The restaurant was the kind of place that required reservations three months in advance, where the waiters wore tuxedos and the wine list was thicker than most novels. George had brought clients here for twenty years, closing deals over foie gras and vintage Bordeaux, never once thinking of these dinners as anything other than business.
Tonight was different. Tonight, he was here with Vivian.
They’d met at a gallery opening six weeks ago—she was sixty-three, a sculptor whose work George didn’t understand but couldn’t stop looking at, all angles and shadows and suggestions of bodies in motion. She’d approached him, not the other way around, had asked him questions about the artwork that revealed she knew he knew nothing about art.
“I like you,” she’d said, matter-of-fact. “You don’t pretend. Most men at these things pretend to know everything.” “I know what I like. I don’t always know why.” “That’s honest. I prefer honest.” Now, sitting across from him at the restaurant’s best table, Vivian was wearing a burgundy skirt that fell to mid-thigh and a silk blouse that managed to be both elegant and dangerous. She’d ordered for both of them—something in French that George didn’t catch—and was now watching him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.