RACHEL

The chandelier came first.

Crystal, enormous, it hung directly over the center of an oval, two-level room whose oak floors circled inward toward a small dance floor, where only the bravest members attempted the occasional waltz or tango. Silk curtains in faint turquoise draped the walls in one elliptical curve after another. In a corner, on a small triangular stage, a string quintet worked its way through the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic masters.

The exclusivity began outside, at a padded, medieval-looking double door of solid silver, as intimidating as it was intriguing. Two thick crimson ropes ran down a flight of marble stairs to a pair of silver posts, where a man in a tuxedo ordered another to open the gate, but only for those who carried an engraved card bearing a single word, “Member,” followed by their full name.

Inside was a small foyer, where a stylish and notoriously multilingual concierge took your coat, your umbrella, your briefcase, anything you cared to leave behind. Then the final double doors swung open, and a host led you reverently to your reserved table.

Each table was draped in white and pale green silk, with exotic fresh flowers at its center. The chairs were Argentine leather, as smooth as the first-class seats of a jumbo jet and nearly as wide.

There were no more than forty tables, perfectly spaced for privacy, and no more than two hundred members at any one time: heads of state, senators, Boston’s mayor, and a lucky few whose reputations and wealth earned them a yearly card. And, of course, my dear, overly ambitious Rachel, who had fought nearly two years to get us in and had finally paid a hefty price for the privilege.

Her local fame as an anchor at Boston’s NBC affiliate wasn’t nearly enough for a thirty-year-old to whom the world was never enough. I admired my sweetheart, even if she wasn’t always that sweet or didn’t always have much of a heart. She had raised the Type A personality to an almost unreachable level.

She ordered her usual glass of Château Haut-Brion, 1959, took a sip from the crystal, and said, “I want to go national.”

I looked at her, confused by the out-of-nowhere remark.

“Yes, love. I want to—” She stopped. When she spoke again, her voice was intense and decisive. “No. I don’t want to go national. I am going national, before the year is over, no matter what it takes. All I need is a big story, something that puts me in the national, even the international, arena. Damn it, my research team isn’t doing its job. By now I should have had pictures of our president having tea at the White House with Saddam Hussein.”

She went on. “I started as an investigative reporter, you know, and I was great at it. I’m not the station’s head anchor because of a pretty face.”

Fire burned in those green eyes. She was right, of course. She held a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University, and she had climbed the ladder rung by rung without a single stumble.

I remembered the first time I met her.

It was a hot summer afternoon. I had left my jacket in my car in the firm’s private garage and walked across the street to the debut celebration of a new theater, a party to which mostly attorneys and city officials had been invited. After a week of billing more than sixty hours, I had hoped for a respite. Instead, I found shoving crowds and endless chatter.

An orchestra played at the theater’s entrance, and an open bar offered everything from French champagne to German beer. I took a glass of red wine and waited for the mayor to cut the ceremonial ribbon.

Before I could take a sip, a petite, porcelain-skinned woman with short dark hair and green eyes stopped beside me. I was instantly struck by her beauty and her confident stance, and by a nagging feeling that I had seen her before. So, I summoned my courage.

“Excuse me. I don’t mean to intrude, but do I know you?”

She smiled, pleased to be recognized, and said nothing. Her friend answered for her.

“Are you kidding? This is Rachel Tullier, lead anchor at Boston’s NBC affiliate.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Tullier,” I said.

Rachel barely glanced my way. She walked off through the crowd toward the main platform.

At the microphone, she introduced herself, and the crowd greeted her with thunderous applause and a standing ovation, as if she were a movie star. Her friend, a woman in her mid-forties, leaned toward me and whispered, “I can’t believe you don’t know who she is. I’m Martha Rosenberg, Ms. Tullier’s personal assistant.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m an attorney. I have little time for television, and when I do watch, I limit myself to CNN.”

“Well, you’d better start paying attention to Ms. Tullier. She’s going to be one of America’s top broadcasters.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, listening to Rachel’s charismatic speech. Whatever else she was, the woman knew how to captivate an audience.

When the speech ended, Rachel left the podium, spoke privately with Martha, and stepped into an NBC limousine. Martha came back and pressed a card into my hand.

“She’s expecting your call.”

Then she climbed into the limo, and it pulled away.

She’s expecting my call? I couldn’t imagine why Rachel Tullier would want to hear from an insurance lawyer.

Back at my penthouse, I changed into comfortable clothes, sat on the leather sofa, and studied the card, undecided between calling and dropping it into the garbage compactor. I turned on the television. And there she was, in a pre-recorded newscast. One look at that model’s face settled the matter. I dialed.

“Hi, this is Xavier Armand. Your assistant gave me your private card and asked me to call. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Rachel paused, almost derisively. “The question isn’t what you can do for me, beauty. It’s what I can do for you.”

Beauty? Who in the world calls a man “beauty”?

“Would you like to have dinner with me?” she went on. “My place, in about an hour?”

Her boldness stunned me, and nothing excited me more than a woman in charge.

“Sure. Where do you live?”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll have someone pick you up in an hour.”

She hung up.

An hour later, to the minute, as if timed by an atomic clock, a black stretch limousine pulled up in front of the Metropolitan Tower, and the concierge announced that a chauffeur was waiting. I came down in a white silk shirt and light-brown slacks and was shown into the back seat.

“Hi, I’m Xavier. May I ask where you’re taking me?”

The chauffeur said nothing. He raised the dark glass partition and left me alone. Moments later, the limo’s phone began to ring.

“Hello?” I answered, a little uneasy.

“Relax, beauty. I’m not kidnapping you. Well, perhaps I am, but it’s the kind of kidnapping you won’t regret. And don’t worry, there’s no torture involved. Unless you want there to be.”

She hung up. Twenty minutes later, an intercom crackled to life. “We’re here,” said the driver. “Wait until I open your door.”

Beyond the tinted windows I could see only darkness, punctuated by red and green lights flashing less than fifty feet away. When the door opened, I saw a vast expanse of pavement under fluorescent lights and, facing me, a small private jet with its stairs lowered. Rachel stood at the open hatch, waving.

“Is this your private plane?” I asked, settling into what looked like a state-of-the-art living room.

“Of course not. It’s a perk from NBC. They lent it to me for the weekend, and I thought it would be nice to have breakfast at a Parisian bistro in the company of a handsome Latin lover.”

I was speechless. “Have you ever heard of taking things slow?” I said, edging away.

“Of course I have. But life is too short, and I have no intention of taking this slowly.”

She moved closer, handed me a glass of champagne, and led me to the back of the plane, where an enormous all-white bedroom waited behind closed doors. The lights were dim. The bed was a low, circular double king.

Rachel slipped into a skin-tight red negligee, locked the door, and took charge of every aspect of what happened next.

That night, and the breakfast in Paris four thousand miles away, were only the beginning of a roller-coaster relationship with the uniquely capable Rachel Tullier.

From then on, we were nearly inseparable, and before long, seriously involved. But Rachel had no plans to stay in Boston. She was determined to reach the top: NBC headquarters in New York City. So we lived on standby, as far as any long-term commitment was concerned. She was waiting for one big story to launch her into stardom.

Little did I know that one day I would be the one to hand her what she coveted most: the biggest story of her life.