"Did your parents speak French?" She could have told him then, could have begun to open up, could have said something about Solange, but she decided it was safer not to.

"No, I just learned it at school, I guess." He nodded, satisfied with the answer she'd given him, and when they reached her apartment, after a moment's hesitation, she invited him upstairs. They listened to Roberta Flack on her stereo, and talked for hours over a bottle of wine, and he stood up regretfully around one o'clock and looked down at her with a wistful smile.

"I'd like to spend the night with you, Hilary, but I get the feeling you're not ready for that ... are you?" She shook her head, not sure she would ever be. People had tried to get close to her but she was not even remotely tempted. "Are you involved with anyone?" He had meant to ask before but he had put it off. She shook her head in answer, looking at him strangely.

"No, I'm not ... I haven't been in ... a long time...."

"For any particular reason?"

"A lot of them. Most of them too complicated to explain." He sat on her couch and looked at her quietly.

"Why don't you try me?"

She shrugged again. She didn't want to tell him what she'd been through. That was n.o.body's business. She led a different life now, in another place, another world. She didn't want to drag those things with her, and yet she did, in spite of all her efforts to deny them. "I'm sorry, Adam ... I can't...."

"Why not?" He reached out and took her hands in his. "Don't you trust me?"

"It's not that." She felt her eyes fill with tears and she hated herself for it. "I don't want to talk about it ... really...." She stood up and walked away, her. proud shoulders straightened against the world and all it had done to her. And without knowing it, she looked exactly like her mother.

"Hilary ..." He walked up to her from behind and put his arms around her. "Why don't you let yourself go? I know how strong you are, I've seen it at work, but this is different ... this is us ... this isn't a war zone."

Her voice was tired as she spoke to him with her head bowed. "Life is a war zone, Adam."

"It doesn't have to be." He was so gentle, and so innocent. She envied him his simple life. The most difficult thing that had ever happened to him was his wife's deciding she wanted to be free and no longer married. But he knew nothing of the agonies Hilary had endured. He couldn't even begin to understand them, "life can be so sweet ... if you let it...."

"It's not as easy as that." She sighed and looked at him. "I don't think you understand the kind of life I've led, and I don't think I could explain it."

"Then why not go on from here? Isn't that possible, and leave the past behind you?"

"Maybe." She wasn't sure it could be done, but she was willing to try it. He reached out and kissed her gently at first, and then suddenly with more pa.s.sion. He had wanted her for weeks, months, since the first time he'd seen her, and now he couldn't hold back. He peeled her clothes from her and dropped his own, and carried her to her bed, where he began making love to her. But she lay distant and cold, and secretly frightened. Some of the things he did to her were the same things that Maida and Georgine had done ... and some of the other things reminded her of the boys who had raped her the day after Maida and Georgine left. It was too much to overcome, even with a good man like Adam. And it didn't take him long to realize that she didn't want to go on. He pulled away, still throbbing with desire for her and unable to understand what had happened.

"What's wrong? ..." His voice was hoa.r.s.e, his eyes bleary with unspent pa.s.sion. "I want you so much."

"I'm sorry ..." She whispered the words, and turned over on her side, staring at the far wall, wondering if she would ever be normal. Perhaps she would never overcome the past. She was twenty-five years old, and she was beginning to suspect that. There were too many people left that she hated ... Arthur Patterson ... Jack Jones ... the boys who had raped her ... Maida and Georgine ... Eileen. the people at juvenile hall. and in the far distance, even her father. It was too big a burden to carry around and still allow her to function as a woman. "It's not you," she tried to explain. "I just can't."

"Why? You have to tell me." He was trying to sit calmly at the edge of the bed, trying to reach out and understand her. And she sat up quietly and turned around. Maybe it was better to shock him than to hurt him.

"I was raped a long time ago...." She didn't want to say more, and hoped that would be enough, but of course it wasn't.

"How? ... by whom?"

"It's a long story." And which one should she tell him? Maida and Georgine, who were the first, or the boys who had come later? Or Jack who had done his best to precede them all and then had beaten her to within an inch of her life when he didn't get what he wanted. They were all possible candidates for the role, but she couldn't even imagine Adam able to withstand any truth she might tell him "When was it?"

"When I was thirteen." That much was true at least. They had all happened before her fourteenth birthday. She took a gulp of air. "And there hasn't been anyone since then. I guess I should have told you."

"Christ." He looked deeply shaken by what she'd said. "It certainly would have helped. How was I supposed to know something like that?"

"I didn't think it would matter."

"Oh really? You were raped twelve years ago, haven't had relations with anyone since, and you actually thought it wouldn't make a difference? How can you do that to yourself, and to me, for chrissake? What about counseling? Have you had a lot of that since then?" He a.s.sumed she had, of course, everyone he knew was in therapy. He'd gone right back to his own shrink as soon as his wife left him.

"No." She spoke very calmly, and got up to put on a bathrobe. She had a long, languid body and beautiful graceful legs that made him ache with wanting her again, but he tried to force himself not to think about it.

"What do you mean 'no'? You got help after the rape, no? Yes? Right?"

She smiled at him. Hardly. "No. Wrong. I guess I didn't need it."

"Are you crazy?"

"All right, let's say it wasn't available to me at the time."

"Where were you? The North Pole? Where is there in the modern world that therapy isn't available?" Oh G.o.d, he understood nothing of what her life had been like. Therapy? Where? In Louise's home, or at juvie?

"I told you, Adam." She was getting annoyed, but he was getting frantic. "I don't want to discuss it. It's too complicated."

"Too complicated or too painful?" She averted her eyes, so he couldn't see the pain he had already inflicted.

"Why don't we just forget it?"

"What, the relationship? Why? You're not a quitter, Hilary." Now he was sincerely angry. She would have done anything for her job, but not for him, or the relationship they might have, if she was willing.

"Why don't we just forget the problem, Adam. It'll go away by itself eventually."

"Really? How long's it been now? Twelve years, you said, and I wouldn't exactly say you're cured. How long would you like to wait for it to 'go away'? Thirty years maybe? Or how about fifty? You ought to feel a lot better by then, and Christ you'd only be sixty-three, you could have a great s.e.x life, Hilary, be serious be serious!" He took her by the hand and pulled her down on the bed beside him, but he wanted too much from her, and Hilary already knew she couldn't give it to him. He wanted everything, heart and soul, commitment and marriage and children. She could sense that in him, he wanted everything his wife had taken back and more. And she knew for a certainty that she didn't have it in her. She had nothing left to give him. All she could do was take, or maybe extend herself for a little while, if no one asked too much, but the rest was gone. All her love had been given too long ago, and all her energies were reserved for where she was going at the network. "I want you to go into therapy." He sat staring at her, as though announcing he wanted her to have brain surgery, and she had no intention of obliging him. G.o.d only knew what they'd find there.

"I can't."

"That's bulls.h.i.t. Why not?"

"I don't have the time."

"You're twenty-five years old and you have a problem."

"It's not one I can't live with."

"You're not living, you're existing." But slowly, she was getting angry too. He had no right to make judgments on how she was living, just because she didn't want to make love with him.

"Maybe it'll get better." But she didn't sound as though she really cared and that disturbed him.

"By itself?" She nodded. "I doubt it."

"Give it time, Adam. This is only the first time."

He sat silently for a long time, watching her. He saw more than she wanted. "There's a lot you're not telling me, isn't there?"

She smiled, sphinx-like. "It's not that important, Adam."

"I don't believe you. I think you live your whole life behind a walled fortress."

"I used to ... a long time ago...."

"Why?"

"Because there used to be a lot of people out to hurt me."

"And now?"

"I don't let them."

He looked sorry for her, and leaned down to kiss her with a gentle hand on her shoulder, as they sat on the edge of her unmade bed, where their pa.s.sion had been so unsuccessful. "I won't hurt you, Hil ... I swear ..." There were tears in his eyes, and she wished she could feel something for him, but she couldn't. She couldn't feel anything for anyone, and she knew that now, except perhaps if he awoke some unborn pa.s.sion in her, but she couldn't imagine that either. "I love you ..."

She had no answer to those words, and only looked at him sadly. And then he smiled at her and kissed her again. He understood, and that touched her. "It's okay ... you don't have to say anything ... just let me love you...." He lay her back against the pillows, and gently sculpted her body with one finger, drawing it close to her center, and then moving it away, drifting around her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and all the way down her belly, and then up again, touching her with his tongue and his heart and his fingers, but with nothing else, and after hours of it, she was writhing and begging him for something more, but he wouldn't do it. Instead, he let her feel him, and touched her gently with his throbbing organ. He ran it over her like a satin hand, and she bent down and began to kiss it, and touch him gently until he was writhing as she was, and then first with his lips, and then with his fingers, he touched her and felt her grow frightened and rigid.

"It's all right, Hil ... it's all right ... I won't hurt you ... I ... please, baby ... please let me ... please ... Oh, G.o.d, you're so beautiful ..." He crooned to her like a mother with a baby and slowly he Entered her and soothed her until he came, but he knew that she had not joined him. But at least it was a little better. "I'm sorry, Hil ..." He wanted more for her, he wanted everything that he felt, but it was too much to ask for.

"Don't be. It was lovely." She lay quietly beside him, and eventually he slept and she watched him, wondering if she would ever feel for him what he wanted, if she could even feel it for anyone, or if her body was too filled with hatred.

He left the next morning before she dressed for work, and asked her to lunch later that morning, but she said that she was too busy. He wanted to see her that night, but she had a meeting. And in desperation he asked her to join him on Sunday with his boys. They were spending the weekend with him. She looked strangely hesitant over that, as though she were about to say no, but he looked so hurt that she accepted.

"They're great kids, you'll love them."

"I'm sure I will." She smiled. But she was filled with trepidation. She had avoided children for years, and she was not anxious to get to know his, or grow too attached to them. She had had her fill of children long since. The only two she had ever loved had been taken from her.

They arranged a meeting place in Central Park, and on Sunday morning she wore jeans, and a T-shirt, and went out to meet him. He had promised to bring the baseb.a.l.l.s and the picnic and the children. And as she spotted them beneath a tree, the littlest one on his lap, and the six-year-old sitting beside him, she felt something stir in her heart that was so long gone she almost couldn't bear it. She stopped in her tracks and wanted to run, but she couldn't do that to him. But as she approached it only grew worse. What she saw in his eyes was the kind of love she had had for Megan and Axie.

She never made it to lunch. She watched them throw baseb.a.l.l.s for half an hour, and then she pleaded a terrible headache. She ran from the park in tears, and went all the way back to her apartment without stopping for a light or a car or a person.

She lay in bed all day and sobbed, and then forced herself to realize again that Megan and Alexandra were gone from her life forever. She had to make herself remember that. There was no point hanging on to them. No one knew where they were anyway and it would have been close to impossible to find them. There was no point torturing herself now. And they were no longer children, they were women. Alexandra would have been twenty-two by then, and Megan would be seventeen. But there was no point thinking about them anymore. They were no longer lost children, and she was never going to see them again. But she didn't want to see any other children either. She couldn't bear it.

And when the phone began ringing that evening, she quietly took it off the hook and left it there. The next day she acted as though nothing had happened. She was pleasant and businesslike and friendly, and distant and Adam never knew what had hit him. As planned, he was transferred on to sales the following week, and he never went out with Hilary again. She saw to it that they never even ran into each other. And she never took his calls. It was as though none of it had ever happened. And what she didn't know was that he felt sorry for her. But he finally realized that he couldn't help her.

For the next several years Hilary concentrated even harder on her career. She had risen to a higher production position by then and was twenty-seven years old, and she had carefully kept away from all liaisons since her brush with Adam. She was too busy working her way up to want anything else in her life, and all of the men she met seemed to be divorced and have children. Until she met William Brock, CBA's newest anchor. Tall, blond, and handsome, he had been a major football star and had been recently hired by the network. Twice divorced, he had no children, and no desire to have them. He dated his way around the station with gusto, until he got to Hilary, and her ice-like green eyes fascinated him. He treated her with caution and respect, and sent her everything from flowers to a fur coat.

"That was cute, Bill." She dropped it on his desk, box and all, on her way to her office one morning.

"Not your size, darling?"

"Not my style, Mr. Brock. In every possible way." She was not given to romances at the office, or anywhere else for that matter, and becoming a notch on Bill Brock's belt was the last thing she wanted. He invited her to Honolulu for a week, Jamaica for a weekend, skiing in Vermont, dinner at the Cote Basque, and anything else he could think of. But he didn't stand a chance, until one stormy night, when she couldn't get a cab home and he gave her a lift in his Ferrari. He started heading downtown from the network, and Hilary tapped him on the shoulder. "Nice try, Bill. I live on Fifty-ninth Street."

"I live on Fifth Avenue and Eleventh."

"Congratulations, now take me home, or do I have to get out and walk?" She wasn't kidding and he skidded to a stop, but before she could say anything further, he kissed her.

"Your place or mine, Madame Producer, or shall we do something really crazy and go to the Plaza?" She laughed at his outrageous spirit, and demanded that he take her home, but she was no longer surprised when he stopped on the way, to take her to dinner. They stopped for a hamburger at one of his favorite hangouts, and she was surprised at how intelligent he was, beneath the playboy veneer, and the overdeveloped male body. "And you, pretty lady? What makes you tick behind those green eyes that look like emeralds?"

"Ambition." He was the first person she had been that honest with, but for some reason she thought he'd understand that.

"I've had a taste of that myself. It's addictive once you get started."

"I know it." But it was all she had to keep her going ... getting to the top so that nothing could ever get to her again. She wouldn't feel safe till she got there. But that she didn't explain to him. "There's nothing like it, is there? Were you sorry to give up football, Bill?"

"Sort of. It's a great game, but I got tired of having my knees kicked around and my nose broken. You can't take that kind of abuse forever." He smiled at her in just the way that melted most women's hearts, and points south, paid the check, and escorted her back to his Ferrari. He dropped her off at her place without a fight, and she was almost sorry as she let herself into her apartment. Somehow, she had expected a little more than that, an attempt at least, something. She was already undressed and in her nightgown, half an hour later, when the bell rang.

"Who is it?" she asked on the intercom.

"Bill. I forgot to ask you something about the show tomorrow." She frowned and then grinned. He sounded sincere but it was probably a ploy. She decided to keep it that way, and let him stand in the snow while he talked to her.

"What is it?"

"What?"

"I said what is it?"

"I can't hear you!" He started to buzz frantically and she tried to outshout him on the intercom and then finally gave up, and buzzed him in. If it was a ruse, she would put him in place, and quickly. She was waiting in the doorway when he came up, red-faced, smiling, and covered with the snow that was still falling. "Something's wrong with your intercom." He was out of breath and devastatingly handsome.

"Oh, really? Nice of you to come by. Ever heard of the telephone, Mr. Brock?"

"No, ma'am, I haven't." Without further ado, he swept her off her feet, picked her up like a rag doll, walked into her apartment and kicked the door closed behind him. She was laughing at him as he did it. It was such an incongruous scene, and there was something boyish and wonderful about him, but not so wonderful that she wanted to get involved with him, no matter how handsome he was, or how attractive. "Where's your bedroom, Miss Walker?" He was all innocence as she laughed at him. He was like a schoolboy playing a prank on her. But he was also extremely s.e.xy.

"In there. Why?"

"You'll see in a minute." He deposited her on the bed, walked into the bathroom as she stared at him, and emerged five seconds later, stark naked. She was so stunned that she stood staring at him. He was the most outrageous man she had ever known, but also the most appealing. And without further ado, he began making love to her, and despite her initial resistance, his expertise melted whatever reserve she had, and she was soon moaning for him and within a very short time, he obliged her. He lay breathless in her arms, and then rolled over and smiled as she stared at him in amazement. It had aroused feelings in her she had never known existed, and before she could say anything, he began making love to her again, and she thought she would go mad as he made love to her again and again and again until morning. It was an experience she had never had before and was sure she would never have again, but it convinced her that not everything inside her was entirely dead, and maybe one day the right man might come along and find it. But in the meantime, Bill Brock had done something to her she would never forget. And when he left the next morning, she stared out the window at him wistfully as he drove off in his red Ferrari.

She knew then that she would remember him for the rest of her life, but she didn't expect anything more from him. He was not looking for a relationship, or a girlfriend, or a mistress or a wife, or even a friendship. Life to him was one constant stream of pretty girls, and making love was something he did like eating and sleeping and drinking. He didn't really care who he did it with, or how often, or if he ever did it again with the same one. He just wanted to be able to do it, when and where and with whom he wanted.

When he sent Hilary a huge bouquet of roses the next day, and a diamond bracelet from Harry Winston, she gave the bracelet back, with a smile, and he didn't seem surprised. But he also didn't ask her out again. He had other fish to fry, and she was just one of a universe full of pretty women. She was disappointed but not surprised. The only surprise she got was when she went to the doctor two months later. She had had the flu for weeks, and instead of better, she was getting worse. And she was totally exhausted. All she wanted to do was sleep, the thought of food made her sick, she couldn't even stand the smell of coffee when she went into the office in the morning. So finally, after six weeks of it, she called her doctor and made an appointment. He suggested a series of blood tests, a thorough examination, and after the blood tests, he was thinking of putting her on antibiotics.

"It could be some kind of stomach virus, Miss Walker. Have you been anyplace exotic recently?"

She shook her head, depressed to be feeling so poorly. She felt two hundred years old and all she wanted to do was put her head down and sleep all day long. It was depressing to feel that lousy. But two days later she knew why. The test results came back, and the doctor did not suggest antibiotics. She was pregnant. He had done a routine pregnancy test, and a VDRL too, checking her for syphilis. When she heard the news she felt she would rather have had the latter than the former. She put the phone down in shock, staring around her office. She knew exactly whose it was. He was the only man she had slept with in two years, and she hadn't used any precautions and neither had he. It had never occurred to her, she didn't have any to use. He was only the second man she'd ever slept with in her adult life, since the tragedies of her youth. And now she was pregnant.

There was only one solution to the problem. And she called the doctor back within the hour and made the appointment. She left her office at lunchtime in a state of shock, and went home to think about the predicament she was in. Should she tell him? Should she not? Would he laugh? Would he figure it was exclusively her problem? And what about the abortion? Was it wrong? Was it a sin? A part of her wanted to be rid of it instantly, and another part of her remembered Axie as a baby, and little Megan again ... that sweet smell of powder and the silky hair nestled in her arms at night. She remembered the little noises she made before she went to sleep at night, and suddenly Hilary thought she couldn't do it. She had already lost two children she loved, how could she kill this one? Perhaps this was G.o.d's way of making it up to her, of making it all right again, of giving her back one of the babies she had lost, of filling the empty years ahead of her with more than just work ... and the baby would be so beautiful with a father like Bill Brock, and he need never know ... it could be all hers ... all hers ... and suddenly with every ounce of her being, she wanted to protect it.

She suddenly understood why her skirts had been getting tight, even though she'd been losing weight. Her waist had been growing, and she felt a tiny bulge in her stomach. The doctor had told her, when she talked to him, that she was eight weeks pregnant. Eight weeks ... two months ... and inside her there was a tiny baby. She couldn't let herself kill it. Yet she had to, what kind of career could she have with a baby around her neck, who would help her? ... but that smell ... and the sweet cry ... she still remembered the first time she'd seen Axie ... but what if someone took this baby from her too, as they had Megan and Axie, what if Bill Brock found out and wanted his child. For the rest of the week, Hilary was torn by mounting panic. She had no one to talk to, nowhere to turn. She was left only with her own guilt and confusion and panic. She wanted desperately to keep the baby, but couldn't imagine how she could, but more importantly, she was terrified that one day she would lose it, that somehow, someone would take it from her, and she never wanted to love anyone that much again. It was that fear that was the deciding factor. It was too much to ask of her, the rest she could handle, but not the terrible fear of loss, she knew too well the agony it would cause her. She could never risk that again, with children of her own, or anyone else's. She would sacrifice this child in the memory of Megan and Axie. There would never be children in her life and heart again. And as she walked into the doctor's office that Friday afternoon, she thought she was going to faint as she walked through the doorway.

She gave the nurse her name, and signed a form with trembling hands, and then they let her sit in the waiting room for an hour. She had taken the afternoon off from work, and she had lain awake the night before. Some part of her was shrieking at her to save the life of this baby. But the voice of the past was too important to her. It outshouted all else and reminded her of the terrible pain of losing Megan and Alexandra. She kept thinking of the day they'd driven away, and the unbearable agony of it ... but the agony of tearing this child from within her was no smaller.

The nurse led her down a corridor and into a small room as she felt her knees grow weak. She was instructed to take off her clothes, put on a gown and paper slippers and report to the nurse across the hall.

"Thank you," Hilary whispered almost inaudibly, wishing somebody would stop her before it was too late. But there was no one to do it.

The nurse across the hall looked at her as though she had committed a federal offense, and handed her a clipboard with more forms to sign. Just glancing at them made Hilary feel ill, and she sank onto a narrow wooden bench.

"You all right?" the woman asked uninterestedly.

"I'm a little dizzy."

She nodded, unconcerned, and told her to lie on the table.