The Alibi

“Oh?” She cocked her head to one side and raised her eyebrows in a manner that was all too familiar. It was the expression she assumed when she was pissed off, when she was about to tear into somebody, usually an intern or clerk who hadn’t done a good job preparing a brief for her, or a cop who had failed to include an integral fact of a case in his report, or anyone who dared cross her when she was determined to have her way. “Since when hasn’t it been ‘working’ for you?”

“For a while now. I feel like we’re moving in different directions.”

She smiled, shrugged. “We’ve both been distracted lately, but that’s easily fixed. We have enough in common to salvage—”

He was shaking his head. “Not just different directions, Steffi. Opposing directions.”

“Could you be a little bit more specific?”

“Okay.” He spoke evenly, although he resented her tone because it implied that he wasn’t quite as smart as she. “Eventually I would like to marry. Have kids. You’ve made it plain to me on numerous occasions that you’re not interested in having a family.”

“That you are comes as a surprise.”

He smiled wryly. “Actually it surprises me, too.”

“You said you didn’t want to be to any unsuspecting kid what your father had been to you.”

“And I won’t be,” he said tightly.

“Isn’t this a recent change of heart?”

“Recent but gradual. Our relationship was perfect for a while, but then—”

“The novelty wore off?”

“No.”

“Then what? It’s not exciting anymore? Sleeping with the hot number in the County Solicitor’s Office has lost its appeal? Being Steffi Mundell’s secret lover doesn’t excite you any longer?”

He hung his head and shook it. “Please don’t do this, Steffi.”

“I’m not doing anything,” she retorted, her voice going shrill. “This conversation was your idea.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “Do you have any idea how many men would love to fuck me?”

“Yes,” he said, raising his voice to the angry level of hers. “I hear the locker room gossip about you.”

“It used to give you a thrill when they wagered on who the mystery man in my bed was, when all along it was you. We used to laugh about it.”

“I guess it stopped being funny.”

Left with nothing to say to that, she stood there and fumed in silence.

He continued in a calmer voice. “In any case, I went away this weekend to reassess our relationship—”

“Without even talking about it first? It never occurred to you to invite me to go away and reassess it with you?”

“I didn’t see the point.”

“So your mind was made up even before you went to your precious cabin in the woods to reassess,” she said, hissing the word.

“No, Steffi. My mind was not made up. While I was away, I looked at it from every angle and always reached the same conclusion.”

“That you wanted to dump me.”

“Not—”

“Dump? What word would you use?”

“This is precisely the kind of scene I hoped to avoid,” he