Ivy returned to the table smiling. "Want more stew?"
"I'm stuffed," Peter said.
She sat down.
"Here." He poured more wine into her glass, trying for an apology if it was in fact called for. He had no idea.
The instrumental ended, then a lovely female voice filled the room with song. It was his absolute favorite. His eyelids lowered slowly, automatically, and a smile washed across his face. The artist's sensual voice had an effect on him that was like easing into a warm bath. He sat there like that for a little bit, forgetting Ivy and his dinner and everything else.
Ivy turned her head to the source of his evident pleasure. Her frown went unnoticed.
Peter had met the vocalist one afternoon at a Sierra Club luncheon thrown in his honor after Wallaby had donated several computers to the noted environmental organization. Kate McGreggor, the "softly outspoken" folk-rock star, was the keynote speaker. He tried to be attentive to her words during her speech, but he constantly found himself drifting, starting at her warm green eyes, sighing when she casually brushed aside her hair, dark brown with sunned highlights and occasional strands of gray. In just fifteen minutes Kate had made an impression on him like no other woman ever had. Meanings for her wandered into his mind. Intelligent. Simple. Pure. True. What you see is what you get, he surmised. After the meal, she sang. Her voice was enchanting, perfect, and as she sang about pain and hope and love he knew that he had to get to know her personally. Immediately after her performance he introduced himself. At first she seemed disinterested. He suspected her judgment was influenced by his involvement in an industry notorious for destroying the environment. And perhaps also by the eight years difference in their ages. He invited her to visit Wallaby for a personal tour. She hesitated, but ultimately he persuaded her to accept after asking for a chance to prove that he and Wallaby were unlike all the rest. When she arrived a week later, she surprised him with a special gift: A bottle of wine from her parents' obscure little vineyard in Oregon, where she had grown up. It was a Cabernet Sauvignon, bottled the same year he had founded Wallaby. He was touched by the thoughtfulness of her gesture, and told her she had to be the one to share it with him when the company was ten years old. Her tour was scheduled to last two hours, but as Peter expressed his own thoughts and concerns about the environment, the state of education, the future, they engaged in long and satisfying conversation, and by the end of the day their attraction for one another was evident. And had remained so to this day. They were two people comfortable with themselves and with each other. She maintained a home in Los Angeles, where she was constantly at work on her music or lending her celebrity status to political causes about which she felt strongly. She came to stay with Peter between recordings and projects, and her independence meshed perfectly with his own like composure, creating the foundation for what had become a lasting and loving relationship. They had been together for nearly eight years, and the distance between them imposed by their careers generated a constant longing that kept their affection for one another fresh and alive. Sometimes, like now, it was difficult and he wished they could be together more often. Especially now, with everything the way it was at Wallaby…
And with that thought, he opened his eyes and came back around to the present, and to his guest.
Ivy was lowering a coffee cup from her lips, staring at him. Had she made a pot? He hadn't even heard her in the kitchen. In front of him sat a steaming cup of coffee. Perfect, he thought. That odd sense of dread he'd experienced earlier had returned, just for an instant, when he'd opened his eyes. He needed to sober up a little.
Abruptly she spoke.