The Expats by Chris Pavone Page B

wine.

    IT WAS DARK, and loud, and the dance floor and lights and music tugged at everyone’s concentration, pulling toward this light and that body, this beat and that voice, and all these distractions, this sensory overload, created a sort of privacy, an energy shield behind which Kate felt like she could finally take a moment and study Bill, this husband of a woman who had quickly become her best friend on the continent.
    Bill’s arm was thrown over the back of the banquette, and his jacket was off, and his shirt was undone two buttons. His wavy dark hair had gone a bit wild, and he was sporting the easy smile of someone who’d been drinking for six hours. He looked completely in his element here, at this Right Bank club privé . He leaned his head back to listen to Pierre, then let out a full and loose laugh. He could be a fashion designer, or a filmmaker. But what he didn’t look like was a currency trader.
    The humor of Pierre’s joke receded, taking with it the better part of Bill’s smile. He turned back to his American companions, his table, and his eyes found Kate’s, and rested there a few beats, saying nothing and asking nothing, just looking. She wondered what he was looking for, and who the hell he was.
    Bill’s being, his presence, dominated his surroundings. Making his wife seem small and quiet, even when she was standing tall, loudly. They were a strange match; Bill was kind of out of Julia’s league.
    “Hey guys,” Kate said to her husband, and to Bill, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “How about a picture?” They both looked reticent, but not enough to argue.
    Kate had come across a lot of Bills: alpha males, trying to out-alpha one another. It had been her job to deal with them. In private life, it had been her habit to avoid them.
    “And Julia?” she asked. “Could you lean in also? ”
    The trio smiled, and Kate snapped the picture.
    She looked at these men across the low littered table, her own man and this new one. One whose entire being was suffused with confidence, flowing up from some deep well that originated Lord knows where—maybe he’d been spectacularly good at some sport, or he had a photographic memory, or was impressively well-endowed—and oozing out into a sleekness, a fluidity, as if all his gears were well-oiled, perpetually lubricated and running efficiently, manifested in smooth physical movements and playful smiles and an undeniably animal sexuality.This man didn’t run his hand through his hair, or adjust his shirt collar, or dart his eyes around the room, or run his mouth meaninglessly; he didn’t fidget in any way.
    And the other man, bereft of this confidence. His supply compromised, a plugged well or a broken pipe, just a trickle flowing up, not enough to even out the rough edges of nervousness and insecurity, of herky-jerky body language with creaks and squeaks and uncomfortable angles. This was her man, the one who didn’t just want her but needed her, and not just passingly but desperately. This was the legacy of her upbringing, the result of her own finite supply of self-confidence, her own valuation of herself in the world: Kate needed, badly, to be needed. She’d gravitated toward men who tended to need her more than want her. She’d married the one who’d needed her the most.
    The new man was again staring at her, staring at him, challenging her, knowing that she was considering him, wanting her to know that he was considering her.
    She couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be with a man who absolutely didn’t need her, but merely wanted her.

    KATE DIDN’T NOTICE anyone order or deliver or pick up the third bottle of Champagne, but there was no way this was still the second. She was hot, and thirsty, and she took a long sip, and then another, before Julia tugged her back into the throbbing crowd on the dance floor, everyone in the same motion and to the same beat, everyone sweaty, the strobe sweeping slowly across the room, the