Nora lay back as instructed and opened her legs wide for Nico. He tried and failed to unclasp the chain. She took it from him and opened it.

“Smaller fingers,” she said. He took the chain from her and threaded it through the ring. This time he managed to lock the clasp. He pulled the chain taut, and Nora flinched with the pleasure of the gentle tugging.

“Now pull the chain through.”

Nico did as instructed. The beads of the silver chain rattled the ring. Nora shivered at the sensation it created—like a vibrator but much more intimate and concentrated. She dug her fingers into the bed as Nico spun the chain through the ring over and over again, slowly at first and then faster as her breathing quickened.

With the chain in his left hand, he tugged and teased her clitoral ring. With his right hand, he pressed three and then four fingers into her. Nora spread wide for Nico as his hand explored her vagina. He massaged her G-spot, went deeper and pushed against the high back wall near her cervix. Her inner muscles twitched and tightened around his fingers. She gasped when he pushed into a soft corner of her, the pleasure so intense she flinched.

Nico laughed as he moved the chain back and forth. Her clitoris pulsed and her stomach tightened. Her hips rose of their own accord as she moved in time with the muscles clenching and releasing around Nico’s fingers.

She came with a sudden shiver that she felt from her shoulders to her knees before collapsing back on the bed with a spent laugh.

“Now that,” Nico said as he pulled out his hand and unclasped the chain, “is a good trick.”

“One of many up my sleeve,” Nora said, as she took the chain from him and put it back in her jewelry case. Nico ran his hand over her thighs and stomach.

“Where did you learn all these tricks?” he asked, kissing her mouth.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Kingsley?”

“And Søren. And my own wicked imagination.”

She pulled back from the kiss to wink at him.

“You amaze me.”

“That’s your erection talking.”

“And my heart,” he said.

She laid her hand on the side of his face. Such a young, handsome face. But he didn’t have an ounce of innocence in him. He worked too hard, lived too hard, had seen too much of the world to have stars in his eyes. Good. She liked his eyes the way they were right now—warm and hungry. He had none of his father’s cynicism and all of his secrets. But Nico’s secrets never scared her like Kingsley’s did. She knew one secret he kept from her for her own sake.

“I know you’re in love with me,” she said, caressing the arch of his cheekbone with her fingertips.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “My feelings are my own. They shouldn’t concern you.”

“God, you’re so French.”

Nico laughed and buried his head against her chest.

“I can’t help it,” he said. “I get it from my father.”

“Which father?” she asked.

“The one who raised me. My real father. Not Kingsley.”

“Kingsley would have raised you and loved you if he’d known about you.”

“Let me love you since I can’t love him,” Nico said.

She ran her fingers through the dark waves of his hair. In her younger days she would never have appreciated a man like Nico—quiet, industrious, low-key. He had presence and intelligence but he made no spectacle of himself. He didn’t need to to own every room he walked into. He was so self-possessed he felt no need to possess anyone or anything else.

“Nico, look at me.” He raised his head and gazed into her eyes, the smile long gone from his face. “I’ve known your father twenty years. Twenty. Think about that.”

“If I can accept that, why can’t you?”

“It’s not that I’ve known him for a long time. It’s how I know him, what we are to each other, what we’ve been through together.”

“Then tell me. Please.”

“Are you sure you want to hear this story?” Nora asked as she settled into the pillows. Nico lay next to her, his arm draped over her stomach.

“Yes, I want to hear the story. Kingsley might be my biological father, but he’s not really my father. My father taught me how to plant vines and prune them, how to press wine and rack it. He’s the one who sent me to Australia to learn the secrets of Shiraz. Kingsley seduced my mother while my father was in Paris going bank to bank begging for a loan to keep the vineyard in the family after a bad harvest.”

“If you knew King like I did, you would find a way to love him.”

“Help me find that way.”

Nora took a deep breath.

“This might help you love him a little,” she said as she took her jewelry bag back to the bathroom. She grabbed her hairbrush and retuned to the bedroom. “So I got arrested for stealing cars for my dad, right? And Søren promised to help me out of my little legal trouble. He knew he’d need Kingsley to call in some favors. Even back then Kingsley had a few prosecutors and judges in his pocket. But when Søren went to him and asked for help, that was the first time he and Kingsley had spoken to each other in over ten years. Still, Kingsley helped him and helped me, too. He didn’t ask for anything in return except that Søren stay and be his friend.”

“It’s good he helped you. You’re here now with me and not in prison.”