"Catherine-Christ!" He rose and dressed with abrupt, angry movements. "I've got to leave," he said, "and I can't come back."

"I'll wait for you," Catherine said. She was sad when she heard the front door close behind him, but not afraid. She knew he would return.

It was a good season for waiting. There was the Thanksgiving rush to prepare for, and the social season was in full swing.

Catherine filled the ballroom at the Plaza with red geraniums, mauve begonias, and orange chrysanthemums, all growing in pots so the guests at the brunch for Mrs. Wilder's guests from Florence could take the plants home as party favors. Mrs. Wilder liked party favors. She also liked tax deductions. She instructed Catherine to have the plants that weren't taken home by guests taken to a nursing home the day after the brunch. This gave Mrs. Wilder a tax deduction as a charitable donation-which helped offset the cost of the flowers in the first place.

Catherine and Jason designed and built enormous arrangements of pheasant feathers, ostrich plumes, silver birch, gold alstroemerias, snapdragons, and gladioli for the wedding of a Moroccan man to a Peruvian woman. Their guests were invited to take home the gold place settings from the dinner party. They didn't care about tax deductions.

With her brother as her escort, Catherine went to the parties where she expected to make the most contacts. She prepared her makeup and clothes very carefully, in case Kit and Haley were there. But she never saw them.

She waited. She didn't give up hope.

On Christmas Eve day, a delivery boy arrived at Blooms with an enormous ribboned box of champagne, cheese, nuts, caviar, smoked fish, and exotic fruits. The card read: "Merry Christmas to everyone at BLOOMS, from Piet in Amsterdam."

Catherine had also received a private note from Piet that day. "Catherine. This is taking longer than I thought. There have been some minor problems. But I'll see you soon with good news. Love, Piet."

She was too rushed with the pressures of the day to do more than read the note before she crumpled it tightly and tossed it in the wastebasket.

She spent Christmas Day sleeping, then joined her family for a holiday dinner at her parents'. When Sh.e.l.ly left early to go to a party, Catherine left with him, but she went home to spend the rest of the night in solitude, waiting for the phone to ring.

It was almost midnight on New Year's Eve when Catherine and Sh.e.l.ly staggered from Blooms to Catherine's apartment. They each carried an open bottle of champagne, and from time to time they stopped to lean their heads back for a giant swig. They were exhausted. With Jason, they had decorated four hotels and eight private homes that day for New Year's Eve parties. Catherine's hands were stinging from the mult.i.tude of tiny scratches and slices she got from the flowers and twine and florist wire; whenever she was rushed, she got sloppy. Her arms were actually shaking from exhaustion. Muscles jumped in her legs.

Catherine was wearing a mink coat that fell to her ankles, high-heeled custom-made black boots, and a green silk minidress with a wide black leather belt clasped loosely around her hips. The mink was her Christmas present to herself. The dress she'd worn because she always ran into her clients when she was working, and she needed to look ready at any moment to join their party, which often they begged her to do. She had had four personal invitations from acceptable, presentable, even desirable men for New Year's Eve and invitations to more parties than she could keep track of. She had turned everyone down. She wanted only the comfort and routine of work and waiting for Kit.

"When I get home, I'm going to crawl into bed and sleep for two weeks straight," Sh.e.l.ly said.

"No, you're not. We've got two buffets and four dinners to set up for tomorrow."

Sh.e.l.ly groaned, but Catherine knew it was only an act. Sh.e.l.ly was making himself indispensable to the shop, and he liked the feeling it gave him.

Turning onto Seventy-fifth Street, they saw a man sitting on the steps to Catherine's front door. It wasn't snowing now, but it had snowed most of the day, and the sidewalk, streets, and steps were covered in glistening white. The stranger had his coat collar turned up and his hat pulled low over his head. Obviously, he had had too much to drink and was sleeping it off on Catherine's doorstep.

"Oh, man," Catherine groaned. "I can't deal with this. I have no charity left in my heart."

"We'll get his address and call a taxi for him," Sh.e.l.ly said.

Hearing their voices, the man turned his head. He stood up. When he rose, Catherine recognized the grace of his movements, the size of his shoulders. She stopped dead in her tracks.

"Kit!"

She dropped the champagne bottle and ran. Champagne geysered out of the bottle, which fell into a snowdrift.

"Don't waste this stuff, it's expensive!" Sh.e.l.ly called, stopping to pick it up.

But Catherine was already there. She looked up at Kit.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. But a smile as large as the world was spreading across her face.

"Catherine," he said. "I've been calling. Your shop. Your home, your parents' home-"

"We were at the Plaza. Decorating for their New Year's Eve ball. Last-minute stuff. You look like you're freezing."

Sh.e.l.ly approached. Kit looked startled. Catherine realized that the two men had never met. She'd never told Sh.e.l.ly about Kit.

"This," she said firmly, "is my brother. Sh.e.l.ly. He works with me, and he was walking me home before going on to our parents' apartment. Sh.e.l.ly, this is a friend of mine. Bye, darling."

Sh.e.l.ly grinned and kissed her cheek. "Happy New Year, sis," he said, then headed off into the night.

Catherine opened the door, and they went inside.

Kit looked awful. His slacks and sweater hung on him; he had lost weight since she'd last seen him. He had dark circles under his eyes; he looked as if he hadn't slept in days. He had a suitcase in his hand.

"You look terrible, Kit. Sit down. I'll make coffee."

"No, Catherine. Wait. You sit down. I want to talk to you. Please."

Catherine sat on one end of the sofa. Kit sat next to her, not quite touching.

"All my life I wanted to be a good man. I never wanted to hurt anyone." He stopped. "I'm going at this backwards. Let me start over. Catherine, I love you. I've always loved you. I've been in h.e.l.l since I saw you. I told Haley about you. I told Haley I want a divorce. Catherine, I want to marry you. If you'll marry me. I want to have a life with you."

"Oh, Kit!" Catherine said.

"I feel like a monster. I feel like I've destroyed Haley."

"Nonsense!" Catherine said. "Haley will be happier without you. You're too civilized for her. She needs-an anthropologist, an archaeologist or something. You know that's true. She'll be fine, Kit. You know she will. Kit, I'm the one who needs you."

Kit looked at Catherine. He seemed exhausted and weak, but his eyes burned with hope. He looked like someone shipwrecked who finally sights land.

"And I need you."

"Kit. Before we say anything else, there's something I have to tell you, about something I did."

"Tell me."

"Let me make some coffee first. It's a long story, and I want you to hear it all." Catherine rose from the sofa and went into the kitchen. She returned with two mugs of creamy sweet coffee in her hand, handed him one, and sat on a chair across from him.

"Kit. You need to know this. I blackmailed someone. Years ago. My family needed money badly, and I didn't know what else to do. And I don't regret it."

She told him about Helen Norton and P. J. Willington. About the bruises, and the flowers. About Piet and the dark closet and the camera, her old-lady disguise, and the terror in Macy's. The money.

When she was through, Kit shook his head. In a low voice he said, "Christ, Catherine. I don't know what to say."

"Tell me this. Do you think I'm evil?"

"Evil? No, not evil. But wrong-"

"No one suffered. Not even P. J. Willington."

"Still-no matter what good you've done ... Where is Piet, anyway?"

"I don't know. I think he's in Amsterdam. I haven't seen him since last January. Piet doesn't matter. You matter, Kit. I want a life with you. Can you love me, knowing what I've done?"

He didn't hesitate. He rose and pulled her from her chair to stand against him. She threw her arms around him. "I love you, Catherine. We've both made mistakes. But this is right."

A jubilant trembling jangled the air around them. Catherine's skin went shivery with goose b.u.mps. From outside came noises heralding the new year. In the apartments above and below Catherine's, the televisions reverberated with Guy Lombardo's orchestra playing "Auld Lang Syne." Boats in the rivers and harbor blatted and blared. Every taxi driver in the city honked his horn. The air of the city effervesced as a million bottles of champagne were opened. Clocks chimed. People on the street below blew whistles, rattled noise-makers, shouted, "Happy New Year!"

"Happy New Year," Kit said to Catherine.

Catherine had never been so happy in her life, so she was surprised at how exasperated she felt about Kit's anguish over Haley's heartbreak.

"G.o.d, she's so alone," Kit said.

"Give her a dog," Catherine wanted to say, but didn't.

Fortunately, when Haley realized Kit was going to go through with the divorce, she stopped being pathetic and became vindictive and predictable. Kit stopped feeling pity for Haley and started to feel angry, which set off a chain reaction in him, explosive capsules of memories of her coldness, her selfishness, her diffidence toward him. This Catherine could listen to with guilty pleasure. In fact, she was amazed at her own capacity for ill will.

One of the most enjoyable evenings in her life arrived when she and Kit were invited to dinner at the home of a couple who had known Kit and Haley intimately. The wife, Janie, spent the entire evening criticizing Haley. Catherine decided that she and Janie were destined to become great friends.

Still, it was a relief when Haley began to fade from their lives. Kit was eager to start his life over with Catherine. Every evening after work, Kit and Catherine ate in restaurants, planning their future. They were delighted by the similarity of their desires. Because he had been an only child, Kit wanted at least two children, close together. Catherine wanted to have children only if Kit would agree to help raise them, to really be there with her, rather than leaving them to a nanny or governess. Every Sunday they drove to Connecticut looking for houses. Afterward, in candlelit restaurants, they held hands and exchanged suggestions: where they would honeymoon, who should come to their wedding, how they should decorate their house, what they would name their children.

Catherine thought she was often happiest in the middle of the night. Then, after Kit had fallen asleep, she could lie next to him, just listening to him breathe. Carefully, with delicacy, she moved her hand or thigh just close enough to feel the heat and hair of his arm or leg. He was really there. She could sleep, and when she awoke he would still be there. She was not thinking as she lay next to him. She was just being happy.

When she wasn't with Kit, she wanted to scurry around preparing things to make each moment she was with him luxurious, sensual. When she had once spent hours sketching designs for a dinner party, she now spent hours at Saks Fifth Avenue, buying rainbows of lacy lingerie. Kit had moved into her apartment, and now Catherine kept the apartment filled with vases of the most exotic, fragrant blooms her shop had in stock. She hung pomanders of jasmine potpourri in the closets and burned jasmine-scented candles to perfume their bedroom with its exotic spell. It suddenly became necessary to find a butcher who would supply her with the thickest, most succulent cuts of steak, a greengrocer who carried the freshest fruits and vegetables, a baker whose bread rivaled France's finest, a wine merchant who truly knew his wares.

She loved making an entrance with Kit. In his happiness, Kit had recovered his healthy good looks, and she knew they looked enviable together. He was so tall, so fair, so handsome, and these days she beamed happiness like the sun. She loved going to dinner with people, meeting his friends, introducing him to hers.

They were to be married in June at Everly. Kit was going to fly to a small Caribbean island for the divorce after his lawyer and Haley's had worked out the terms and settlement. Kit had gone to Boston to tell his parents his plans. They were appalled that he was leaving Haley and refused to give his new union their blessing. They vowed they would not come to the wedding ceremony. Catherine didn't mind. She had worked behind the scenes at too many weddings to believe that the magic of marriage came from all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. The magic for her was Kit's presence at her side.

They had agreed that Catherine would continue to run Blooms even after they had children. Catherine couldn't imagine her life without it. She was terrified of being bored and boring, and Kit said she should do whatever made her happy. As time went by and he realized how much his divorce was going to cost him, he admitted he was glad that she had money of her own. He would never be dependent on her, but he wouldn't be able to give her any luxuries, at least not for a while.

"Any luxuries." Catherine smiled when he said that. It was a luxury for her to sit with Kit on a Sunday morning, drinking coffee, reading the Times, reading snippets aloud and laughing or arguing over them. It was a luxury to hold his hand in the movies. It was a luxury to let down her guard and sob with pleasurable mawkishness at Love Story, knowing that her own love story was ending happily. It was a luxury to feel his eyes, his breath, his skin, his weight, his heat, upon her body.

In late June Catherine sat in her office dictating memos to her staff. Sh.e.l.ly would be in charge, but she wanted to leave detailed instructions for everyone so she and Kit wouldn't be interrupted on their honeymoon.

In one week, she and Kit would be married and honeymooning in Venice. When they returned they would move into the white colonial house in Connecticut that they had decided would be their home. The house had a flagstone path leading up to it and flowering bushes growing around it. Huge evergreens sheltered the northern side, and an apple tree grew outside the breakfast room window. It was a storybook house, the house of a million dreams. It came with enough land for riding horses and a six-stalled stable. There was a small orchard and a pond. It was out in the country and yet only a short drive to a charming New England town that had a decent public school system and a fabulous private school.

Flicking off her recorder, Catherine rose, stretched and yawned. On her desk was a photo she and Kit had taken of the house, which she kept there to remind her it was real. On her hand was her flashing engagement ring-not the emerald one that had belonged to Kit's grandmother-Haley got that-but a simple diamond solitaire.

This was only normal life, she told herself. People got married, went on honeymoons, bought houses, every day. People had done it for years. She was not so different from every other human on the planet, after all. She really could have a husband, a home, a family. Most people accepted that as naturally as their breath.

"h.e.l.lo, Catherine."

She looked up.

Piet stood at the open door to her office. His white linen suit was exquisitely civilized, but when he smiled, his eyes flashed like a gypsy's.

Catherine surprised herself. For the instant she saw Piet, she wanted to touch him, to run her hands over his face, his hair, his chest, to kiss him. The sight of him made her heart glad.

G.o.d. What was wrong with her?

"I'm not going to hurt you," Piet said.

"What?"

Piet nodded at the high-backed swivel desk chair that Catherine had pulled in front of herself, as if for protection. She looked down to see her own hands gripping the back of the chair so tightly, her knuckles were white.

Catherine laughed and released the chair. "Well, this is a shock," she said. "Come in. Sit down."

"How are you?"

"I'm well, thank you." She moved in front of her chair and sat down. She waved Piet onto the chair across from her. She couldn't help the formality, the stiffness, with which she moved. "I'm going to be married next week. To Kit Bemish. A lawyer. We're going to Venice for our honeymoon."

The darkness in Piet's eyes deepened. "Congratulations."

For one brief moment they stared at each other. Then Piet smiled.

"It's a good thing I got here before you left. I've finally gotten all the loose ends tied up, and I now have a serious proposal to make." He waited one wicked beat of time before adding, "A business proposal."

"Oh?"

He leaned forward. Now he was intent, all business. "Catherine, what I'm going to say is just between you and me. I've been working all year on this. It could be very big. In the next few years the flower business is going to change dramatically. Refrigeration and communication technology and air freight will make it possible for a better-quality and a larger variety of flowers to be shipped from Amsterdam than will be available locally. Land on Long Island is becoming more and more valuable for developers, and eventually flower growers there will sell their land. They'll have to. Most of this country will buy their flowers from all over the world, shipped into and out of Holland.

"I have set up my own wholesale company. I want you as my partner. I will work out of Aalsmeer and Amsterdam. You will call me at, say, nine in the morning your time, to tell me what flowers you need. I will buy them at the flower auction, have them packed and flown to you. Because of the time difference the flowers you order in the morning will arrive that same afternoon. For your shop, for Blooms, you will have the finest quality of flowers, and a huge variety, unusual flowers. In addition, you will cut out the cost of the wholesaler.

"But more than that, I want you to branch out. I want you to wholesale flowers from Holland to the other New York florists. We will start simply working from a truck. Our prices will be compet.i.tive, and the flowers will be high quality. We will be the first to offer an enormous variety and such an unusual selection."

Catherine sat, thinking. "Won't the cost of air freight be enormous?"

"Yes. But we will import such a large quant.i.ty that I, buying the flowers, will be able to get a price break that will more than make up for the freight cost. I have the figures to show you. With the volume of flowers Blooms uses, if you save even one cent a stem, you will be making good money. In addition to what you'll charge as wholesaler to other florists."

Catherine's brain was already in high gear. "Perhaps it would be wise not to publicize to my compet.i.tors that Blooms is importing. Perhaps the wholesale business should be under a different name."

Piet smiled. "So you are interested."

Catherine returned his smile. "You knew I would be."