She waved good-bye as Carlota wheeled away her cart, then picked up a thick envelope from the Internal Revenue Service. It should have gone to Tom Reynolds, her accountant and business manager, but he’d called in sick yesterday, and she didn’t like letting things pile up.

Which didn’t mean that she was driven, demanding, or difficult.

She slit the envelope with a monogrammed letter opener. The press had been calling all day for her comments on the newspaper article, but she’d taken the high road and refused to respond. Still, the negative publicity made her uneasy. Her business was built on both the respect and affection of her fans, which was why she tried her hardest to live an exemplary life. An image was a fragile thing, and this article would damage hers. The question was, how badly?

She pulled out the letter and began to read. Halfway through, her eyebrows shot up, and she reached for her telephone. Just when she’d thought her day couldn’t get worse, now she had a screw-up with the IRS. And it looked like a doozy-a bill for $1.2 million in back taxes.

She was scrupulously honest with her taxes, so she knew that it was one of their maddening computer errors, which didn’t mean it would be simple to straighten out. She hated to pester Tom when he was sick, but he’d need to attend to this first thing in the morning.

“Marilyn, it’s Isabel. I need to speak with Tom.”

“Tom?” Her business manager’s wife’s speech was slurred, as if she’d been drinking. Isabel’s parents used to sound like that. “Tom’s not here.”

“I’m glad he’s feeling better. When do you expect him back? I’m afraid we have an emergency.”

Marilyn sniffed. “I-I should have called you earlier, but…” She burst into tears. “But I-I couldn’t…”

“What’s wrong? Tell me.”

“It’s T-Tom. He’s-he’s-” Her sobs caught in her throat like a jackhammer stuck in blacktop. “He’s r-r-run off to South America with m-m-my s-sister!”

And, as Isabel discovered less than twenty-four hours later, all of Isabel’s money.

Michael Sheridan stayed with Isabel while she dealt with the police and endured a long series of painful meetings with the IRS. He wasn’t just Isabel’s attorney but the man she loved, and she’d never been more grateful to have him in her life. Yet even his presence wasn’t enough to avert disaster, and by the end of May, two months after she’d received that damning letter, her worst fears had been confirmed.

“I’m going to lose everything.” She rubbed her eyes, then dropped her purse onto the Queen Anne chair in the living room of her Upper East Side brownstone. The room’s warm cherry paneling and oriental rugs glowed in the soft light of her Frederick Cooper lamps. She knew that earthly possessions were fleeting, but she hadn’t expected them to be this fleeting.

“I’ll have to sell this place-my furniture, my jewelry, all my antiques.” Then there was the disbanding of her charitable foundation, which had been doing so much good at a grassroots level. Everything gone.

She wasn’t telling Michael anything he didn’t know, just trying to make it real so she could cope, and when he didn’t respond, she regarded him apologetically. “You’ve been quiet all night. I’ve exhausted you with my complaining, haven’t I?”

He turned away from the window where he’d been gazing down on the park. “You’re not a complainer, Isabel. You’re just trying to reorient yourself.”

“Tactful, as always.” She gave him a rueful smile and straightened a tapestry pillow on the sofa.

She and Michael weren’t living together-Isabel didn’t believe in that-but sometimes she wished they were. Living apart meant they saw too little of each other. Lately they’d been lucky to manage their weekly Saturday-night dinner date. As for sex… She couldn’t remember how long it had been since either of them had felt the urge.

The moment Isabel had met Michael Sheridan, she’d known he was her soul mate. They’d both grown up in dysfunctional families and worked hard to put themselves through school. He was intelligent and ambitious, as orderly as she was, and just as dedicated to his career. He’d been her sounding board as she’d refined her lectures on the Four Cornerstones, and two years ago, when she’d written a book about the Healthy Relationship Cornerstone, he’d contributed a chapter offering the male point of view. Her fans knew all about their relationship and were always asking when they were getting married.

She also found comfort in his pleasant, unassuming looks. He had a thin, narrow face and neatly trimmed brown hair. He was only a little over five feet nine, so he didn’t tower above her, something that made her uneasy. He was even-tempered and logical. Most of all, he was contained. With Michael there were no dark mood swings or unexpected outbursts. He was familiar and dear, a little stuffy in the best possible way, and perfect for her. They should have been married a year ago, but they’d both been too busy, and they got along so well that she’d seen no need to rush. Marriage couldn’t help but be chaotic, even those that had been well thought out.

“I got the sales report on my new book today.” She tried hard not to give in to the bitterness that kept trying to worm its way to the surface.

“It was just bad timing.”

“I’m a joke on Letterman. While I was writing about the Financial Responsibility Cornerstone, my business manager was embezzling my money.” She kicked off her shoes, then pushed them under the chair to keep from tripping over them. If only her publisher had been able to stop shipment, she could at least have been spared this final public humiliation. Her last book had spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, but this one was sitting unread on bookstore shelves. “I’ve sold, what, a hundred copies?”

“It’s not that bad.”

Except it was. Her publisher had stopped returning her calls, and ticket sales for her summer lecture tour had tanked so badly she’d been forced to cancel. Not only was she losing her material possessions to the IRS, but she had lost the reputation it had taken her years to build.

She took a deep breath against the panic that kept threatening to overwhelm her, and tried to look toward the positive. Soon she’d have all the time in the world to plan her wedding. But how could she marry Michael knowing that he’d be supporting them until she got back on her feet? If she got back on her feet…

She was too committed to the principles of the Four Cornerstones to let negative thoughts paralyze her. This was something they needed to discuss. “Michael, I know it’s getting late, and you said you were tired, but we have to talk about the wedding.”

He fiddled with the volume on her sound system. He’d been under a lot of stress at work, and her own troubles weren’t helping. She reached out to touch him, but he stepped away. “Not now, Isabel.”

She reminded herself that they’d never been a touchy-feely couple, and tried not to take his rejection to heart, especially since she’d put him through so much lately. “I want to make your life easier, not harder,” she said. “You haven’t mentioned anything lately about the wedding, but I know you’re upset with me for not having set a date. Now I’m bankrupt, and the fact is, I’m having a hard time dealing with the idea of someone else supporting me. Even you.”

“Isabel, please…”

“I know you’re going to say it doesn’t make any difference-that your money is my money-but it makes a difference to me. I’ve been supporting myself since I was eighteen, and-”

“Isabel, stop.”

He hardly ever raised his voice, but she was coming on like a bulldozer, so she didn’t blame him. Her assertiveness was both her strength and her weakness.

He turned toward the windows. “I’ve met someone.”

“Really? Who?” Most of Michael’s friends were lawyers, wonderful people but a little boring. It would be nice to add someone new to their circle.

“Her name is Erin.”

“Do I know her?”

“No. She’s older than I am, nearly forty.” He turned back to her. “And, God, she’s a mess-a little overweight, and she lives in this crazy place. She doesn’t care about makeup or clothes, and nothing ever matches. She doesn’t even have a college degree.”

“So what? We’re not snobs.” Isabel picked up the wineglass Michael had left on the coffee table earlier and carried it into the kitchen. “And let’s face it, you and I can be a little uptight.”

He followed her, speaking rapidly and with a kind of energy she hadn’t heard in months. “She’s the most impulsive person I’ve ever met. She cusses like a sailor and likes the worst movies. She tells terrible jokes, and she drinks beer, and… But she’s comfortable with herself. She”-he took a deep breath-“she makes me comfortable, too, and… I love her.”

“Then I’m sure I will, too.” Isabel smiled. Smiled hard. Smiled forever. Smiled until her jaw froze, because as long as she smiled, everything would be all right.

“She’s pregnant, Isabel. Erin and I are going to have a baby. We’re getting married at City Hall next week.”

The wineglass dropped into the sink and shattered.

“I know this isn’t a good time, but…”

Her stomach cramped. She wanted to stop him. Stop time itself. Turn back the clock so none of this was happening.

He looked pale and miserable. “We both know this hasn’t been working out.”

The air wheezed in her lungs. “That’s not true. It’s been- It’s-” She couldn’t breathe.

“Except for business meetings, we barely see each other.”

She sucked in air. Clamped her fingers around the gold bangle she wore at her wrist. “We’ve been… been busy, that’s all.”

“We haven’t had sex in months!”

“It’s just- That’s only temporary.” She heard the same edge of hysteria in her voice that she’d heard so frequently in her mother’s, and she struggled to hold herself back, to stay in control. “Our relationship has… It’s never been based just on sex. We’ve talked about that. This is- It’s temporary,” she repeated.