The residual jealousy from the campus encounter did not stay contained in the study.

It followed them into the next public space they entered together.

Thursday evening Victoria insisted on a late client dinner at a downtown restaurant—low lighting, polished wood, the kind of place where industry people conducted business under the cover of good wine and quiet tables. Elena had not wanted to go. The high-necked dress she wore covered every mark, but the lower bruises across her ribs still ached in a dull continuous line every time she shifted in the booth. Between her legs she carried the load Marcus had left in her that afternoon—warm, thick, deliberate—because...