It’s TV dinner night.

“I want to watch Star Wars,” Sam declares.

I glance at Zach who shrugs a why-not.

Sam pulls a boxed set from the shelf and climbs down from the chair. “We’ll watch the original trilogy.”

Zach’s eyebrows go up. “Wow. You know what a trilogy is. I’m impressed.”

“Everyone knows what a trilogy is,” Sam says.

“I’m afraid I don’t.” I do my best to sound convincing. “What is it?”

He grins, visibly happy to explain something to a grown-up. “A trilogy is three DVDs in one box.”

“Of course,” I say, lifting my embroidery frame to cover my mouth.

Zach high-fives him. “Best. Definition. Ever.”

Sam’s grin reaches his ears as he fumbles with the discs and the remote.

“It’s gorgeous.” Zach points to the taut silk in my hands. “If you don’t get an A for this, I’ll have words with your teacher.”

I smile. “My stitching is decent, but my beadwork has room for improvement.”

He peers at the textured design I’m creating with seed and bugle interspersed with gold sequins and tiny seashells. “What are you talking about? I don’t see a bead out of place.”

As he says this, he covers my hand on the frame with his, big and warm. Our eyes meet, and then we both glance at Sam who’s staring at the screen, his lips moving as he reads the DVD menu. Without taking his eyes off Sam, Zach gives my hand a gentle squeeze and strokes it with the pads of his fingers.

My lids slide shut.

The Star Wars opening theme sounds from the television. Zach lets go of my hand. Sam spins around and jumps onto the couch between Zach and me.

As Luke Skywalker’s destiny unfolds, I listen to the onscreen action and try to get on with my embroidery project. But with Zach sitting so close, with his left arm stretched along the back of the couch behind Sam and his fingertips caressing my cheek, concentrating on my work is hard.

It becomes impossible when my mind flashes images of what he’ll likely do and say to me a couple of hours from now.

“Mon amour,” he’d whispered at one point during our first night when he’d pushed through my hymen, and I’d cringed.

He murmured my name after that and called me chaton—a kitten—and all sorts of silly things like ma petite puce. You must be French if you call your lover “my little flea.” He whispered words of comfort and encouragement as he inched deeper, stretching me to the point where the thrill of our joining gave way to pain.

“It won’t hurt next time, chaton,” he’d said. “And the more we do this, the more you’ll enjoy it.”

He hadn’t lied.

We made love again the following night, and every night since then, for over a week now. When he enters me, no matter how hard or deep, I feel no more stinging, no more soreness. Only pleasure. I’ve lost count of the orgasms and the quirky endearments I’ve been treated to throughout the week. Ma choupette—my little female cabbage—tops the wackiness chart at this point.

But he’s been careful not to call me his amour again.

Just as I’ve been careful not to call him mine.

What a shame that avoiding those words can’t help me keep in check the unwieldy thing growing in my heart!

Actually, that thing is done growing.

Sometime over the past week, it reached adult size and filled every part of my body, mind, and soul.

I love Zach.

Back in high school when my friends and I were into hoarding words of wisdom on our social media accounts, someone shared a quote that stayed with me. “There are three kinds of attraction a man and a woman can feel for each other. The attraction of souls forms friendship. The attraction of minds forms respect. The attraction of bodies forms passion. Those three attractions together form love.”

Whether we owe that insight to an ancient Hindu philosopher or to a drug-fueled hippie from California, I do not know, and frankly, I do not care.

My experience has just proven it true.

I feel the deepest respect and true friendship for Noah.

But my body has never hungered for him.

The other day, I asked him to come by for a chat. What a relief it was for both of us to admit we weren’t in love with each other! It turned out he’d never told his mom he loved me, just as I’d never told her I loved him. Marguerite had been stretching the truth all this time, no doubt convinced that all we needed was a nudge in the right direction.

Noah told me he was in love with Sophie, but I couldn’t confess to him my feelings for Zach. Maybe because I don’t think our relationship is going anywhere.

If we can call it a relationship.

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,” Obi-Wan Kenobi says to Luke Skywalker.

Sam turns to Zach. “What’s a ‘wretched hive of scum and villainy’?”

In the middle of Zach’s explanation, the doorbell rings.

I look at Zach. “Are you expecting someone?”

He shakes his head and heads downstairs.

Two minutes later, he returns to the family room with Colette.

“Hi there,” she says, taking in our cozy setup.

I wave hello.

“Hi, Colette,” Sam says without taking his eyes off the screen.

She turns to Zach. “He’s watching Star Wars.”

“Yes.”

She gives him a hard stare and shrugs as if to say, I disapprove, but it’s your call. “May I join in the fun?”

“Of course.” Zach points to the finger foods on the coffee table. “Hungry?”

“A bit.”

“I’ll get you a plate and a glass.”

While he’s in the kitchen, Colette takes his place on the couch. My eyes are trained on my needle, but my peripheral vision registers that she’s studying me, her expression stern.

Shouldn’t she be looking at Sam instead?

“Psst!” She arches an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be out having fun with young people your own age?”

I hold up my frame. “Must finish this by December or I won’t get my certificate.”

“It’s still October—you have plenty of time,” she says.

Zach comes in with a tray for her. “Haute couture embroidery is very time-consuming. It may take hundreds of hours of work to complete a project.”

Colette gives him a surprised glance. “You’re well informed.”

He smiles.

She loads her plate with snacks. “Well, what you said explains why that designer gown you bought me in Venice was so darned expensive.”

Zach plonks himself into an armchair without offering a comment.

All I can think about until the credits roll is “Venice.” Had Colette and Zach traveled there before Sam was born? Or was it a more recent trip the two of them had made before I arrived? What if it was more recent still, a one-day trip he could’ve made last month when he played in Milan?

I’ve spent a good deal of time wondering if he ever accepted Colette’s dinner invitation. In the end, I chose to believe he hadn’t. But what if he had? What if he went further, taking her out after that so they could discuss her reentry into Sam’s life?

Into Sam and Zach’s life.

No way.

He wouldn’t do that, not while he’s sleeping with me.

Then again, why would sleeping with the au pair prevent him from envisaging a rapprochement with his child’s mother?

By the time Colette leaves, I’m a wreck.

Zach and I clean up, and I head to my room while he puts Sam to bed.

He knocks on my door around nine-thirty. “I need a couple of hours to go through my mail and handle a tricky issue.”

“OK,” I say, my nose in a book.

I hear him step inside. “Don’t wait up for me, if you’re tired. When I’m done, I’ll just sneak into your bed.”

“Do you mind…” I look up at him. “Do you mind if we sleep each in our own rooms tonight?”

He frowns. “I’m off to Australia tomorrow, remember? We won’t see each other for a whole week.”

“I know… But I…”

I’m too weak and down to be around you now.

Thing is, I don’t trust myself not to ask Zach all those questions about him and Colette, and maybe even about him and me. They might put him off. He might decide I’m too needy. He might—

“I’m on my period,” I blurt.

“So what?” He shrugs. “If you don’t want to have sex, we won’t have sex. We’ll just cuddle and sleep.”

I wrinkle my nose in a silent plea.

He gives me a tight smile. “Whatever the lady desires.”

And then he exits my room, pulling the door closed behind him.

Setting the book aside, I drop my head in my hands.

You’re done for, Uma. And here’s why.

Zach may crave my body. I may be crazy about him. I may adore his little boy, and Sam may genuinely care for me.

But none of it can alter the truth of who I am in this home.

And of who I am not.