He cared. She believed that. He was attentive in the specific way of someone who pays close attention to everything, and he paid close attention to her: remembered what she'd said three conversations ago, noticed when she'd changed her hair by half an inch, sent her articles about illustrators she'd mentioned once in passing. He was generous without being showy about it. He showed up when he said he would.

But love was a different question. And she was twenty-six years old and not naive, and she was aware - had been aware since approximately the third week - that there was a part of Ethan Cole that was not accessible to her. A room with the door locked. She could feel the shape of it. She could not get inside.

By ten o'clock she'd run out of things to look interested in and had accepted a second glass of champagne from a passing waiter simply to have something to do with her hands.

A man came to stand beside her at the window. Mid-forties, well-dressed, with the look of someone who sold things for a living and was very good at it.

"You must be Sophia," he said. "I'm David Hargrove. I sit on the board with Ethan."

"Sophia Hayes. Nice to meet you."

He nodded at the room. "First Christmas Eve party?"

"That obvious?"

"Not at all. I only noticed because Ethan pointed you out earlier." He glanced at her sideways. "He doesn't usually point people out."

She didn't know what to do with that information. She filed it away.

"How long have you two been together?" Hargrove asked.

"Ten months."

"And the engagement?"

"About eight." She smiled. "We moved quickly."

Hargrove looked at her with an expression she recognized: the assessment of a person deciding how seriously to take you. He must have decided she passed, because his expression settled into something warmer.

"He's a good man," Hargrove said. "Not easy. But good."

"I know," she said.

"The not-easy part or the good part?"

"Both," she said.

He laughed, surprised. Then he drifted away to refill his own drink, and Sophia was alone at the window again, and she looked across the room to where Ethan was still talking to the same three men, and one of the men was laughing at something Ethan had said, and Ethan was not quite laughing but his mouth was doing the thing it did - the small contained amusement that was his version of laughing - and she felt the love hit her again, sudden and particular and a little bit painful.

Not easy. But good.

She thought: Yes. That's exactly right.

She thought: The question is whether I am enough of something for him to want to keep.

A woman crossed the room toward him.

Tall. Red dress, no jewelry. The kind of beautiful that doesn't need to announce itself. She moved through the party the way Ethan did - not performing it, just occupying it. She touched his arm when she reached him.