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pain that won’t give me peace, but that I’ll have to live with until I don’t know when. I'm just more prepared than you are to put up with it."

      "Congratulations, what a memory!"

      "I couldn't hope to do theatre if I didn't. And that reply had remained impressed on my soul. But let’s get back to the point I was making ‘I'm just more prepared than you are to put up with it.’ Would you say that again now? It seems to me that I’m reacting better than you to the pain."

      "Really?! And what makes you think that?"

      "The fact that I'm trying to improve myself while you're just getting worse."

      "Well it's easy to improve when you start from the bottom..." He stopped. For crying out loud!

      The phrase had escaped him. This time he had struck her weak point: self-esteem.

      He heard his friend inhale.

      "Forgive me Lucy, I didn't want to be so offensive, really..." he hurried to say, putting his hand on her arm.

      She looked down at the goblet she was holding between her fingers, as if she were contemplating the bubbles rising from the bottom to the surface, then looked at him again in the face, her eyes shining. "Until recently, you would never have said such a nasty thing to me. I would maybe, but not you. Doesn't that tell you anything?"

      Sonny sighed. "It tells me that perhaps it’s better to finish this conversation and see each other again at a more appropriate time. Today it’s obvious I’m not in the mood and I come out with unfortunate remarks, that’s why I would have preferred if you’d phoned me instead of just dropping in unexpected. Much as I’m happy to see you, there are times when it’s better to be alone. That doesn't mean I’m not fond of you." He smiled at her.

      She took the glass and bottle out of his hands.

      "Good! The next time we meet I’ll make sure that you bring the champagne to me. Right now I can't imagine which happy occasion you’ll be celebrating, but whatever it is, I'll be happy to share it with you." She turned on her heels and left him there in the garden, by the fountain.

      Lucy placed the bottle and the glasses on the bar in the living room, then with a forced smile said goodbye to Louise, who went to open the front door for her. When she got into the car the smile disappeared, leaving her eyes free to express her emotions with tears.

      She didn't know what else to do. Her attempts to shake Sonny out of that form of apathy hidden behind an inadequate and inconsistent behaviour compared to the person he’d always been, had proved useless each time. He hadn’t been himself for a long time.

      It all started when he had discovered that his fiancée Leen, who then became his wife, had cheated on him with Hans. Later, witnessing her degradation towards alcoholism and gambling, his downward spiral had continued, culminating in the day that his little girl lost her life in a car accident, precisely because of that woman who, instead of protecting her as a mother should have done, had pulled her with her on the road to ruin.

      Esther's arrival in Sonny's life had made the situation worse.

      Lucy was unable to do any more than she was doing for that man. She had become close to him because, sharing the same pain, they had often found themselves dating to help each other overcome their own crisis. But Sonny did not want or could not forget. It's not that she had forgotten that she had fallen in love with Esther's brother, far from it; but she tried to think about it as little as possible and move on, without letting the past trap her like a fish in a net.

      Jack hadn't even said goodbye to her before he disappeared from her life. Obviously she didn't matter enough to him. Nothing at all, actually!

      Instead, for the first time in her young life, she had fallen seriously in love.

      "Jack, wherever you are..." she said aloud. "Fuck you!" she shouted then, pressing her foot on the accelerator.

      9

      Sitting at her desk, pen in hand, Loreley phoned the doctor and set up an appointment for the last week of the month. As Legrand had told her, it was pointless to hurry, but at least it was done. She drew a big "x" on the calendar, so the day of the visit was always visible, and also entered the date in the calendar on her mobile phone. Then she opened her e-mail. There was a lot of commercial mail, advertising, a couple of jobs, two from the bank And the last... from Dr. Jacques Legrand!

      She clicked on it.

      Hello Miss Lehmann,

      I am writing to ask how the convalescence is going. The head wound? What about the knee? Keep the brace on it until goes down completely and you have no more pain when you put weight on your leg.

      I'm thinking about taking a few days off, for a holiday abroad. Who knows! I hope your offer is still open. Jacques Legrand.

      She smiled. Anything could happen.

      "Good news?" asked Sarah as she came into the room.

      Loreley looked up from the computer. The secretary was looking at her standing still on the threshold, holding a binder tight to her chest that looked bigger than her, petite and frail.

      "What have you got for me?"

      Sarah looked down at the papers in her hand. "Oh, no. These are for the boss. I saw that you were smiling and I was intrigued; smiles have been rather rare lately."

      "It's not a good time," she confessed.

      "I realized that, Ethan is worried about you."

      Loreley sensed she was being scrutinized by those eyes which were so dark it was difficult to distinguish the pupil from the iris. There were a few moments of silence.

      "If you need me, I'm here..." her friend said, adjusting the large reading glasses better on her nose.

      "Thank you, I'll keep it in mind."

      When Sarah had gone, Loreley leaned back in her chair. From what the secretary had said, she suspected that Ethan was aware of the situation between herself and John. Maybe he knew where he was, too. She would extort that information from him at any cost; but she had to get him alone.

      The occasion presented itself the next day. He had just come in to show her the article in the New York Times, where the Wallace case was mentioned. Public opinion seemed to have already condemned him, inflicting as much punishment as possible on him, before the trial even began.

      As she read the news, she shook her head. If she, deep in her heart also condemned him, how could she hope the jury would believe that man? She had to defend him and she was not doing it the correct way and in the right spirit.

      She decided she would go and speak to the Wallace family to get as much information as possible about Peter's experience and personality. Yes, she had to dig into their lives.

      "Loreley, are you with us?" asked Ethan, standing in front of her desk.

      She closed the newspaper and handed it back to him.

      "Sorry, I got distracted reading the article."

      "I was saying that if you want me to help you with this case, I will."

      "That’s kind of you, but you already have your own work to do, and I want to get through this on my own."

      The man gazed at her with an insistent message of indulgence, mixed with compassion which made her uncomfortable. She go up from her chair and faced him, leaning against the edge of her desk, arms folded.

      "Instead of looking at me like that, why don't you tell me what you're really thinking?”

      "I don't understand."

      "Come on, you know damn well that John has left home... and maybe you know why." She was forcing his hand, but she had no choice if she wanted to get something out of him.

      He scratched his head, a gesture he repeated whenever he felt ill at ease.

      "Come on, Ethan! Please."

      The

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