But half way through, he stopped himself.
Even though he knew that there were boundaries that should not be broken, even in a fictitious marriage, he didn't didn't want to admit it in front of Suzanne.
A tiny voice whispered in the back of his mind, Diana would have said the same thing.
The way he had talked to Suzanne had suddenly upset him. His dismissal of her was an attempt to place her in a convenient box.
The ornate chandeliers and gleaming cutlery in the dining room suddenly felt claustrophobic, empty.
While pouring another glass of wine, Andrei refrained from taking a sip. He was going over their exchange, fragment by fragment. To his own astonishment, he discovered that she might have been right.
Fake marriages did not imply a lack of fundamental human worth, it does not imply abandoning all of the guidelines for respect.
He refused to acknowledge it.
Not aloud.
