Ethan stepped onto the veranda and leaned over the glass rail, looking down at the always busy London, in deep thought.

He was feeling melancholic and utterly alone, in spite of the beautiful woman waiting for him inside. He knew that he wasn’t like other men. He knew his inability to connect to those around him was a fault in him. He’d had this difficulty since the day he discovered his puppy dog dead. And Eve’s betrayal only made it worse. He couldn’t feel that fierce pain again. The only person that made his heart beat and his interest sparkle unselfishly was Sophia. It troubled him that he kept thinking of her so often. Even if he tried not to, his thoughts keep returning to her. He knew he needed to love someone other than her, but his heart was taken. There was no space for another woman.

All he could do was watch for clues. Small hints that could bring her back to him. He congratulated himself on how well his plans were developing.

Although he’d always been rich and had received a large inheritance when his grandfather died, Ethan endeavored to achieve the things he wanted. He took charge of his destiny, and most times, he was successful in gaining what he wanted.

“Ethan,” Barbara softly called his name, walking to his side.

He turned his eyes away from the view and was caught by the beauty of her profile. He wondered how two women could be so alike and not be sisters.

However there were small differences.

Barbara had a slightly bigger nose and less plump mouth. She was taller and had bigger breasts. And her eyes were blue as he had seen once, when she had taken out her yellow contact lenses to sleep. That was the only time she made that mistake. The next day, she had ordered new lenses she could wear when sleeping.

She put a hand on his bare forearm and caressed it with her red lacquered nails. He briefly closed his eyes and she smirked inside.

“Ethan, my dear, I was wondering if you didn’t want to have lunch somewhere? Or maybe do something different? We could go to the Royal Academy of Arts. There is a fantastic exhibit on Van Gogh and his letters. Have you seen it?” She bit her lip for a second and looked at him from behind her discretely mascara rimmed lashes. She saw his azure eyes lighten up and he pulled her in his arms for a kiss.

Barbara had done her homework. She had studied the file Scott provided her with Sophia’s work and hobbies. She had spent hours analyzing the short phone videos Scott had sent her and had repeated Sophia’s gestures and facial expressions in front of the mirror until she mimicked them perfectly. She had sent Ethan’s secretary a list of items for her wardrobe which she thought would be more similar to Sophia’s style.

Barbara had asked her best friend to help her until she was sure everything was as perfect as it could be. She had even skimmed some of the ebooks Sophia had bought recently, discovered thanks to Scott’s hacker friend. She was lucky she was a well-read woman; she wondered how Sophia managed to read so many books in so little time. As for the fitness part, she had no problems with that. Sure, she was seven years older, but she was addicted to yoga and working out, had always kept in shape, had many skin treatments done and she had no kids. She seemed younger than Sophia even. Her skin was unblemished and as soft as that of a newborn baby.

Ethan broke the kiss slowly, nibbling her lip with his teeth, combing her silky hair with his fingers. Lustful thoughts of his time with Sophia played as an erotic video in his mind. He rubbed the tip of his index finger down her neck and dipped it in her neckline, skimming her bra. Her breath hitched.

He didn’t know if she was liking it or not. And he couldn’t care less. He was past those banal principles and morals. He was not interested in her feelings or emotions. He was the one that should be pleased. He was Ethan Ashford.

He had gained Barbara’s total loyalty when he lent her the money to pay the loan sharks, without interest. He made her sign a promissory note, but he hinted that if she pleased him, he would never demand payment. And she was doing a great job at pleasing him. His lips curled up. “Where do you want to have lunch?” Sophia is not in London, anyway. No chance of bumping into her or MacCraig.

“China Tang, at The Dorchester?”

Ethan’s smile grew as he recalled his lunch with Sophia there. “I love that restaurant. Make reservations for one-thirty. Then meet me in my room.” The back of his hand brushed her nipple. “I want to appease another hunger before we leave.”

* * *

Okay, little girl,” Sophia clapped her hands at Gabriela who was comfortably seated on Alistair’s lap. “Time for bed. Now.”

“But, Mamãe—”

“Don’t you but me. It’s seven o’clock. Time for you to go to bed.”

Gabriela pouted at her mother and then turned her head, looking at Alistair for help. He just smiled at her and motioned his head to Sophia.

“Five minutes more, Mamãe, por favor. Pleeeease.”

Sophia looked at her watch and sighed. “Okay. But only five.”

Gabriela beamed at her mother, “Obrigada, Mamãe.” She turned to Alistair and asked, “Tell me another story, please?”

“A short one,” he said as Sophia sat on the sofa beside them and put Gabriela’s bare feet over her lap.

Alistair smiled at Sophia, as he started the story. “Once upon a time, there was a prince. He was very tall, handsome, and rich. But he didn’t have a princess—”

“What was his name?”

“Ronnoc Riatsila,” he promptly said and winked at Sophia.

“Ugh! What an ugly name.” Gabriela puckered her turned-up nose. “Are you sure he was a prince?”

“Aye. I’m sure,” he smiled, delighted. “So. The prince was very much alone in his big, big castle. One day, he decided to hold a contest to find his bride. All the women in his kingdom would have to go.”

“Only the beautiful ones,” Gabriela said. “Princes can’t marry ugly princesses.”

“Very well. Only the beautiful ones.” His grin broadened as he put an arm over Sophia’s shoulder and pulled her closer.

She sighed happily and nestled herself on his side, listening to the story of the prince called Ronnoc Riatsila, thinking that she wanted his princess to be called Aihpos.

* * *

But can’t my driver just pick up the prescription?” Alistair paused as he listened to what Doctor Lodes’s secretary told him on the phone. “Aye, of course. I’ll be there.” He hung up and rubbed a hand on his neck. What could be this urgent? It’s just a prescription.

He left his office with a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

* * *

Hello, Doctor Ben. How are you?” Alistair hugged the doctor and entered his office. “How are Aunt Elizabeth and Mark?”

“Everyone’s fine, son. Everyone’s fine,” Doctor Lodes repeated as if to assure himself that what he said was true. He motioned for Alistair to sit on the sofa at the end of his office.

Alistair frowned at the strange behavior but complied, sitting on the comfortable gray sofa and stretching his legs. He was tired. He had been working like a madman lately. “I haven’t seen Mark for a long time. He’s disappeared.”

Doctor Lodes scratched his bald head and sat next to Alistair on the sofa. “You have been too busy to see your friends, Alistair Connor. Mark got married last month. We missed you at the wedding.”

“What?” Alistair sat up on the sofa. Mark was one of his best friends. “I didn’t get the invitation.”

“We sent it to your apartment. Heather rang us and talked to Beth. It seems you had a trip planned.”

“We did travel, but I would have postponed it if I had known that Mark was getting married. It wasn’t that important. We went to Saint Barths for the weekend to celebrate my birthday, which was in February.”

“Well, too late now, son.” Doctor Lodes shrugged. “See that you don’t miss Johansson’s wedding in two weeks. His father told me that Heather has declined as well.”

What? Alistair’s mouth fell open. What’s going on?

“Did you receive the last results from Heather’s exams?” Doctor Lodes continued.

Oh, damn. I forgot Heather’s exams. And Emma’s. I don’t even know if they did them after the treatment. Alistair looked sheepishly at the older man and shook his head.

The doctor’s face showed no surprise. “Well then. Alistair Connor, I don’t want you to become nervous with what I’m going to tell you.”

“Too late for that, Doctor Ben. I’ve been freaked out since our appointment in December.” Alistair almost laughed. But his doctor and friend had such a stern expression on his face that he knew this was no time for humor.

“My boy, I received confirmation that the moxifloxacin was effective and that the bacteria was eliminated. Nonetheless, it took too long to diagnose and the damage…treatments are evolving and maybe in the future they can reverse what’s happened…”

“You’re scaring me, Doctor Ben.” Alistair shifted on the sofa and leaned toward the doctor to better look at his soft brown eyes.

The doctor thinned his lips and looked away for an instant.

When he looked back, his face showed a piercing sadness. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, Alistair Connor. I’ve known you all your life and I love you as if you were my own son.” He shook his bald head and a cold dreariness sifted through Alistair’s bones. “But the test results arrived this morning. I still had hope…” He inhaled deeply, rested his hand over Alistair’s and blurted, “Son, I’m sorry, but the disease has made you infertile.”

* * *

She slept, finally,” Sophia said, entering the TV room with two wine glasses hanging upside-down on her fingers and a bottle of Romanée Conti. She halted as she saw Alistair’s sleeping face. He was sitting on the sofa, his head resting on a pillow, bent sideways, and his bare feet propped on one of the low square velvet ottomans placed near the sofa.

In the peaceful gloom of the room, he looked younger than his thirty-five years, with his absurdly long lashes making shadows on his cheeks and his long bangs falling over his forehead. The book he had taken from her shelf to read had fallen on the floor.

Sophia approached quietly and put the bottle and the glasses on the side table soundlessly. She bent down to pick up the book and frowned when she saw the title. Les Misérables? Why so sad, Alistair Connor?

She put the book next to the wine and served herself, admiring the handsome man on her sofa. She found it unsettling to see him like this, so defenseless and unguarded.

Sophia didn’t feel protective toward him except when he told her about Nathalie and Heather.

Alistair was always so sure of himself, so in control and unwavering in his positions and ideas. He seemed bigger than life. But lying there, he looked so vulnerable. So in need of care and love.

She sat beside him on the sofa, lightly caressing his hair, as she savored the wine.

His brows drew tight and his hands clenched in his lap as his breathing became rough. He opened his forest-green eyes, startled, searching for her.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she whispered.

He blinked and straightened himself on the sofa. “Nae, it’s okay,” he shook his head. “I guess I’m tired. I didn’t sleep very well last night.” He rubbed his eyes and picked up the book from the side table, leafing through it in silence.

Sophia peered at the page he had stopped on. She had marked a sentence. ‘Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation.’

He flicked his gaze at her and back to the book.

Hmm, not good. Not good at all. “So, what do you want to do?”

“It’s up to you.” His fingers touched the marked line as he answered her, absentminded. “Anything. I’m not really hungry.” And you won’t be either after I tell you the rest of my wretched story.

She studied his expression as she poured him some wine and handed him the glass, “What is it, Alistair?”

“Nothing,” he said, drinking the wine, avoiding her eyes. “Hmm, this is good.” He picked up the bottle and feigned interest in it. “You have a peculiar way of reading.” Where is my courage? “I’ve never seen anyone so thoroughly mark and comment a book.”

“Les Misérables has lots of interesting passages. Many intertwined plots with many different characters.” Alistair Connor, I know you by now. There’s something nagging you. Sophia sipped her wine as she watched Alistair run his hand over the back of his neck, nervously.

Tell her the whole truth. “Aye, the main thread is the story of the ex-convict…”

“Yes. Jean Valjean…” she supplied, wondering where the conversation would lead.

“Aye. Do you believe it is possible?”

“What?” What? What are you really asking me?

“That by a magnanimous gesture of a fellow man, the bishop, in this case, the warped spirit of a convicted man could be redeemed?” Can I be too? “Valjean was blinded by bitter rage for being condemned for so many years by stealing a loaf of bread. Such a small act of despair.” He kept his eyes glued on the book while he quietly spoke, as if he were talking to himself.

“An act of despair? Even though it was committed in despair, it was still a crime. And he had to pay for it. The issue was that his punishment was disproportionate to the crime. He served nineteen years before he was put on parole. On parole, for the rest of his life.”

You didn’t answer my question, Counselor. “But do you believe he could be saved, spiritually speaking? That someone who had committed that many sins, who was so degraded, could nonetheless be led to believe in the righteous way?”

Hmm. What do you want to hear? Innocent or guilty? “Yes, I do believe it. Valjean is guided to the light once more,” she stressed the last two words, “because he was a good man. His intentions were never evil, despite his crime.”

“Let’s assume he could be saved…” He raked a hand in his hair, unsettled.

“He was saved, Alistair Connor. More than once. It was as if…all he needed was a second chance. And he was given second chances throughout his life. And he took them all; the bishop’s kind gesture, the gardener at the convent who was a refugee are just two of them. Loving and caring people who weren’t misled by his appearance, or his disguises, extended him a hand which he took and used it to better himself.”

A second chance. “But even having accepted a new path, he never could escape his dark past, could he? Javert, I mean.”

Uh-uh. Sophia waited for him to continue, but it was clear Alistair wanted an answer to his question. “No, he could not because Javert could never understand the power of redemption. He was unyielding, strict, blinded by the supposedly infallible nature of the law. His suicide is proof of his incomprehension. And also the absence of a kind bishop to lead him onto the good path.” She took the book from his hands and started looking for a specific passage. “We must believe there’s always a chance for those who want to be saved. And this book is all about appearances, disguises, understanding and redemption; Jean Valjean’s, French society’s and even Javert’s. The police officer, who was obsessed with right and wrong, spent all his life trying to atone for his parents’ sins by being irreproachable. And, even though he was wrong in the eyes of religion, he redeemed his own sin, the lack of understanding, of goodness, of mercy, by committing suicide because he couldn’t bear the agony of living between his duty to the law and his debt to Valjean.”

“You know the book well.” Alistair drank some more wine.

Oh, yes, I do. I’m still trying to redeem myself. But no one’s giving me a hand to hold onto. Sophia sighed softly and mused, “One can always say that Javert is our conscience. The ever-lurking presence of the law and our own condemnation. The tension between who we were and who we are and who we can be. Javert represents that inescapable, shameful past that forever haunts and pursues one’s conscience. There isn’t a worse judge than a guilty conscience. Javert is the man of the law, and…there are no surprises with the law. The principle of retribution is simple and monotonous, like Euclidean logic. It’s closed to all alternatives and shut up against divine or human intervention. Indeed, Javert represents the merciless application of the law, the blind Justice that in the end is befuddled by hope and the possibility of redemption without punishment.” She almost gasped the last word as she understood why he had picked up the book.

She looked up to find Alistair’s gaze locked on her face. She settled her leg on the sofa, put her hand on his cheek and said softly, “Does redemption always have to be achieved through violence and punishment or is it possible through gentler traits, such as love, understanding and peace?”

Will you give me a second chance? Alistair closed his eyes and leaned his face on her hand.

“No one is past redemption, Alistair Connor, if one wills it.”

So optimistic, Sophia. He had never wanted to believe in someone’s opinion so much. He felt like crying such was the despair and the hope that warred within him.

“What is it?” she asked softly. “Talk to me.”

He looked out of the window. Rain poured outside as if the weather understood his mood. Alistair spoke quietly, “I need to tell you something.”

“Tell me then.” Sophia straightened herself on the sofa and looked at him. The despair she saw in his face sent a cold shiver through her spine and dread pooled in her heart. “What is it?”

“I…I didn’t tell you my whole story.” He swirled his wine in the glass and stared at it for a long time. “I never explained to you how I discovered that Heather was cheating on me.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck again.

Sophia’s heartbeat increased to a thousand per minute. Oh, please, leave Heather’s ghost outside my home. “You don’t need to. It’s an unpleasant subject so…”

“Well, I never claimed to be sane, did I?” Alistair refilled her glass with wine and blurted the truth before he could repent. “Heather…she gave me a rare STD, Mycoplasma genitalium. The usual tests didn’t detect it. The treatment started too late. After more than a year, it was successful, but…the prolonged infection…” He was watching her face carefully, waiting for the shock to appear. “Sophia, I’m sterile.”

Sophia paled and didn’t utter a word. She was incapable of speaking, of any kind of coherent thought.

Unbidden, an image took shape in her mind—a large, black-haired, rugged man sprawled on the rug of her TV room with a dark-haired boy, the spitting image of his father, lying on his chest. She heard the child’s giggles over a deeper rumbling laughter—she could see them, there, only a few feet away from her. She almost reached out to touch them.

In her mind, she did. She stretched out her hand to the man’s familiar shoulder, hard and stable as rock. Light shined on their black windblown locks. Unable to help herself, completely fascinated, she reached out, hesitantly, for the child’s face. And beautiful forest-green eyes so like his father’s blinked playfully at her. As she watched the scene, she felt a chilling cold spread through her whole body.

She prayed. Prayed for a booming voice to say that Alistair was not sterile. That it was all a huge mistake. But then a horrible black shadow fell over the room and extinguished the light. It swallowed the image whole, banishing it to the realm of unattainable dreams.

Emotion welled up, unlike any she’d known. Tears filled her eyes and she almost sobbed with the grief that permeated her soul. Dazed and faint, she shook her head.

There. I knew it. “Say something,” he pleaded in a whisper, afraid to touch her and be repelled. “Anything…”

“Are you sure?” Was all she could ask in a voice so low that he more divined than heard the words.

He breathed deep and told her about the awful day when Doctor Ben had given his final verdict. His voice was so laden with pain that Sophia shoved her own deep down in her soul. “There’s no doubt. I can’t have any more children.”

A thousand thoughts invaded her mind as she tried to sort out what she knew about the disease. Nothing came to her mind. Sophia had never worried about STDs. But she made a mental note to gather all the information she could about it. “And why—” Why would you think it would matter to me?

“I’m sorry,” he interrupted her. Why am I telling you this only now? He ran his fingers through his hair, humiliated. “I should have told you from the beginning.” Christ! “But it makes me feel…less of a man. Our relationship is getting serious and I know you want more children. I don’t want you to become more involved, if I can’t fulfill your dreams.” He shrugged self-deprecatingly, but watching her closely for a reaction. “I think it’s only fair so you can decide if you want to conti—”

Sophia put a finger on his lips. “You didn’t let me finish my question.” She felt a sharp pain slice her heart again and again. “Why do you think it would matter to me?”

What? He remained silent, as if struck by a blow.

Her voice was soothing when she asked, “If it were the other way round, would you not have me? Would it be over for you?”

He gasped, indignant and scowled at her, “I would have you in any way, Sophia.”

She scooted closer to him. “So would I.” Her fingers interlaced with his and she squeezed gently. “So will I.”

“But, my love, I don’t want—”

“Shhh,” she put her fingers on his mouth and browsed the book. “Here, read.”

Alistair read the passage she was pointing at.

And read again.

He raised his eyes seeking her help, because he wished it to be true but needed confirmation.

She knew that the help he was asking was not for translation. His French was better than hers. Anyway, she read out loud in English, “‘You no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.’” She looked up and fixed his gaze with hers. “The bishop bought Valjean’s soul when he gave him the two candlesticks, because it was what Valjean needed. Now, Alistair Connor, I’m buying your soul. It’s not such a high price to pay, is it?”

“Not being able to have children?”

She smiled softly, “That’s only one way of having children. There are others. We could adopt.”

I have been so ignorant. His chest constricted at the kindness of this beautiful woman. This is what real love is all about.