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paid millions for it. There’s going to be a lot of trouble in the next few years, now that it’s all coming to light. You’ll see.’

      Claire said, ‘You’re repeating what Hercule was telling me not long ago. Maybe you should talk to him about it.’

      ‘I’d like that.’

      ‘Maybe we can get together with him this weekend. Anyway, do you represent someone with a claim to stolen art?’ Claire asked curiously.

      ‘Not at the moment, but I may well do so in the not too distant future.’

      They fell silent as they continued to stroll around the museum, at ease with each other. Laura, forever worried about Claire, stole a quick look at her. In her years of living in Paris Claire had acquired a certain kind of chic that was uniquely French. This afternoon she wore a dark purple wool coat, calf length and tightly belted, over matching pants and a turtleneck sweater. The purple enhanced Claire’s large green eyes and auburn halo of curls. Big gold hoop earrings and a dark red shoulder bag were her only accessories, and she looked stylish, well put together. Laura admired Claire’s style, which seemed so natural and uncontrived.

      Glancing at Laura, Claire came to a halt and said, ‘I’m glad you’re in Paris for a while, Laura, I miss you.’

      ‘I miss you too,’ Laura answered swiftly.

      Looking at her watch, Claire went on, ‘I think I’d better be getting back to the photographic studio. I’m doing a shoot for the magazine, as you know, and Hercule’s coming over later. I need his advice about one of my sets.’

      ‘He’s turned out to be a good friend,’ Laura said. ‘Hasn’t he?’

      ‘Yes. But not my best friend. That’s you, Laura Valiant. Nobody could take your place.’

      Laura squeezed Claire’s arm. ‘Or yours,’ she said.

      Laura heard the phone ringing above the sound of the water pouring into the bath, and she reached for the receiver on the wall.

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘Hi, sweetie.’

      ‘Doug! Hello, darling.’ She sat down on the small bathroom stool near the make-up table, and glanced at her watch. It was six here. Noon in New York.

      Her husband said, ‘I called you earlier but you weren’t there. I’m off to lunch with a client in a few minutes, and I wanted to catch you before you went out again.’

      ‘It’s such a clear line, you sound as if you’re around the corner!’ she exclaimed warmly, happy to hear his voice.

      ‘I wish I were.’

      ‘So do I. Listen, I’ve got a great idea! Why don’t you come in for the weekend? Tomorrow’s Friday, couldn’t you take it off and fly over? It would be lovely, Doug.’

      ‘Wish I could, but I can’t,’ he answered, his voice changing slightly, growing suddenly brisk, businesslike. ‘That’s another reason I’m calling you, I have to fly to the coast tomorrow. Meetings with the Aaronson lawyers. The merger’s on, after all.’

      ‘Oh. It’s unexpected, isn’t it?’

      ‘Yep, it sure is. But what can I do, I’m needed out there.’

      ‘Never mind. But it would have been nice to have you in Paris if only for a couple of days.’

      ‘Sorry, darling, it can’t be helped. When do you think you’ll be back?’

      ‘I have appointments set up for the early part of next week, Doug, so I’ll probably leave for New York on Thursday or Friday.’

      ‘Great! You’ll be here next weekend, and so will I. This is probably going to be a quick trip to LA. In and out.’

      ‘Where are you staying?’

      ‘Er, the Peninsula, in Beverly Hills, as usual.’

      ‘Doug?’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘I’ve really missed you this week.’

      ‘I’ve missed you too, darling. But we’ll make up for it, and you know what they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.’

      She laughed. ‘I guess it does…the way I’m feeling right now, I wish you were here…’ She laughed again, a light, infectious laugh.

      He laughed with her. ‘Got to go, sweetie.’

      ‘When are you leaving tomorrow?’

      ‘My flight’s at nine in the morning, and I’m going straight into meetings once I’ve dropped my luggage off. I’ll call you.’

      ‘’Bye, darling.’

      ‘’Bye, Laura. And a big kiss,’ he said, before hanging up.

      Laura sat soaking in the bath longer than usual. There had been no cabs on the street when she and Claire had left the museum earlier; they had walked all the way back to the hotel where Claire had finally found a cab.

      The water was helping Laura to thaw out and to relax, and she luxuriated in the hot bubble bath for a while, thinking of Doug. She had married Douglas Casson when she was twenty-five and he was twenty-seven. They were a perfect fit, compatible, attuned to each other in the best of ways. But lately he worked too hard. She smiled at this thought. Didn’t he say the same thing about her?

      To his way of thinking, they were both workaholics, and he seemed to relish announcing this. It was true, of course, but she didn’t like that particular word. It smacked of obsessiveness, and she was quite sure neither of them was that. Not exactly.

      Anyway, Claire had always said that the ability to work hard for long hours was the most important thing of all, and that this was what separated the women from the girls.

      But Laura thought that love was important, too. Hadn’t Colette, her favourite writer, once written that love and work were the only things of consequence in life. Certainly she believed this to be so. But Claire didn’t – at least not the love part, not anymore. Claire had been burnt. ‘And they were third-degree burns, at that,’ Claire had said. Those burns had taken a long time to heal. ‘Now I have built a carapace around me, and I’ll never get burnt again. Or hurt in any way. My shell protects me. Nothing, no one, can ever inflict pain on me.’

      Laura loved Claire. She also had enormous compassion for her, because of all the bad things that had happened to her. Laura was well aware that Claire was raw inside; still, she couldn’t help wishing her friend would open herself up to love again instead of retreating into her shell the way she did. There was something oddly sterile about a woman’s life, if she did not have love in it, if she didn’t have a man to cherish and to love.

      These days, whenever she broached this subject, Claire only laughed hollowly, and responded swiftly, ‘I have Natasha, and she’s all that matters. She’s my life now, I don’t need a man around.’

      But a fourteen-year-old daughter wasn’t enough, was it? Laura wondered. Surely not for a loving, passionate, intelligent woman like Claire.

      Claire. The dearest friend she had ever had. And still her best friend, the one she loved the most, even though they lived so far away from each other now. Claire and she went back a long way. Almost all of their lives, really.

      She had been five years old when Claire and her parents, Jack and Nancy Benson, had come to live in the apartment opposite theirs in the lovely old building on Park Avenue at Eighty-Sixth Street. She had instantly fallen in love with her in the way a little girl of five falls in love with a very grown-up ten-year-old. She had worshipped Claire from the start, had emulated her. Once their two families had become acquainted, Claire had taken Laura and Dylan under her wing, had been baby-sitter, pal, and confidante.

      Cissy, the Valiant nanny, had had her hands full with Dylan, who was then only two and very naughty. So Claire

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