"I'd send you in a second. Your English is impeccable, and with no disrespect to Dr. Ott, you make a much nicer impression than he does."

She smiled broadly, as if the compliment meant something to her. "I appreciate your confidence. Thank you."

At that moment, their waiter arrived, his hands full with two green salads and a basket of fresh bread. He placed them on the table and returned bearing a carafe of red wine and two bottles of San Pellegrino. They had hardly finished their salads when two sizzling chickens were brought for their inspection. Approval was given, and the waiter set about preparing the succulent birds.

Sylvia raised her wineglass and offered a toast: "On behalf of the bank, we are happy to have you with us. May your career be long and successful! Prosit!"

Nick met her eye and was surprised when she held his gaze a moment longer than he expected. He looked away, embarrassed, but a second later looked at her again. He couldn't stop himself. He felt a flush of attraction warm his stomach and spread upward into his chest. The feeling made him uncomfortable. She was his superior. She was off-limits, he told himself.

He couldn't go any further until he had sorted out his feelings for Anna. Two years they'd been together and two months apart. Yet right now it felt like the opposite, and that their separation would be permanent. The first few weeks in Zurich, he had expected her to phone to say she was sorry, and that she understood why he had dropped his life and rushed across the Atlantic. He'd even teased himself with a fantasy of her showing up unannounced on his doorstep. She'd be wearing ratty blue jeans, scuffed boots, and an impossibly expensive camel's hair coat, the collar turned up. She'd cock her head and ask to come in, as if she'd only been driving through the neighborhood and hadn't flown five thousand miles to surprise him.

But she hadn't called. Now he saw that he'd been foolish even to ask her to come. Had he actually expected her to quit Harvard in the middle of her senior year? Had he really thought she'd give up the job she'd lined up on Wall Street just to be with him?

"Your father's been dead for seventeen years, Nick," Anna had said the last time he saw her. "What can you expect to find except more disappointment? Leave him in peace."

"If you cared about me, you'd make the sacrifice," he'd fired back.

"And you-" she cried, "why won't you make the sacrifice for me?" But before he could respond, she answered for him. "Because you're obsessed. You don't know how to love anymore."

Seated in the busy restaurant, Nick wondered if he still loved Anna. Of course he did. Or maybe he should say a part of him did. But time and distance had weakened his love. And every minute he spent in the presence of Sylvia Schon weakened it further.

Over coffee, Sylvia inquired, "Do you happen to know Roger Sutter? He's the manager of our representative office in Los Angeles. Been there forever."

"Vaguely," said Nick, wondering if forever was longer than seventeen years. "He called our home a few times after my father died. I haven't been back to L.A. for a while. My mother moved away about six years ago. She passed away last year, so I don't have much occasion to visit."

Sylvia met his eyes. "I'm sorry. I lost my mother when I was little, just nine. Cancer. After she was gone it was just my father and my little brothers, Rolf and Erich. Twins. That's probably why I feel so comfortable working in a bank full of men. Some may think I'm a little bossy, but when you have two brothers and a rigid father to contend with, you quickly learn how to fend for yourself."

"I can imagine."

"Brothers? Sisters?"

"Nope. Just me. 'Independent' is how I look at it."

"Best to rely on yourself," said Sylvia, without a trace of sympathy. She sipped her coffee before resuming her personnel director's interrogation. "Tell me what really brought you to Switzerland. No one just ups and leaves a post at one of the top firms on Wall Street."

"When my mother died, it hit me hard that I didn't have any real roots in the world. All of a sudden I felt alienated from the States, especially from New York."

"So you quit and came to Switzerland?" Her voice said she wasn't buying his spiel.

"My father grew up in Zurich. When I was younger we came over all the time. After he passed away, we lost contact with our relatives. I didn't like the idea of letting it all fade away."

Sylvia stared at him a moment, and he could see she was evaluating his answer. "Were you close to him?"

Nick breathed easier, happy to be over that bridge. "My father? Tough question to answer after so many years. He was from the old school. You know, kids should be seen and not heard. No television. In bed at eight o'clock sharp. I don't know if I was ever really close to him. That part was supposed to come later, when I had grown up."

Sylvia raised the cup to her lips and asked, "How exactly did he die?"

"Kaiser never told you?"

"No."

Now it was Nick's turn to size her up. "So, we're supposed to be honest with each other, right?"

Sylvia half-smiled and nodded.

"He was murdered. I don't know by whom. The police never arrested anyone."

Sylvia's hand registered a minor tremor, and a few drops of coffee tumbled from her cup. "I am sorry for prying," she said crisply. "Please excuse my being so rude. It was none of my business."

Nick saw that she believed she'd gone too far, and that she was ashamed. He appreciated her respect for his privacy. "It's all right. I don't mind you asking. It's been a long time."

Both took a sip of coffee, then Sylvia said she had something to tell him, too. She moved closer to him, and for a moment it seemed that the din and roar surrounding them faded. He hoped she didn't have some catastrophic family secret of her own to share. She gave him a puckish smile and he knew his fears were for naught.

"Since the beginning of the evening I've been dying to take these horrid little pieces of paper out of your hair. I was afraid to ask how they got there, then I realized that you must have had to dry your hair- because of the snow. Come on, lean a little closer."

Nick hesitated for a moment, studying Sylvia as she shifted her body on the banquette to face him more directly. She looked at him and a puzzled expression wrinkled her brow. Her eyes were a soft brown, no longer so challenging, and for a moment they held his in their embrace. Her nose crinkled slightly, as if he had asked her a vexing question, and then she smiled and he saw that a small gap separated her front teeth. And in that smile, he spotted- if only for a moment- the girl who had grown into this, perhaps, too responsible executive.

"Don't be afraid. I told you that my bark is worse than my bite. You must believe me."

Nick inclined his head toward her. He came nearer her body, smelling her perfume, then sensing it mix with her own warmth, her own peculiar, feminine scent. He blushed, and as she removed the last pieces of tissue from his hair, he dismissed any worries he had had about her being his superior at the bank. Abandoning himself to her feminine charms, he could barely suppress a sudden and powerful urge to wrap his arms around her and bring his mouth to hers and to kiss her long and deep and hard.

"I think we've cured your rather nasty case of dandruff," Sylvia stated proudly.

Nick brushed the top of his head, not quite ashamed of his secret thoughts. "All gone?"

"All gone," she confirmed, a bright smile gracing her features. And then she added in a tone of hushed confidentiality, "If you ever need anything, Mr. Neumann, I want you to promise me right here that you'll call."

Nick promised.