“What's happening now?” He looked suddenly worried.

She took a breath. She knew she'd have to say the words one day, and maybe it was time to try it. He was an old friend, and a respected colleague. “I had a mastectomy.” The word was harder to say than she thought, but she did it, and he looked shocked instantly. “And I have to start chemotherapy in two weeks. I want to keep working, but I have no idea what kind of shape I'm going to be in. After that, they claim I'll be fine. They think they got it all, and the chemo is just for insurance. It'll take six months but I want to go on working.” The chemo was a kind of insurance she would have preferred to do without, but with her lymph nodes involved and a Stage II tumor, she knew she had no option.

Listening to her had left Matt stunned. He couldn't believe it. She was so beautiful and so young, and she looked so well. He had never suspected the serious nature of her problem. He had hoped it was nothing. But a mastectomy? And chemotherapy? That was a lot to swallow.

“Wouldn't you rather just take the six months off?” he asked kindly, while wondering at the same time how they would manage without her.

“No, I wouldn't,” she said bluntly, a little frightened that he might force her to do that. She didn't want to stay home and feel sorry for herself. Sam was right about that much. She wanted to work, and distract herself, and do the best job she could at the moment. “I'd rather be working. I'll do the best I can. If I get too sick, I'll tell you. I have a couch in my office. If I really have to, I can lock the door and lie down for half an hour. I can rest at lunchtime if I need to. But I don't want to stay home, Matt. It would kill me.” He didn't like to hear her say that word, and he was impressed that she was determined to keep working.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am. If I feel differently about it once I start, I'll tell you. But for right now, I want to stay here. It's only six months. Some women get sick as dogs when they're pregnant. I was lucky, I didn't. But others do, and they keep right on working. No one expects them to stay home. I don't want to stay home either.”

“This isn't the same thing, and you know it. What does your doctor say?”

“He thinks I can do it.” Though he had told her to minimize the stress and exhaustion. He had said that he didn't think she should go to trial during that time, but she could probably handle everything else, and she said as much to Matt now. “I can just limit my trial work during that time. My associate is very good, and maybe some of the other partners can do the trial work. I'll do everything else, all the preparation, all the setup and research. I can sit in for the courtroom stuff, and make all the motions. I'd just need backup for the actual trial so all the responsibility didn't rest on me at the final moment. That wouldn't be fair to the client.”

“This doesn't sound fair to you.” He was devastated to hear what she had told him. But he could also see that she was determined to work through it. “Are you sure?”

“Totally.” She was amazing. He respected her enormously, and as they left the restaurant, he put an arm around her shoulders.

Everyone was being so kind to her that it brought tears to Alex's eyes frequently. Everyone wanted to help her, except Sam, who just couldn't. It was odd how life worked sometimes. The one person she needed most couldn't be there for her. But at least she had the others.

“What can I do to make this easier for you?” he asked as they strolled back to the office. It was a cold day, and the wind chilled her to the bone even with a coat and a tweed suit on.

“You're doing everything you can already. I'll let you know how I'm doing. And Matt,” she looked up at him pleadingly, “please don't tell more people than you have to. I don't want to be the object of curiosity, or pity. If someone needs to know because they're being asked to share my workload, or work on a case with me, fine, but let's not take out billboards.”

“I understand.” And he thought he was discreet. But within a week it seemed as though everyone in the law firm knew something about her problem. Word spread like wildfire among secretaries, partners, associates, paralegals, even one of her clients. But much to her surprise, although it embarrassed her, everyone was supportive. They sent her notes, stopped in to say hi, offered to do things for her. At first, she found it irritating in the extreme, but eventually she came to understand that these people cared, they wanted to help her, they wanted to do everything they could to help her make it. Their regard for her professionally translated instantly into how much they cared about her as a person.

By the following week, her office was filled with flowers, notes, letters, and homemade baked goods. She had cookies, brownies, baklava, and some fabulous apple strudel.

“Oh for heaven's sake,” she groaned as Liz came in with a German chocolate cake, while she was working on a brief with Brock Stevens. “I'm going to weigh two hundred pounds when this is all over.” But people had been so sweet to her. She hadn't stopped writing thank-you notes since she'd come back to work. And she'd been secretly giving Liz and Brock her goodies to take home with them. She'd already taken as much as she felt she could home to Sam and Annabelle, and Carmen.

“Would you like something to eat?” she asked Brock with a grin when they stopped for a cup of coffee. “It's like running a restaurant.”

“It's good for you. It reminds you that everyone loves you.” He had heard the news again and again …had a breast removed…mastectomy …chemotherapy …Alex Parker …she could be dying … By now, he knew a lot more than she'd told him. But Matt Billings had been so upset he'd told his secretary and four other partners right after his lunch with Alex. And they had told their secretaries, who told associates, who had told other partners, who had told their paralegals, who had told … it was limitless. But so was their affection.

“It sounds a little crazy to say right now, but I'm very lucky.”

“Yes, you are. And you're going to stay that way,” he said firmly. He was always very definite with her now about the future, and it made her wonder if he was religious.

At home, things were no different than they'd been. Sam had gone to Hong Kong for three days to meet a connection of Simon's, and he had made an extraordinary deal that had made the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Sam's professional life had always been faintly Hollywood anyway, filled with financial stars and enormous hits, but with the arrival of Simon it was suddenly even more so. It seemed as though none of their deals could miss, and he was busier than ever. But his three days away from her seemed to have put even more distance between them. And he had told her nothing about the deal until she'd read about it herself in the paper. And the night he got home, she couldn't help telling him how she felt about it.

“Why didn't you say anything?” she asked, hurt that he hadn't told her himself about a deal that was that important.

“I forgot. You've been busy too. I hardly saw you all week.” But she knew as well as he did that a deal like that hadn't happened in a few days. He had to have been working on it for a month, or longer. He had just closed up all the routes of communication between them. And for days after the Hong Kong trip, he had gone to bed right after dinner and insisted he was jet-lagged.

“What are you afraid of, Sam?” she asked finally, as he went to get undressed right after dinner. His game now was to be sound asleep before she got to bed. She was staying up to work, catching up on cases that had come in while she was out for two weeks, and trying to get ahead of her work load before she started chemo. “I'm not going to jump you if you stay up past eight o'clock. You might like to stay up sometime to see more than Sesame Street and the six o'clock news on TV, not to mention a little adult conversation.”

“I told you, it's been a rough week. I'm jet-lagged.”

“Tell that to the judge,” she said ironically, and he snapped at her instantly.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, for chrissake. I was kidding. I'm a lawyer, remember? For heaven's sake, what's happening to you?” He was completely humorless with her. They never talked, they never laughed, they never relaxed, they never cuddled. Overnight, they had become angry strangers. All because she'd had a mastectomy. He acted as though it were the ultimate betrayal.

“I don't think that was amusing.” He actually managed to look insulted. “It was tasteless.”

“Oh for chrissake. What do you think is amusing anymore? Surely not me. You haven't said more than five words to me since I went to the hospital, or maybe since I told you about the mammogram.” It had been six weeks since the nightmare had begun, and it was beginning to seem endless. “What's it going to be like, Sam, when I start chemo?”

“How do I know?”

“Well, let's see,” she pretended to be figuring it all out as they chatted, “if you got really annoyed at me about the mammogram, and the biopsy, and then seriously pissed off at me once I had surgery, and have hardly spoken to me since I came home from the hospital, what do you do when I get chemo? Maybe walk out on me? Or just ignore me completely? What exactly do I have to look forward to, and when is this going to end? When it's all over, or when I just give up, and concede that our marriage is over? Give me a clue here.”

“Okay, okay.” He walked slowly back to where she stood, cleaning up their dinner in the kitchen. Annabelle had gone to bed an hour before and they knew she was asleep so she couldn't hear them. “So it's been a rough six weeks. That doesn't have to mean everything is finished. I still love you.” He looked sheepish and awkward and unhappy as he looked at her. He knew how bad things were, he just didn't know how to fix them. He loved her but the pressure of wanting Daphne made it all the harder. Moving toward Alex again would have meant giving up something with Daphne. But getting closer to her meant betraying his wife. And for the moment, he was just standing in the middle, panicking, getting closer to neither. But he also knew that while he agonized over it, he was destroying his relationship with Alex. He knew he had to say or do something to make things better with her, but he just couldn't. He couldn't even bring himself to look at her body. The only body he wanted now was Daphne's. It was a frightening situation.