"What the hell did you do to my best friend?" Sarah whispered, staring at his face. She was on the website of Ascent Kapital GmbH, headquartered in Zurich, looking at his picture on the founders' and management page for the umpteenth time.

He kept his black hair short, almost a buzz cut, and he was wearing a black suit, a light blue shirt, and a silver and matching blue fractal pattern tie in his headshot. His smile was slight but real, his gray eyes sharp behind his rimless glasses.

He looked so ordinary, she thought. He was handsome, but not overly so. Going on appearance alone, he could have walked by her and she wouldn't have looked a second time.

Unlike David Brenner, she thought, who generally had women looking back more than once. Including herself, before he had approached, confident and sure of himself, and introduced himself to their group of girlfriends on one fateful night out, making it very clear that it was Honor, who had shyly said the least to him, that had piqued his interest.

That was another cause of disquiet; after the ride home from the airport, Honor no longer mentioned her fiancee. At all. Previously, not an hour went by without some mention of David Brenner, to much general annoyance.

But Sarah had listened in to Honor speaking with her mother, and realized that Jaya Banet still had no idea that her daughter's wedding was no longer happening.

To be fair, as Sarah had also witnessed, neither did her fiancee. He still called, and Honor answered. But she mostly listened to him speak and answered as expected, her face frighteningly, almost sociopathically neutral.

It was as if David Brenner and everything to do with him no longer mattered in the least. As if Marq Haydn had wiped him clean of any significance or impact in Honor's life.

Again, Sarah was struck by how ordinary he looked, how easily she could pass him by on the street.

And yet, she suspected that she would notice him if he wanted her to. Even without reading his deceptively modest biographical profile, he exuded competence and the confidence that came from it.

The emergence of Phoenyx Electronik with Ascent Kapital's Marquin Haydn spearheading the deal was the talk of the financial and technology world. As if in homage to its name, the company arising from the ashes of Helios and Nomi was already worth billions as demand for its shares soared in the market.

But Sarah only needed to look at the state of her best friend, more than a week since her return, to know that Marquin Eduardo Haydn was anything but ordinary.

She had known there was no doubt, no 'I think' necessary, about Honor being in love with the man who had 'rescued' her in Bangkok. She had known immediately after her confession in the gas station.

She had noted the way her eyes changed when she spoke about him, the way her breathing became deeper, her lips parting, pupils dilating; as if becoming aroused at the mere thought of him.

She knew Honor had not told her everything, she knew some memories her friend was keeping for herself alone, which said a lot by itself.

But she had told her enough.

Enough to also know there was no 'as if' about Honor becoming aroused by simply thinking about Marq Haydn.

Honor told her about how he had paid ten thousand dollars for a night with her. How he repeatedly made her miss her flights with his 'renegotiations' and gotten his money's worth over those days.

How he had spent another hundred thousand without telling her. How her own call had made Honor turn back, determined to give him the ten days he had paid for.

And how he had thoroughly dominated and enthralled her friend, how he had unapologetically 'displayed' her and compromised her modesty.

How she had become his 'odalisque', achingly eager to be nude for him, to be enjoyed by him.

Sarah had researched the word, then she had downloaded and watched the movie; and then she had invited Bryan Thomas over and nearly broken him.

She was told how Marq Haydn had made her friend feel so utterly beautiful and desired. How he had given her the happiest, most erotic and passion-filled days of her life.

It was what made it impossible for Sarah, try as she might, to hate him for transforming the most level headed and focused woman she knew into a distracted near-wreck, who embarrassingly confessed that she was masturbating multiple times a day and, only slightly less so that she was crying even more than that.

That was quite apart from sobbing herself to sleep every night.

Except she knew Honor was not sleeping. At least, not well.

She had spent multiple nights with her friend since her return, hearing her crying in her bed and seething at Marq Haydn and at David Brenner, livid at both men for causing Honor so much pain, even if for radically different reasons.

Even Bryan, meeting Honor for the first time, had noticed that she was a profoundly sad woman even as she tried to convey her genuine happiness for Sarah and her new relationship.

"Is she okay?" he had whispered to Sarah as Honor excused herself to go to the little café bistro's bathroom.

"No," Sarah had answered, tears filling her eyes. "No, she's not."

But it was when Honor came back from the restroom that Sarah had truly appreciated how deeply Marq Haydn had affected her.

Honor had refused the Bloody Mary Sarah had ordered for her, their longtime mutual favorite, quietly telling her that she no longer drank alcohol.

A stunned Sarah had known exactly what, or, more exactly who, had inspired this change.

Sarah found herself fidgeting at her desk, unusually nervous for her friend, because she knew Honor would soon need to be at her best and fully present in the moment, because her dream, years of thrift and hard work, hung in the balance.

Sensible, disciplined Honor Banet needed to show up in a few days, not the lovesick woman desperately craving and missing a man on the other side of the world, who may have already forgotten her.

"What the fuck," said Sarah again, to the profile picture on her screen, "did you do to her?"

________________________

The invitation to speak to the bank's loan committee had arrived in her apartment's mailbox the day before her return from Thailand, ominously, waiting for her. The letter had asked her to pick from a set of available dates within the following month.

Honor responded to the letter's email counterpart, selecting the first available date, one week away.

She had read the friendly instructions to send ahead and come to the meeting with the business plan, market analysis, evidence of collateral, financial projections, necessary legal documents, and her own personal qualifications with some bemusement; she was unable to fathom how anyone could pitch for a loan without such basic prerequisites.

She picked the first available date because she had everything she needed at hand, prepared long before, with location and foot traffic analysis for three separate locations within her planned leasing budget. She had models detailing the production and retail areas, with floor plans for seating, tables, counters, bathrooms, an office and a resting area for staff.

She had practiced her presentation to the point that she could do it seconds after being woken up from a deep sleep and deliver every pertinent fact in nine minutes.

It was just preparing the array of samples and getting them perfectly done in time for her delivery, with Sarah's help, to the panel members that she had to worry about.

Which was the problem. Her father had told her that one could taste her heart in her baking, in everything she made.

But what if her heart was no longer available, because it was with a man in Switzerland, thousands of miles away? What if all that she had left was the immovable, leaden weight in her chest?

What if she was heartsick, haunted by a man's pained plea for her stay, that she had run away from for reasons that increasingly made less and less sense to her?

She had not told Sarah about that; that at the last, he had asked her to stay with him. That she had literally run away because she had so wanted to do exactly that.

It would have meant abandoning everything; the life she had already built, her friends, an apartment she loved and was still paying for, moving even farther away from her family, letting go of her patisserie dream - meaning all of her careful, painstaking plans and two years of gathered equipment.

She would have done it, she realized. If she had gone to him as he sat in that chair for that one last kiss that she had wanted. If he had followed her out the door of 1615. If he had said one more word as she left.

Two days to her meeting at the bank, when she should have begun preparing, she was lying in bed, clutching at herself and shuddering as she came from her fingers, images of Marq - making a face at her on the beach, holding her on 1615's balcony, seeking her eyes as he spoke on the stage, smiling at her as he flew them - dancing through her mind.

She lay quietly afterwards, still wet, nipples swollen and hard under her T-shirt, hand still between her legs, unable to sleep, tears welling in her eyes.

She had returned to work, much to her boss' happy relief, and he had quickly put her back in as his chef de partie in charge of desserts and confectionery.

But she had lost her joy in the work, if not her meticulousness, and more than one of her colleagues had noticed.

So she feigned cheerfulness as best she could, suffering in silence, which meant she also had to feign an increased need to go to the bathroom. So she could cry. Or touch herself. Or both.

Lychee tarts had been the last item to send her out of the kitchen, memories crashing into her mind of chasing after the fleshy white fruit with her lips in Ayutthaya as Marq fed her, remembering the taste of it still on her tongue as he entered her body soon afterwards.

Her resulting arousal had so noticeably destroyed her concentration that the chef had asked if she were alright, questioning her mental presence in the kitchen for the very first time. That was when she had scurried to the bathroom to relieve herself with her fingers, biting her lip to keep from crying out as she came.

In her bed, she started to cry again.

The part of her that was sensible, disciplined Honor Banet reminded herself that she had known the risk of opening herself to him, that she had known every time when a red line was about to crossed, when Marq had stopped just being a financial arrangement, when he had stopped just being an instrument of revenge ... when she could have turned back.

Not for the first time, she asked herself, was it worth it? This miasma of loss, longing and pain with no end in sight?

Yes, she thought, remembering him holding her and exclaiming over her beauty in the mirror, how he smiled at her, how he had held her every night, almost cocooning her so she felt safe even when she barely knew him.

Yes, she concluded again. It was worth it. Meeting Marquin Haydn, being with him, having him inside her, having him in her life, even for as short a time as it was ... she would do it all over again.

And knowing what she did now, that she was completely in love with him, she wouldn't have run away.

Her eyes opened as a thought occurred to her, sparking something.

Her phone rang, the ringtone telling her that it was David. She had not bothered to change it, and she listened to it ring with no feeling at all, thinking.

He had questioned her about the call to him from Bangkok that she had cut off when Marq's mouth on her pussy had made it impossible for her to continue, and the three missed calls after that.

She had claimed to be in the subway, which seemed to readily satisfy him. That his sensible good girl fiancee, that he knew was madly in love with him, could have been with another man, much less in the hotel across from his on the other side of the world was still clearly not something David Brenner could imagine.

How little, how 'nothing', she felt, disturbed her.

It had only distantly surprised her that she had also felt nothing when she encountered Jillian Blake the day before. No anger, no jealousy, no hatred ... just nothing.

David's other woman - or one of them; she remembered the Asian woman at the conference center - had greeted her with a wide smile, pouting prettily when Honor had informed her that she would not be using her recommended florist after all.

When Jillian had next asked her where she had been, exclaiming that she hadn't seen her in so long, Honor had explained that the hotel had been busy with a slew of catered events over the last few weeks.

As Jillian walked away, Honor noting the smugness in her smile, she had wondered, feeling nothing again, if she would tell David about their conversation, reassuring him that his oblivious fiancee had been at home throughout, overworked and pining for him.

The phone rang out, and fell silent.

She sat up, and swung her legs off the bed, her T-shirt falling to her waist as she stood, grasping her epiphany, her new source of motivation, with both hands.

She should have stayed in Bangkok. She should have closed the door and gone back to Marq when he pled with her to stay.

She wiped her eyes.

She had given him up for the life she had now.

She had to make it mean something.

The phone started to ring again, but she ignored David's call as she removed the T-shirt and padded into the kitchen.

A thought made her smile to herself. She had loved David Brenner. But compared to how she felt now about Marquin Haydn, it was like comparing the sun to ... Canopus.

She wore her large apron over her nakedness, the symbolism of it not escaping her, remembering baking in nothing but an apron for him on the island, imagining Marq watching and knowing where it would lead. She remembered the cherry clafoutis that she had made just for him criminally getting cold beside her as she cried out, uncaring as Marq hungrily grasped and rode her.

She paused before she turned on the lights, missing him so desperately in that moment that she let out a sob.

Then she retook control of herself, calling up sensible, disciplined Honor Banet as she knotted up her hair, flicked on the lights, and got to work.

________________________

Sarah blinked back tears as she watched her friend deliver her pitch. She had only one word to describe it; perfect. Better than any of their exasperating, interminable practice runs.

Her Honor, her sensible, disciplined, fastidious, meticulous Honor had shown up. Even more, instead of being coldly analytical and wooden, she had been bright, beautiful and engaging, easily captivating the two men on the panel without alienating any of the two women, who happened to be the branch manager and credit analyst.

Despite clearly being taken with her, the loan officer had not been sparing in his questions about her numbers. Honor had met his challenges head-on.

Proudly, she had watched as Honor had given him and the credit analyst a thorough rundown of her collateral; including her equipment, equity in her home and money in an escrow account that Alain Banet had forcefully bequeathed to his daughter. Not to mention her own small investment in her best friend's dream.

Having addressed all of their expressed concerns, Honor let the other stars of the show come to the forefront.

As promised, Sarah had also taken a sick day to drive her adopted brother's small van and stand behind a display table, wear an apron and smile. At first, she had been apprehensive about keeping a smile on her face for an hour. But watching Honor make her pitch had made it all too easy.

The collection of sweet and savory pastries finished off what Honor had started. Though, to be fair, given the smells emanating from the assortment on the table even before her pitch, or the number of bank staff members following their noses to peek into the meeting room, it might have been the other way around.

"Oh my @#&%!" the branch manager sighed after biting into a blueberry cream filled croissant.

"This is ... incredible ...!" the credit analyst had gasped after a sip of the white chocolate and blackcurrant cappuccino.

The loan officer took a bite of the mozzarella, chicken and bell pepper mini-crepe and stared at her silently for a long moment before stating, "I feel like we should deny you this loan because you're going to be a health hazard."

Honor smiled. "That's the low calorie option."

The loan officer melted, his attempt at a stern face collapsing in on itself.

The compliance officer simply smiled and nodded eagerly, clutching a mango and lychee custard tart.

Sarah wanted to cheer.

"I think we've seen enough ..." the branch manager said.

"Actually ..." the loan officer interrupted, looking at his laptop. "There's one more thing."

The others on the panel looked at him. So did Sarah, frowning. Honor did too, face neutral, but her hands tightened on each other nervously.

"I need to add this to your qualifications," he said, with a reassuring smile. "The bank received two emails a few days ago. One from someone named Somsak Ku ... rusart ... tra?" He looked around apologetically. "I hope I pronounced it right?"

Honor froze.

"And," the loan officer continued, "another from a Phillipe Dufour?"

The branch manager's eyes opened wide in recognition. She looked at Honor. "You know Phillipe Dufour?"

Honor nodded dumbly before she admitted. "I met him once ..."

Sarah looked sharply at her friend. She knew the name too. Honor had mentioned the class, but not that she had made such an impression.

The other panel members looked to the manager, who said, "He has, like, six Michelin stars. He is one of the best chefs in the world!"

"Wow." The loan officer said, his smile broad, impressed. "Then this is quite an endorsement; 'I am a proud man, but even I must confess that I fear that Miss Honor Banet will surpass me one day.'"

"From the other person, Mr. Somsak," He read from his screen again. "'I had the privilege of having Miss Banet in my special class with Phillipe Dufour at the Culinary Institute of Siam. We both agree, her skills can only be described as exquisite ...'" He looked up. "It appears Mr. Somsak is also a culinary legend, and a fan of yours."

Sarah realized that her friend was shaking, hands clenched into fists.

"Again," the branch manager said, smiling kindly. "I think we've seen enough, and this new information only confirms things."

The panel all looked at each other and nodded.

"This is the easiest 'yes' we've had in a very very long time." The loan officer said.

The manager stood and offered her hand. "Congratulations, Miss Banet. Your loan is approved."

Sarah shrieked with joy as Honor burst into tears.

________________________

Richard Ford always looked up from his desk with a smile every time she entered the apartment building. He liked her. A lot.

She always greeted him with a smile and often brought him and his colleagues something she had baked to eat in the morning.

"You're gonna make me put on the pounds, Miss Banet," he had complained once as he wolfed down a spectacular pastry made with cheese and spicy shredded beef. "If the wife gets mad, I'm totally selling you out."

She had giggled and rolled her eyes. He was already fairly rotund. "That's mostly protein, Rick. So you can't blame me."

"You're kidding me!" he said, wiping his lips with a napkin. "In that case, you got any more?"

She shook her head, smiling fondly at him. "No. But I'll bring something else tomorrow."

"Where have you been all my life?" he had mused, only partly joking.

He thought she was breathtakingly beautiful, her smile with the little upcurl of her lip stunning him every time. Were it not for being twenty years her elder and married to a woman he still found gorgeous, he would have tried his luck and asked her out.

Him and every other man on the security team.

As it was, he did not like her fiancee.

David Brenner was neither unfriendly nor rude, and he seemed a good-natured man who doted on her. But Rick knew what entitlement looked like ... and he had seen the looks Brenner regularly exchanged with Tom Blake's rail thin ex-model of a wife for a while.

Soon after that had come the many times he came back to the building in the late morning or early afternoon in the months before he traveled.

"Forgot something!" he'd once offered without being asked. He had a key card, and his openly besotted fiancee had put him on the allowed list, making him as good as a resident from a security standpoint.

The problem was that this was usually just before or after Jillian Blake made an appearance and went upstairs.

Invariably, when either one of them entered a lift at these times, it would stop on the third floor, where the common rooms, gym and party spaces were, the floor to which everyone with a card had access.

Then, at some point, after the stops on the third floor, one lift went up to the ninth floor, where the Blakes had their apartment, or, less frequently, to the seventh, where Honor had hers.

Rick did not like Jillian Blake.

He desperately wanted to say something to Honor, and to Tom Blake, who was a good man, but he knew getting entangled with a high-powered corporate lawyer, a senior associate at Salford Carlisle Rowe, no less, who hobnobbed with government officials was nothing but a guaranteed formula for grief.

Besides, he told himself; it was still all conjecture. It could simply be a coincidence, he'd said inwardly again and again, feeling like a coward each time.

Then, a few weeks ago, Honor had traveled. She had not confided in him or anyone he knew, but he had guessed, simply from the excitement on her face, the glow of a woman in love, that she was going to join her fiancee in the the Far East. A friend working in janitorial services at Brenner's law firm had said a team had been sent to Thailand or Singapore, or both.

A little over two weeks later, Honor Banet had come back a very different woman. Her best friend, who he knew was named Sarah Fernandez, another bracingly beautiful woman, had brought her back from the airport and then spent multiple nights with her. She was sad, withdrawn, her smile a shadow of what it once was, not a whiff of her baking on her floor until a day ago.

Rick figured that she had found out, somehow, about her fiancee and his escapades with Jillian Blake, or some other woman, while abroad with him and they were no longer together. He noted that she wasn't wearing the engagement ring she had been so proud of.

Except he had seen her talking to Mrs. Thomas Blake as if nothing was wrong, so he concluded it must have been another woman.

Either way, he had been happy to see that Honor Banet was no longer tied to a man who did not deserve her.

But then had come today.

A small van had arrived early that morning with Sarah, and Honor and Sarah had moved multiple trays and boxes of baked goods into it. He and Tony Moreno, his duty partner, had helped and had gotten a small platter of savory treats and donuts for their trouble.

He had figured out that she was either out to market her products somewhere, or to pitch her dream of owning her own bakery and he had wished her good luck. And for the first time in weeks, he had gotten that heartstopping lip upcurling smile.

Tony had frozen too.

"Wow." said Tony. "That is one absolutely beautiful woman."

A little over an hour after she and Sarah had left, David Brenner had sauntered in with a wide smile, as if nothing was wrong, thoroughly confusing Rick Ford.

"Keep this our little secret." Brenner had said, winking conspiratorially. "I want to surprise her."

He entered a lift, which stopped on the seventh floor.

Half an hour later, Jillian Blake, smiling excitedly, phone to her ear, hurried into the building and into an elevator. It stopped on the third floor. Almost immediately, another lift stopped on the seventh and went down to the third. Then that same lift went back up. To the seventh floor.

Rick Ford was enraged.

"That fucking son of a bitch." Tony snarled beside him. "We need to tell her and that slut's husband."

On any other day, Rick would have responded to his outraged younger colleague with, "Relax, man. It's none of our business."

This time though, he responded with, "Yeah. This is way too fucked up to let slide."

________________________

Jillian Blake leapt on top of David Brenner as soon as they were inside his fiancee's apartment, attacking his clothes as he attacked hers, desperation powering their movements as they pulled and yanked elastic and fabric aside.

The apartment smelled wonderful, Jillian noted, of Honor's baking, far more so than previous times. It excited her even more.

The violation, the sheer cruelty of what they were doing, excited them both, she knew, no matter what David said. He was as eager as she was. Always.

He had called her to tell her he was back when he hadn't told Honor yet. He had told her that he would be dropping off his luggage in his apartment and then coming over to her apartment building to 'surprise' his fiancee.

They both knew it would be hours before she would come home from her job. That this was a busy period for her.

He knew exactly how Jillian would react. What she would do. That she would insist, despite their scheduled rendezvous at the Rixton in the next two days, on being the first woman he would expend all that pent up sexual tension on.

She was a selfish woman; she had long embraced that about herself.

She screamed when he penetrated her, pushing all the way in as their lips met, most of their clothes still on as they lay half on and half off Honor's coffee table, her neatly stacked collection of magazines and cookbooks scattered to the carpet below.

He tore off her bra, swallowing a hardened nipple into his mouth as he moved her to the couch, answering her laughter with his own as he ran his hands all over her trim and taut body.

Then he began to fuck her, and she had yelled out his name and exhorted him to go harder and deeper because it was even naughtier and more wicked to be so loud in another woman's home as she copulated with her cheating man.

"Shhh ..." David hissed through gritted teeth, still plumbing away. "Stop yelling...!"

"Fuck me, David Brenner!" Jillian called out, laughing wildly at his incongruous bout of conscience, scissoring her legs around him. "Fuck me!"

David did not like her loudness. Because he still loved his fiancee, in his own way, and he was not exactly on board with Jillian's displays of disrespect. It made Jillian jealous, which made her even louder.

Besides, he had been all too eager to mount her in every room of her apartment with Tom. More than once. His cock had risen to the occasion, even when she took him into her son's room.

Jillian was loud there too.

So he was in no position to complain. Better yet, it never seemed to cool his ardor. At all.

He began to grunt, slamming harder into her, the blood rushing to her head as he plunged in and out of her body, and Mrs. Thomas Blake yelled as she felt her lover explode inside her.

She grinned as she sat up afterward, enjoying the feeling his cum running out of her pussy. She was not concerned; her Decision shot was only three months old. "Well," she said, "was that a good 'welcome back'?"

He looked at her, grinning back, still breathing hard. "You know it was."

"Better than hers would be," she teased.

He shook his head, rolling his eyes. "You are awful."

She giggled and went to kiss him, hard. "Yes, I am. I'm a bad girl. We're always better ..."

After a while, she had removed every stitch of clothing and was kissing her way down his body as he lay back on the couch, giggling again as he gasped when her lips reached his member.

She enjoyed the way his body shook as she pleasured him - something her poor unsuspecting husband had not enjoyed in a while - tasting herself on him and knowing from his harsh breathing, his hardening, that her welcoming him back from his trip was far from over.

She had told her boss that she was having a long lunch with a prospective client and would be back late. Meanwhile, Tom was picking up their son from school. So she had some hours to kill, and she knew exactly how to utilize them.

Wickedly, she wondered if she could drain him so much that he would not be able to do much when his good girl fiancee would get her chance later that evening.

She took her mouth off him when he was hard enough and stood up, holding out her hand to him.

He stood up after her, and their lips met, her hand wrapped around his erection, his breathing becoming harsh again as she stroked him.

"You're going to take me to a bed," she whispered, "to her bed, David Brenner, and I'm going to fuck you so hard, you won't be able to get it up to fuck her tonight."

He frowned at that, but with her hand moving up and down his cock, not to mention the undeniable surge of excitement her words sent through his body, he was not inclined to argue about it.

They had many hours before either her husband or his fiancee would be back home. Enough time to clean and straighten things up. Maybe even enough to recover for Honor, he calculated, no matter Jillian's efforts.

Moments later, Jillian climbed on top of him and pinned him down on Honor Banet's bed as she sharply impaled herself on his shaft with a loud squeal.

She almost came right then, aroused by the wickedness of it, going stiff and gasping on top of her lover before proceeding to ride him hard, frantic until she felt his cum exploding into her body, sending her into another screaming come.

He yelled too.