Come on in,” said Chase, opening the apartment door and leading Sophia inside. “Nina? You home?” No reply. “She must be at the office.” He gestured at the couch for Sophia to sit, then went to the kitchen area. “Cuppa?”

“I’d love one. Thank you.” Sophia, now wearing nondescript casual clothes that Chase had bought at Pudong airport, perched on the edge of the couch. “So this Nina… how did you meet?”

Chase put the kettle on the stove. “I was her bodyguard.”

Sophia raised an eyebrow. “That sounds rather familiar.”

He ignored the remark. “After the job was over, we got together. That was about a year and a half ago.”

“And how have things been going since then?” Again, Chase didn’t respond. “I see.”

“There’s nothing to see,” he said defensively.

“Hmm.” She looked around the room. “So this is your place.”

“Yeah. Been living here for five or six months.”

“I have to say, it makes me think more of Dr. Frasier Crane than of you. Well, except for that.” She glanced disdainfully at the Castro cigar-box holder on the counter. “I remember that awful thing all too well.”

“Well, interior decorating was never really my thing, was it? A settee and a decent TV was pretty much all I was bothered about.”

“Yes, I know.” There was a hint of sharpness in her words. “I take it she was in a different kind of job before she took on her position at the IHA.”

“I suppose,” Chase told her. “Same line of work, archaeology, but she was at a university rather than the U.N. Why?”

She shrugged airily. “Oh, no reason.”

“No-I know that voice, there is a reason. What?”

Sophia looked mildly annoyed at being challenged. “Oh, all right. It’s just that this apartment, the decor, all the little accoutrements”-she waved at the rack of Henckel knives on the counter by Chase-“they just come over as being rather… nouveau, if you know what I mean.”

“As in nouveau riche?” Chase’s frown deepened. “Well, I’m sorry our flat doesn’t live up to your standards, your ladyshipness.”

She jumped to her feet. “Eddie, I didn’t mean it like-”

“Forget it.” They regarded each other in silence for a moment. Then the kettle began to whistle. Chase took it off the stove.

Sophia gave him a hesitant smile. “Americans. They have a labor-saving gadget for absolutely every trivial task, yet they’ve never seemed to grasp the concept of the electric kettle. Ridiculous lot.”

Chase smiled back. “Yeah, I know. And you try getting hold of marmite over here! Nightmare!” They both laughed.

“Eddie?”

Chase looked across the room to see Nina standing in the bedroom doorway, wrapped in a dressing gown and looking bleary and bedraggled. He had no idea how long she’d been there. “Nina! I rang about five times. I thought you’d gone to work!” He hurried over to her.

“I was asleep, I had kind of a stressful day yesterday.”

“Yeah, Hector told me.” He hugged her, then sniffed her hair and jerked his head back sharply. “Ugh!”

“Don’t,” she snapped, in the tone of a first and only warning. Chase got the message. “I’ve had three showers and I still can’t get rid of the smell.” She looked past him at Sophia and lowered her voice. “What’s she doing here?”

Chase took a breath, bracing himself for trouble. “Okay. Nina, you remember Sophia Blackwood, right? Sophia, Nina Wilde?”

“Hello again,” said Sophia politely.

Nina nodded in disinterested acknowledgment before turning back to Chase. “What’s going on?”

“Hector told you that I went to Shanghai to get some IHA files stolen from the rig that sank at Atlantis, right?”

“Yes. He said you thought they were stolen by Richard Yuen.” Nina looked back at Sophia, somewhat accusingly.

“That’s right. The thing is, Sophia’s the one who told me Yuen had the files in the first place. I went to China to get them-and also to rescue her.” “Rescue? From what?”

“My husband’s a very dangerous man,” Sophia said, stepping closer. “I had no idea when I married him, of course, but since then I’ve learned some things about him that I wish I hadn’t.”

“It’s a good job you did, though,” Chase told her. “Otherwise we’d never have found out that our rig was sunk deliberately. And whatever it is he’s up to, he’d have been able to carry on doing it without anyone knowing.”

“So what is he doing?” asked Nina.

Sophia shook her head. “I’m still not entirely sure. All I know is that he apparently had a lot of people killed to get hold of the IHA’s files on the Tomb of Hercules-and from the sound of it, tried to kill you as well.”

“Think I’ll have to have words with him,” Chase rumbled, one fist clenching.

Sophia put a hand on his arm. Nina blinked in surprise at the contact. “Eddie, please don’t rush into anything. You saw how much security my husband had in Shanghai, and now he’ll have even more.”

Chase smiled mirthlessly. “Trust me, it won’t be enough. If I’d known what I know now when you gave me that note, I would have killed the bastard right there on the boat.”

Nina tapped his other arm. “What note?”

“When we were at the party the other night, Sophia stuck a note in my jacket.”

“And why did she give the note to you in the first place?” Nina looked back and forth between Chase and Sophia. “Y’know, I got the impression that there was some hostility between you. Which seems to have completely disappeared now, by the way.” Sophia withdrew her hand.

“Oh boy,” Chase said to himself, before facing Nina. “Okay. Nina. This is the thing. Sophia and I, we know each other because… we used to be married.”

It took a couple of seconds before Nina managed a response. “What?”

“I’ll go and make the tea while you discuss it,” Sophia said, quickly heading for the kettle.

“She’s your ex-wife?” Nina flapped a disbelieving hand after her. “Lady Blackwood, I believe she was introduced as? You were married to-to-to royalty?”

“She’s not royalty!” Chase corrected. “Her dad was a lord, and after he died… Look, I don’t know how it works. I never cared about that side of things!”

“But you didn’t think it was worth mentioning? You know, maybe in passing?”

“What difference does it make? It didn’t work out, we got divorced, I didn’t see her again until the other night. I mean, I don’t ask you about all your past boyfriends.”

“Those were boyfriends, Eddie. Not husbands. There is a difference. Especially when your ex is a member of the English aristocracy!”

“God!” Chase rubbed his forehead, exasperated. “Okay, you want to know one reason why I never talked about it? In case exactly this happened! You Yanks, you keep going on about how great it was that you kicked out the Brits and now everybody’s equal and all that, but one whiff of a title and you start cringing and fawning like you’re still part of the bloody colonies!”

“We do not!” Nina protested.

“But I bet you’re already comparing yourself to her, aren’t you? You’re thinking ‘She’s Lady Blackwood, not Ms. Blackwood or Dr. Blackwood,’ like that automatically means she’s better than you.”

“She is standing right here,” said Sophia in a chilly tone as she poured the tea.

Chase ignored her, looking deep into Nina’s eyes. “Tell me honestly that you haven’t been comparing yourself to her, and I’ll admit I was wrong not telling you about us.”

Nina looked away first, drawing her robe more tightly around her. “I need to get dressed,” she said sullenly, retreating into the bedroom and closing the door.

“Fuck,” Chase muttered under his breath.

“I don’t mean to be rude, Eddie,” Sophia offered from across the room, “but you really haven’t gotten any better at defusing arguments since we were married.”