"No. I mean, yes, I slept with him, but the chicken isn't about the s.e.x. The chicken is about me saying no to more s.e.x," Claudia said.

Sadie still looked perplexed, and Claudia sighed heavily.

"Maybe we should grab Gracie and go for an early lunch," she suggested.

Twenty minutes later, Claudia was surprised at how much lighter she felt after telling her friends the whole sordid story.

"I can't believe you did Leandro Mandalor," Grace kept saying, shaking her head in disbelief.

"I know, I know. It was dumb. My G.o.d, if Harvey ever finds out..." Claudia said, referring to her immediate boss at the production company.

"No, I mean, he's so big, Claud. I mean, he's huge. And you're so little," Grace said, her hands gesturing vividly to ill.u.s.trate her point.

Claudia felt herself blushing. "We worked it out," she said.

Sadie smirked. "Are you blushing? I don't think I've ever seen you blush before."

"We are talking about possibly the stupidest thing I have ever done," Claudia said defensively. "Of course I'm embarra.s.sed."

"Because of Heartlands?" Grace asked. She waved a hand dismissively. "It's no big deal. It's not like you're going to be telling each other secrets between o.r.g.a.s.ms or anything. You're both grown-ups, right?"

"h.e.l.l, no one would have s.e.x with anyone in L. A. if they worried about conflict of interest," Sadie said.

Claudia stared at her friends.

"You really don't think it's a big deal? We're compet.i.tors. Rivals. Arch enemies," she insisted.

"Yeah...but none of that stuff's serious, is it? It's not fight-to-the-death material. It's just...fun, to keep us all on our toes," Sadie said.

Claudia blinked. Sadie and Grace didn't think her sleeping with Leandro was a big deal. Better still, they didn't think anyone else would think it was a big deal, either.

"Why am I the only one who sees that this is a big problem?" she asked. "There's no way I am going to risk years of hard work for great s.e.x. It's not worth it."

"Great s.e.x? Now you're talking," Grace said, rubbing her hands together salaciously.

"You guys didn't give me details, so you get none," Claudia said repressively.

"Fine. I'd just like to place a small wager on the table. Twenty bucks says you see him again," Grace said.

"What? Get out of here," Claudia said.

"I want in," Sadie said, reaching for her purse.

Claudia stared at her. "What is this, a conspiracy or something?"

"No. I just recognize the look," Sadie said.

"Definitely." Grace nodded.

"What look?" Claudia asked.

"The look I saw in my own bathroom mirror when Dylan came back into my life," Sadie said.

"Mac for me, but same deal," Grace said.

Claudia rolled her eyes. "Guys, it's not going to happen. Even if he wasn't the enemy, I'm not interested in a relationship and I don't have the time for anything else. I work seven days a week, remember?"

"Ask yourself-how long does great s.e.x take?" Grace asked.

Sadie shot Grace a confused look. "I don't know about you, but great s.e.x can chew up a bit of time for me."

Grace looked arrested, then nodded her agreement. "You're right. I withdraw the statement, your honor. How about this instead-how often does great s.e.x come along?"

"Nice," Sadie said.

Claudia rolled her eyes again and collected her handbag. "Love your work, ladies, but I have a show to produce," she said, sliding out of the booth they were sharing.

THAT NIGHT, Claudia tore herself away from her desk to leave work early and stop in at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica to buy a birthday gift for her nephew, Nicco. He was turning five and was obsessed with pirates, according to her eldest brother, Cosmo. She selected a wooden pirate ship, complete with pint-size buccaneers, and tried not to notice how much the pirate captain looked like Leandro. She'd called him a pirate once, she remembered. Maybe she hadn't been that far off the mark, the way he kept hijacking her thoughts.

And she was doing it again-thinking about him! She frowned as she handed over her credit card to the teenager at the checkout. She'd made a deal with herself after her lunch with Grace and Sadie-she wasn't going to think about him anymore. For starters, that was exactly what he wanted her to do, with his little gifts and sly digs. He was counting on her making contact. And she'd be d.a.m.ned if she was giving in to his manipulation.

Annoyed with herself for wasting yet more time on something she'd consigned to the dustbin of history, she made the short drive to her brother's place in the Palisades.

"Auntie Claudia," Nicco yelled from up the hallway as her brother opened the door.

Claudia crouched down, her gift balanced in one arm, and returned his exuberant hug.

"Hey, my favorite monkey," she said, ruffling his hair. "How's the big birthday guy doing?"

"It's not my birthday yet, silly. Not till tomorrow," Nicco corrected her, his words lisping adorably through a new gap in his front teeth where his two baby incisors had dropped out.

Claudia gasped with laughter when she registered the profound change.

"Look at you! When did that happen? I bet the tooth fairy has been busy around here," she said.

"He brought me a whole dollar in quarters," Nicco said proudly.

Claudia raised an eyebrow at her brother. "When I was little, we only used to get a nickel per tooth," she said.

"Inflation," Cosmo said dryly.

"You want your present now or do you want to wait until tomorrow?" she asked Nicco.

His little face screwed up as he thought it through.

"I want to open it now, but it wouldn't be right because it's not my birthday yet," he finally said. She'd half-suspected this would be his answer-for an almost-five-year-old, he had some very rigid ideas about what was and what wasn't okay.

"Why can't you come to my party tomorrow night same as everyone else?" he asked, staring up at Claudia plaintively. "Grandma and Papa will be there, and Uncle George and my cousins and my friends. We're going to have red icing on a cake shaped like a big number five. I helped Mommy with it today."

"I can't make it tomorrow night, sweetie," she said. "But you save your present until then. I can call you later and you can tell me if you liked it or not."

"Okay. I'm going to go put it in my room so it will be there first thing when I wake up tomorrow," Nicco said. Sliding his arms around the big box, he tottered off down the hallway.

Claudia stared after him pensively, regretting that she wouldn't be there to witness the delight on his face when he saw the pirate ship.

"You could come, you know," Cosmo said as he led her into the kitchen.

"It would be a disaster, and you know it," Claudia said. "Papa would get angry all over again, and Mama would cry or worse...I don't want to ruin Nicco's special day."

It was the same rationale she'd used for the past three years, ever since she'd taken a stand against her mother's drinking and "detached with love," as the so-called experts called it. After a lifetime of watching her mother kill herself with drink, Claudia had had enough of the pain and disappointment. She'd given her mother an ultimatum-either she enter a residential rehabilitation program or Claudia would refuse to be a part of her life. Predictably, her mother had denied she had a problem, leaving Claudia with no choice but to carry through on her threat.

It was a move that had torn her family apart. For so many years, they'd all been in denial about Talia Dostis's drinking. When Claudia had been a teen, her mother's alcoholism had been explained away in so many ways-Talia was feeling emotional, or she was having a bad day or she had simply gotten carried away at a family celebration. But Claudia had walked up the garden path too many times after school and heard the clink of empty wine bottles being hidden in the garbage can. She'd smelled the sweet-sour stink of alcohol on her mother's breath, and endured the maudlin embraces and inevitable tears before her mother pa.s.sed out more times than she cared to count. She'd cleaned up vomit and worse, changed sheets, helped trawl the streets when her mother went missing on one of her binges.

In her twenties, she'd hoped with the rest of her family when her mother had declared herself on the wagon time after time. It never lasted. For a few weeks they would have Talia back, clear-eyed and focused and almost her old self. And then the subterfuge would begin. The sneaking around. The hiding of bottles. The stealing of money. Talia had become a consummate liar, like all addicts. And not just about her drinking. By the time Claudia had made her stand, it had become impossible to tell where the truth ended and the lies began.

Detaching herself had not been a decision she'd taken lightly, but Claudia had been at her wit's end. She'd held on for so long, believed her mother's vows and promises so many times, been so disappointed and hurt and ashamed when her mother let her down again, again, again.... In the end, it had come down to doing what was right for herself, also. She couldn't force her mother to admit she was an alcoholic. But she could choose not to be part of the disaster area her mother created around herself. Once Claudia stepped back and stopped partic.i.p.ating-stopped believing, and rescuing, and making excuses-she'd stopped being a part of the pretence.

Of course, it didn't mean she'd stopped caring. Or that there wasn't always a part of her mind that fretted. Talia was her mother; Claudia would always be connected to her fate.

The one thing she hadn't antic.i.p.ated had been her father's rage at her decision. She'd broken the unspoken covenant of her family by putting a name to her mother's behavior. She'd made it impossible for them to all look the other way and pretend it didn't exist. All the anger and disappointment that had built up inside him over the years had been redirected toward his daughter. She had betrayed the family, disrespected her mother, shamed them all. Now, her father refused to look her in the eye, and she chose not to put herself, or her extended family, through the torture of hosting them both at the same time.

Which was why she was reduced to seeing her nephew the day before his birthday, rather than attending the party itself. And why she'd missed her cousin Zoe's wedding, and her uncle Costa's sixtieth, and a myriad of other family events and occasions.

Now, she accepted a coffee from her brother and greeted her sister-in-law, Yolanda, with a kiss.

"It's been a long time, Claudia," Yolanda said, picking up on their conversation.

"And nothing has changed," Claudia said firmly. She didn't want to talk about it. For the first year, she had questioned her decision every day. But she had stuck to her resolve because as painful as it was to be apart from her family, watching her mother's slow self-destruction was a million times worse.

Claudia could see that Yolanda wanted to argue some more-she wouldn't be Greek if she didn't-but she didn't want to go over old ground. She'd made her decision, it was done.

"We haven't had a chance to talk-how was Zoe's wedding?" she asked, deliberately changing the subject.

Yolanda and Cosmo exchanged speaking looks before Yolanda shrugged and sat down at the kitchen table beside Claudia.

"It was great. She was beautiful. I'll show you the pictures later..."

For the next few hours, Claudia listened as they updated her on the wedding and other recent family sagas-her uncle's battle with the police department over parking tickets, her aunt's upcoming eye surgery, her father's big win at bowling. Nicco peppered their conversation with questions of his own and repeated invitations for Claudia to come to his room so she could see his latest pet rock, and Claudia basked in the warmth of home and hearth. The loud voices, the talking over each other, the big hand gestures-she missed her family, knew that she would be missing out on so much fun and love by being absent tomorrow night.

When Yolanda dug out her cousin's wedding photos, Claudia found her gaze lingering on shots featuring her parents, almost as though she were looking for evidence that, despite what she'd said earlier to Yolanda, something had shifted, something that would allow her to come back into the family fold.

But what she saw only made her feel sadder and more determined. Her father looked older, smaller. Her mother was painfully thin and scrawny, her face caked with makeup to cover the damage alcohol had done to her skin over the years. Claudia paused over one particular shot, her stomach clenching with old, old pain as she saw the lopsided, vague smile on her mother's face and her father standing behind her, one hand on Talia's shoulder in a gesture Claudia knew so well. Even if she hadn't known that distant smile of her mother's so intimately, she'd have known Talia had been drinking because of that hand-that guiding, loyal, ever-patient hand on her mother's shoulder. Her father had been shepherding his broken wife for too many years to count.

But Claudia could not do the same.

"For what it's worth, everyone asked after you," Cosmo said when he noticed her lingering over certain photos.

"I'll catch up with Zoe when they're back from their honeymoon," Claudia said, shuffling the photos back together and sliding them into their envelope.

She stayed for a little while longer, read Nicco his bedtime story, then wished them all luck for the party tomorrow. Her house seemed very empty and quiet when she let herself in, and she was doubly annoyed with herself when her thoughts defaulted to thinking about Leandro Mandalor yet again.

What was wrong with her at the moment? For the first time in a long time, she felt plagued by doubts. About her parents, about Leandro, about her life. And Claudia Dostis didn't do doubt.

Thoroughly out of sorts, she went to bed.

LEANDRO STARED OUT into the dark night sky, swirling the remnants of his whiskey around the bottom of his tumbler. He'd expected to hear from Claudia by now. It had been three days since his campaign had begun. On Tuesday he'd sent her the white feather, on Wednesday the toy chicken. Today, he'd sent her a rubbery, yellow-bellied frog-and still she hadn't responded to his goading.

Which probably meant she wasn't going to.

Swallowing the last of the whiskey, he made the decision he'd been putting off all week. Leaving the tumbler on the window ledge, he leaned across his couch to grab the phone. Pulling his brother's business card from his wallet, he tapped in the number jotted on the back.

A woman answered after the third ring.

"h.e.l.lo?"

She had a pleasant voice, light and mellifluous.

"Is this Stella Diodorus?" he asked.

She sighed heavily. "Please don't tell me you're trying to sell me something because I've had a really s.h.i.tty day and I don't want to be rude to you but I'm afraid that's what's going to happen if you start talking about life insurance or time-shares."

Leandro grinned. Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all.

"This is Leandro Mandalor calling-my brother Dom gave me your number."

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

"h.e.l.lo? Stella?"

"I'm still here. I'm just wondering how long it's going to take for me to get my foot out of my mouth," she said.

He laughed. "Hey, if our positions had been reversed and I thought you were a telemarketer, I'd have been a h.e.l.l of a lot ruder," he said.

"Betty was right-you are a nice guy," Stella said.

Leandro rested his head against the cool gla.s.s of his window and stared out into the night again.

"Betty's a little biased-and she has an ulterior motive. She wants cousins for her kids," he said.

"Family makes the world go around, Leandro," she said softly.