“This wasn't going to last anyway. He'd have ended things in another fifty or sixty years with her. He'd never wanted anything permanent with her so this really didn't bother him.”

“This wasn't going to last anyway. He'd have ended things in another fifty or sixty years with her. He'd never want anything permanent with her so this really didn't bother him. This was fine. This was more than fine, he thought as he drove his first through the wall.”

“It had been years since she question his fidelity, but he'd stepped on to the old fame track again, and that was where the road had taken them before. Infidelity could be forgiven, but forgetting it was impossible. Strangely, that wasn't what bothered her the most. What bothered her was that she didn't really care.”

“He didn't go down to dinner at all that night, didn't eat, didn't drink, simply thought of his wife, trying to decide what to do with her. He'd wanted her to suffer, and she'd suffered. He'd wanted her to pay for her deceits, and she'd saved his life. He'd wanted to torment her with the knowledge that she would never see him again and had instead created his own private hell. He wanted her to come to him again, giving herself to him as she had that night before her attempted escape, and he wanted to hear words she would never speak. He'd even started lying to himself as he lay sleepless in his bed, reliving each moment of their last night together, telling himself it was real, that she'd meant every word. He was going mad.”

“But he saw her and, God, it was exactly like last night. Everything he'd learn about this particular woman would fascinate him; he was sure of it. He'd want to learn more and more. This was real. [...]He'd take anything, even thirty minutes in a coffee shop, but she was running late. So he'd have to treat the next ten minutes as the most important of his life - without scaring the shit out of her.”

“Peter knew she was afraid. He ached to tell her that she didn't have to do anything, that he'd protect her from everything. Every instance of fear or pain she had tore him apart inside. She'd had months, but it was still new to him. He wanted to grieve with her for what she'd lost, let her know the utter terror he'd felt at the idea of her being gone from his life before she'd really fully entered it.”