Jean had seen her walk away, unsettlingly striking in her suit of royal blue. Irina waved a small wave before disappearing. “This evening, she would be his, that was sure.”
Back at his hotel, a message was waiting waiting for him from the mysterious journalist which left no doubt as to her intentions. The writer was gloated on his luck. Decidedly, literature could lead to anything or rather... to anyone, he corrected, happy with his stroke of wit.
Jean thought about his wife who had stayed in Paris and he quickly realized -not displeased- that he was going to cheat on her for the first time. For sure, there had been plenty of opportunities but, in thirty years of marriage, the writer had only committed adultery in his imagination. So, why then take this opportunity at a conference in Lisbon on “Culture : Europe’s (heavy) conscience”? He didn’t know. Their meeting certainly had spice to it. Obviously, literature was only a pretext: the unknown woman was no more a journalist than he was an archbishop; she had deliberately chosen to seduce him. It was not an unpleasant thing.