom door, then went into the bathroom and closed that door, too. Then she dialed True’s number.

“Rip thinks we’ve having an affair,” she said in a low voice when he answered. “He’s very suspicious.”

“So soothe his ruffled feathers. We can’t afford to have him doing something stupid like following you around.”

“I know. I told him I was trying to set you up with Milla, but he’s so pissed he didn’t like that idea, either.”

“Just keep playing him. Did you make any progress with Milla?”

“I don’t think so. You know how stubborn she is when it comes to that foundation of hers. She’s afraid that if she goes out with you, she’ll lose a dollar in funding from some old biddy who doesn’t think it looks good for her to be dating a sponsor.”

“Yeah, that’s what she told me, too. Keep working on her, though. I don’t want to push too hard and make myself obnoxious.”

“I’ll do my best. With our schedules, sometimes it’s tough getting together for girl talk.”

“Then make an opportunity. All of a sudden she’s coming up with information she shouldn’t have. I need to know how she’s getting it, and I need to know every move she’s going to make before she makes it. I can’t do that unless I get close to her.”

“I know, I know. Like I said, I’ll do my best. I can’t twist her arm and make her go out with you.”

“Why not?” He sounded amused. “Get her to go out to dinner with you and Rip, and I’ll just happen along. How does that sound?”

“I don’t know if I can get Rip to do anything right now. I’ll have to work on him.”

“You do that, and make it good.” The phone clicked as he hung up, and Susanna turned off her phone.

She took a deep breath. Well, the plan was simple: seduce her husband. Executing the plan, though, was going to be a bitch.