I turned to Jonathan to come clean. But before I could get a word out, he’d reached over and rested one hand on the back of my head.

It looked like the last possible moment had arrived.

He hesitated for a second, as if he were trying to make up his mind about something, and I saw an opening.

“Jon-”

But before I could get the words out, he kissed me. On the lips. Or, it would have been on the lips if I hadn’t turned my head. Instead, the kiss connected with my left jawbone. Even so, I was so utterly stunned by its impact that I could barely speak. While the earlier kiss on my cheek had resulted in tingling, this kiss had more intent behind it than a friendly greeting. Tingling didn’t even begin to describe its effect. I didn’t want to imagine what would have happened if the kiss had landed on its original target.

The hotel doorman chose that precise instant to open my door.

“Thank you for dinner,” I managed to say.

Jonathan looked mildly surprised, as if he didn’t know what to make of my nick-of-time head turn. “I’m glad you could come out tonight,” he said. “I had a great time. Talk to you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” I replied.

The doorman shut the car door behind me, and Jonathan drove away.

I walked into the hotel feeling as if I had a scarlet A tattooed on my forehead. I’d just kissed another man.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I hadn’t really participated in the kiss, although it had elevated my low-grade tingling to full-force vibrating. Still, I had been kissed, rather than actively kissing. And I’d managed to keep my lips uninvolved. It was really only a quasikiss. But Jonathan had meant to involve my lips. And if I’d mentioned Peter to Jonathan, I wouldn’t have been kissed. So, on some level I was definitely a participant in the kissing.

Semantics will get you every time.

On the way up in the elevator, I wondered what I should say to Peter. This didn’t really merit disclosure, did it? And the scarlet A wouldn’t really show. But how would I feel if I knew he was out being kissed, even only quasikissed, by other women? Particularly during the same twenty-four-hour time frame during which we’d kissed, and done a lot more than kissed, each other.

I’d feel sick, probably. Betrayed and bereft. So I wouldn’t want to know, would I? And Peter wouldn’t want to know, either. The kiss had been Jonathan’s idea, and my reaction had been purely chemical, nothing more. I’d clear things up with Jonathan when I spoke to him tomorrow. In the meantime, there was no reason to upset Peter.

With this twisted reasoning firmly under my belt, I was feeling sleazy but somewhat confident by the time I slipped my keycard into the door. I pushed it open and called out Peter’s name.

There was no response. I consulted my watch-it was past ten. In fact, it was closer to eleven. And still no Peter. I took my Blackberry out of my bag, but there were no new voice mails or e-mails. Not a one. The scarlet A on my forehead was shining less brightly. Then I noticed that the message light was blinking on the desktop phone. So, Peter had called. The blinking light was a visual reproach, and I felt like a slut all over again.

I picked up the receiver and dialed into the hotel’s voice mail. The message, however, was not from Peter. It was from Brian Mulcahey, Grenthaler’s COO.

Rachel, Brian Mulcahey, here. I’m glad you called-there’s something I want to run by you, as well. Give me a call back if you get a chance. Any time before midnight’s fine. Thanks, and I’ll look forward to hearing from you.

I jotted down the number and deleted the recording. Then I called Brian back, and we agreed to meet for breakfast the next day at the Four Seasons before I went to see the Porters.

I didn’t fall asleep until well after two, alternately worrying about potential takeovers, my sluttish behavior and Peter’s continued absence. The last worried me the most; what had been a hazy foreboding began crystallizing into dread as the minutes ticked by on the bedside clock. Was Peter dumping me, replacing me with Abigail? What other explanation could there be for staying out so late-with Abigail, no less-and not even calling? How could our relationship have fallen apart so quickly? Had I been too busy congratulating myself on how perfect everything was to recognize the signs of his waning affection? Had my cavalier dismissal of the Jinxing Gods spurred them into action?

I eventually fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, and I didn’t even know what time Peter finally came in, but when the phone blared out in the morning with our wake-up call, he was there, snoring heavily.

Which meant he’d been drinking. Peter only snored when he had more than two drinks. He also slept right through the shrill noise of the phone. Another undeniable indicator that he’d been doing some serious imbibing the previous night. But I was just glad he was there. Surely that meant all of my worrying had been groundless?

I poked him and he grunted.

“Wake-up call,” I announced cheerily.

He grunted again.

I poked him again.

He flipped over onto his stomach and pulled the duvet over his head.

I poked him through the duvet. “Good morning!”

“Go ’way.”

I slipped out of bed and crossed to the windows, opening the drapes with a flourish. Then I returned to the bed and pulled back the duvet. “Rise and shine!”

“Argghh.”

“Nice to see you, too, Sparky.”

“What time is it?” he mumbled.

“Seven.”

“Oh, no.” He groaned and struggled to a sitting position. His hair looked like he was auditioning for a Flock of Seagulls tribute band.

“Oh, yes.”

He let rip with a colorful string of expletives. “Oh, God. I’m late.”

“But your hair looks really good.”

“Do you have any Advil?”

“In the bathroom.”

He lifted himself heavily from the bed. “Shower.”

“Good.” I moved to join him, eager to make up for doubting him, not to mention letting myself be quasikissed by Jonathan.

“No, Rachel. Me. Alone. I’m late.”

“Oh. Okay. Fine.”

The bathroom door shut behind him.

And all of my worries came flooding back.

Twenty minutes later Peter was out the door, already talking on his cell phone. I got a hurried and perfunctory kiss that missed my face completely and landed on my right ear. Jonathan’s quasikiss had been nearly pornographic in comparison.

Twenty minutes after that, I was in a cab heading to the Four Seasons. I’d called Cecelia to check in, guilty that I was leaving her stranded again, but she professed to have everything under control. “Will you be all right for interviewers?” I asked.

“Sure. You and Scott are both skipping out, but I’ve got enough people to get by.”

“Scott’s not going to be there, either?” I asked, relieved that I wouldn’t have to dodge his backhanded attempts to undermine me with Stan.

“No. Something about an ‘incredibly’ urgent client matter. Anyhow, go to your breakfast. I’ve got it all covered.”

I definitely owed her, and not just flowers and a bottle of wine. A full day at Bliss Spa was in order, and only partly on the firm’s tab.

I tried to look at the newspaper as the cab sped toward Back Bay, but reading in cars on an empty stomach made me feel sick, and the news did, too. There was an article on the front page about the prostitute killings-seven in the past six months if you included the two this week, and the seeming escalation in the number of murders was whipping the media into a frenzy. Definitely not the sort of thing to read about in a moving vehicle before I’d had any caffeine.

The cab pulled up in front of the Four Seasons, a modern redbrick edifice facing on the Public Garden. I settled with the driver and went inside, making my way through the lobby to the restaurant, Aujourd’hui. Mulcahey was already seated at a table by the window, a steaming cup of coffee before him.