She kept looking at him, forlorn. "I"m sorry to disappoint you like this."

"I"m not disappointed," he half-snapped, "just surprised is all."

A black chuckle. "Life"s full of surprises. I guess I wear a pretty effective mask."

"We"ve all got a mask or two, Abbie."

"Yeah? Do you?"

Her cursed himself for his own placating remark because her question unnerved him. Suddenly the room felt hot as a sauna. "I better go now, I"ll talk to you later." He turned in the light, then started down the darker corridor.

She rushed up behind him. "Have some guts! Don"t run away, answer the question!"

He bristled, gritting his teeth, then turned back to her. "Yeah, I"ve got a mask, too, Abbie."

"Then tell me."

He almost stuttered when he said, "No."

"Oh, that"s just great! Just like what I was saying before. More bulls.h.i.t. If you were for real, you"d tell me."

The cords in Fanshawe"s neck stiffened.

"What"s the matter, Stew?" she taunted. "Am I ruffling your feathers? Huh? Getting you hot under the collar? Why not be even up?"

"Even up?"

"What gives you the right to stand there and make judgments about me, when you won"t even-"

"I"m not making judgments!" he almost yelled.

"Sure you are! You and your rehab. You and your knight in shining armor jive." She grinned. "Here you are making me feel like s.h.i.t for the skeletons in my closet, but it sounds to me like you"ve got a few in your own."

"Maybe I do, but you don"t need to know it."

She stepped closer. "Just make me squirm, huh? That"s the deal? You can dump my blow down the f.u.c.king drain and preach to me about rehab, but the fact is, you got no idea what it"s like." She inclined herself forward. "You ever been addicted, Stew? You ever get into you something that turned you into a slave?"

"Yes!" he barked.

"Are you kidding me? I can tell an ex-junkie when I see one, and you ain"t it."

"It"s something else!" he blurted.

"Well then why don"t you tell me? Even the playing field. I told you my secret, it"s only fair you tell me yours."

He knew she was right, but he just...couldn"t...do it.

"That"s good, that"s a good little billionaire. You"re a cliche, Stew. You"re like these financial a.s.sholes in the papers every day, the type of guy who won"t play a fair game. He"ll only play the game that"s fixed."

He jabbed a finger at her. "Now you"re the one making judgments!"

She shrugged haughtily. "Then convince me. Prove it to me that you"re for real. How can I trust you with my secret if you won"t trust me with yours? All your money doesn"t mean s.h.i.t if you can"t be real. For f.u.c.k"s sake, I just told you I"ve wh.o.r.ed myself for my boyfriend in Nashua. Do you have any idea how it made me feel telling you that? Whenever he set up a big dope deal, I was the deal-sealer, Stew. Blow-jobs, gang-bangs-"

"Stop it!"

Her grin rose and fell as she nodded. "One time I f.u.c.ked a roomful of bagmen to lock up a two-key sling."

"Stop talking like that!"

"Then have some b.a.l.l.s. Make the game fair. Take off your mask."

The tiniest voice in his head whispered, Don"t be fake, but it was not a tiny rage that made him slam his fist into a storage box. "s.h.i.t!" His knuckles throbbed when he reeled back, holding his hand. The box was full of frying pans; he felt instantly inane.

The second he began to talk, the pain disappeared. "I"m what my therapist calls a chronic scoptolagniac-"

"A wwwwwhat?"

He uttered the most dismal laugh of his life. What the h.e.l.l? What difference does it make? Go ahead and tell her...

So he did.

"I"m a pervert, Abbie, a voyeur. You want to look into my closet? Well there you go. I"m a peeping tom."

Abbie could only stare, her face screwed up.

"Sounds pathetic, I know. You wouldn"t think someone could be addicted to something like that, but I am, for most of my adult life. I can"t explain it, it just is."

"I"m-I"m...speechless," she said.

"So was my wife, so were my lawyers and business partners. Crazy, huh?"

"You mean, like...looking in women"s windows?"

"Yeah. It"s as addictive to me as cocaine is to you. It"s caused by a chemical imbalance in my brain, like the imbalance that causes people to be gambling addicts. And the thrill of peeping stimulates the same kind of endorphin release that drugs stimulate. It"s madness, Abbie, but it"s me."

Many moments ticked by with Abbie staring dumbfounded at him.

Fanshawe went on, not even hearing what he was saying anymore. "The funny part is...you thought I"d be disappointed with you. How"s that for irony? I"m a pervert and a criminal. I can"t help myself. When I got caught, and after my wife left, I started psychotherapy...and it worked. I didn"t peep for over a year. But then-"

"Relapse," Abbie said.

He nodded. "It all fell apart, and I don"t know why."

Her expression finally went from twisted bewilderment to something like mollification. "I feel a lot better now," she said very quietly.

"I don"t," Fanshawe snapped. "I feel like sc.u.m."

She sighed dreamily. "I learn something new every day. I never knew people could be addicted to peeping in windows."

"Well, now you know."

She laughed. "I"m addicted to c.o.ke and you"re addicted to that. We"re both addicts. Of all the things to have in common..."

Fanshawe felt weak in the knees from her comment.

She has more in common with you than you think, Let.i.tia had prophesied.

"I feel idiotic standing here-I"m going to go. If you want to see me again, well...let me know." He turned abruptly and headed for the door.

"Stew, wait." Her footsteps rushed behind him. "There"s one thing..."

Fanshawe turned.

crack!

Abbie couldn"t have laid her open palm harder across Fanshawe"s face. His head jerked, and he thudded into a wall of boxes. The pain exploded.

He couldn"t remember what happened immediately after that. His cognizance fizzed away, and his heart tightened in his chest. He heard another thud and felt substance in his hands: something yielding and hot. He was only aware of his rage and the pain.

There was a gagging sound. When he could calculate what he was seeing, Abbie"s face was darkening only inches from his own. She looked horrified but was smiling in spite of it.

"That"s terrific, Stew," came a mocking croak. "You gonna kill me?"

Fanshawe"s left forearm had slammed her against boxes with such force that the cardboard caved in. His right hand- His right hand was clamped about her throat, squeezing.

You"re a madman! a thought screamed. Let go of her! but he didn"t. Instead, he gnashed his teeth. "G.o.dd.a.m.n! You-you f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h!"

"Don"t cuss, Stew," she laughed. "It makes you sound trashy."

"That was twice as hard as I hit you!"

Her hot throat throbbed in the web of his hand when she replied, "Good, "cos you deserved it...motherf.u.c.ker."

Fanshawe felt consciously appalled when he squeezed her throat more precisely while telling himself to release her. Still, her voice ground, "How do you like that? The billionaire shows his bad side..."

"I didn"t know my bad side was this bad. Thanks for bringing it out."

"It"s good to know I have that effect on men"-she began to squirm in his clench. "Or maybe it just works on perverts who get off on peeping in women"s windows-"

She raised to her tiptoes when he squeezed even harder. "Why are you antagonizing a guy with his hand to your throat?" he growled, glaring.

She kept squirming, the pink of her face darkening. "It"s my defense mechanism, a.s.shole. Don"t you know anything about women who hate themselves?" She grasped his wrist, then edged forward, either in the beginnings of terror or to deliberately press her bosom against his chest.

Fanshawe guessed the latter.

Abbie"s smile remained mocking. "If you"re going to strangle me, at least have the decency to f.u.c.k me first..."

Fanshawe released her throat, then dragged her down.

When they were done, she lay on the floor as if dropped there, and Fanshawe felt like he"d just been trampled by horses.

"Holy-," Fanshawe began.

"-s.h.i.t," Abbie finished.

It seemed that they"d jammed a frenetic s.e.xual marathon into the s.p.a.ce of twenty minutes. Clothes lay everywhere. Fanshawe ached in places he didn"t know he could ache. Sweat-prints on the cement floor left bizarre shapes that trooped the full length of the corridor. When Abbie tried to rise, she winced, then settled for turning over and collecting her garments on hands and knees. "Jesus, Stew. You must be packing a whole lot of angst."

Fanshawe"s knees were barked raw. His bare heels thudded around as he put on one piece of clothing at a time. What did I just do? "I don"t know what came over me, Abbie. I"m sorry."

Abbie laughed. "I"m complimenting you, genius. That was the best s.e.x I"ve had since college."

Fanshawe rushed back into his clothes. "I meant...I didn"t mean to choke you. I"ve never been violent like that before. It was never my intention-"

"Stew, it"s okay."

His heavy breaths reminded him of his age. He sat back down quickly, then nearly put a shoe on the wrong foot. "We gotta hurry. Your father could walk in any minute."

She didn"t seem that concerned. "Well, if he does, I can"t wait to hear your explanation."

"Oh, that"s just great!"

Fanshawe finally got himself together. When he looked over to Abbie, she was b.u.t.toning her blouse, forgoing the bra which he"d torn during their heated tryst. Fanshawe stared.

"What"s wrong?" she asked, smiling.

"You"re beautiful..."

Abbie just kept smiling.

"You"ve got every reason to think I"m off the deep end," he said, "but I meant everything I said earlier, about taking you to New York, and rehab, and all that."

"I believe you."

"So you"re game?"

"Yeah. I"m ready when you are, and until then...I"ll do my best."

Can"t ask for more than that. Fanshawe felt exuberant all at once. He couldn"t stop looking at her.

"But no more hitting each other, okay?" she said in a jesty tone.

"You got a deal."

"I like it rough, Stew, just not that rough. Christ, for a minute I thought you were going to kill me."

So did I, he considered in a covert dread. He tried to make a joke of it. "You"re too good-looking to kill."