Before I knew it we were at the restaurant. A uniformed valet helped me out of the car while another received the keys from Gage. "We can go anywhere," Gage said, taking my elbow. "If you don't like the look of this place, just tell me."

"I'm sure it will be wonderful."

It was a contemporary French restaurant with light-colored walls and tables covered in white linen, and piano music. After Gage explained to the hostess that the Travis party had gone from nine to two, she led us to one of the small tables in the corner, which was partially concealed by a curtainlike panel to allow for privacy.

While Gage looked through a wine list the size of a phone book, a solicitous waiter filled our water glasses and draped a napkin across my lap. After Gage chose the wine, we ordered artichoke soup sprinkled with shreds of caramelized Maine lobster, plates of California abalone, skillet-roasted sole from Dover accompanied by a hot salad of New Zealand eggplant and peppers.

"My dinner is going to be more well traveled than I am," I said.

Gage smiled. "Where would you go, if you could choose any place?"

The question made me animated. I had always fantasized about traveling to places I had seen only in magazines or movies. "Oh, I don't know...to start with, Paris, maybe. Or London, or Florence. When Carrington gets a little older I'm going to save enough to take us on one of those bus tours through Europe..."

"You don't want to see Europe through a bus window." he said.

"I don't?"

"No. You want to go with someone who knows the right places." He pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open. "Which one?"

I smiled and shook my head in confusion. "What do you mean, which one?"

"Paris or London? I can have the plane ready in two hours."

I decided to play along. "Are we taking the Gulfstream or the Citation?"

"For Europe, definitely the Gulfstream."

Then I realized he was serious. "I don't even own a suitcase." I said, stunned.

"I'll buy whatever you need when we get there."

"You said you were tired of traveling."

"I meant business traveling. Besides, I'd like to see Paris with someone who's never been there before." His voice gentled. "It would be like seeing it for the first time again."

"No, no. no...people don't go to Europe on the first date."

"Yes they do."

"Not my kind of people. Besides, it would scare Carrington for me to do something spontaneous like that—"

"Projecting," he murmured.

"All right, it would scare me. I don't know you well enough to take a trip with you."

"That's going to change."

I stared at Gage in amazement. He was more relaxed than I'd ever seen him. a dance of laughter in his eyes. "What's gotten into you?" I asked dazedly.

He shook his head, smiling. "I'm not sure. But I'm going to go with it."

We talked all through dinner. There was so much I wanted to tell him, and even more I wanted to ask. Three hours of conversation wasn't even a scratch on the surface. Gage was a good listener, seeming genuinely interested in the stories about my past, all the details that should have bored him silly. I told him about Mama, how much I missed her and all the problems we'd had with each other. I even told him about the guilt I had harbored for years. that it was my fault Mama had never gotten especially close to Carrington.

"I thought at the time I was stepping in to fill a gap," I said. "But after she died, I wondered if I hadn't...well, I loved Carrington so much right from the start, I just sort of took over. And I've wondered so often if I was guilty of...I don't know the word for it..."

"Marginalizing her?"

"What does that mean?"

"Putting her on the sidelines."

"Yes. Yes, that's what I did."

"Bull." Gage said gently. "It doesn't work that way, sweetheart. You didn't take anything away from your mother by loving Carrington." He took my hand, wrapping his wann fingers around mine. "It sounds like Diana was occupied with her own problems. She was probably grateful you were there to give Carrington the affection she couldn't."

"I hope so:" I said, unconvinced. "I.. .how did you know her name?"

He shrugged. "Dad must have mentioned it."

In the warm silence that followed, I recalled Gage had lost a mother when he was only three. "Do you remember anything about your mother?"

Gage shook his head. "Ava was the one who took care of me when I was sick; read me stories, patched me up after I'd been in a fight and gave me hell for it later." A reflective sigh. "God, I miss her."

"Your father does too." I paused before daring to ask. "Do you mind that he has girlfriends?"

"Hell, no." He grinned suddenly. "As long as you're not one of them."

We got back to River Oaks at about midnight. I was slightly tipsy from two glasses of wine and a few sips of the port they had brought out with dessert, which had consisted of French cheese and paper-thin slices of date-nut bread. I felt better than I had in my entire life, maybe even better than those halcyon moments with Hardy so long ago. It almost worried me, feeling that happy. I had a thousand ways of making sure a man could never really get close. Sex was not nearly as difficult, or dangerous, as intimacy.