“Did you expect glass and steel?”

Emily laughed. “You’re reading my mind again.”

“Am I?” Derian asked softly. “I didn’t realize I was.”

Emily colored. “It seems you hear what I’m saying when I’m talking in my head.”

“I apologize if I’m intruding, then.”

“No,” Emily said quickly. “You’re not. I…it’s just unanticipated, that’s all. Probably my imagination.”

“And tell me,” Derian said, still standing beside her, her topcoat open, her sleek frame somehow eclipsing the surrounding opulence, “what did you expect?”

Suddenly very warm, Emily shrugged out of her coat and folded it over her arm.

“Forgive me, I’m being a poor host,” Derian said into the silence, taking the coat from her and hanging it in a spacious closet next to the door. She shrugged out of her topcoat and stored it next to Emily’s. Her blazer she tossed carelessly over the arm of the sofa as she glanced back at Emily. “Well? What did you imagine?”

“I suppose I did expect something very modern and…” Emily, usually so good with words, always finding just the right one to shade any meaning, searched for a phrase that didn’t sound shallow or deprecating.

Derian laughed. “Glitzy? Over-the-top? Flamboyant?”

“No,” Emily protested, laughing. “I’m trying to think of how one would describe a race car. I guess that’s what I expected—efficient, beautiful in a high-tech kind of way, but not so…personal. So intimate.”

“Intimate.” Derian glanced around the room as if she’d never seem it before. “You’re right, about the cars. I do think they’re beautiful, a perfect blend of form and function. But I wouldn’t want to surround myself with them.” She gestured to the marble fireplace, the carved wainscoting, the complex ceiling moldings. “I think this is probably Henrietta’s influence. I spent a lot of time with her when I was younger, and she instilled an appreciation in me for the beauty of craftsmanship, the care of creating something that will last.”

“I know,” Emily said softly. “That’s how I feel about the books we represent at the agency.”

“Even today? Hasn’t the art of publishing given way to the allure of big business? Haven’t you all gone to a best-seller model? Here today, gone tomorrow?”

“You’re not entirely wrong,” Emily said, impressed that Derian even thought about what the world of publishing was like. She never appeared at the agency, never attended any of the business meetings, but she clearly knew the direction of change in recent years. “That’s what I love about our agency. We don’t just look for the kinds of works that will sell the most. We look for the kinds of works that will live on, that will add something to the understanding of our times or provoke thought, or simply be a beautiful example of the art.”

Derian smiled. “I can see that Henrietta has had an influence on you too, or perhaps it’s the other way around. Perhaps she chose you because you’re a kindred soul.”

“If that were true, I would be incredibly honored.”

Derian walked to the far end of the big room, skirted behind a waist-high bar, and opened a tall mahogany cabinet to reveal a hidden refrigerator. She chuckled. “When I sent my luggage ahead, someone decided to stock in some supplies.” She took out a platter of cheese and other appetizers and set a bottle of champagne next to it. “Help yourself while I shower. I did promise you dinner and no more than a fifteen-minute wait.”

As she spoke, Derian opened the bottle of champagne, pulled two fluted glasses from a glass-fronted cabinet over the counter, and poured the frothing wine. She picked up hers and held the other out to Emily. “Do you drink?”

“On occasion.” And never anything with a label like that. Emily took the glass and sipped. The bubbles played across her tongue like sunshine. “Oh. That’s…nice.”

Derian grinned. “I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time,” Emily said, watching Derian move with smooth grace toward the hall. “I don’t have anywhere to be tonight.”

Derian glanced back over her shoulder, a dark glint in her eyes. “Good. Neither do I, and I’m enjoying the company.”

Chapter Seven

Derian leaned on her outstretched arms, palms to the smooth tile wall, dropped her head, and closed her eyes as warm water sluiced over her shoulders and back. The long hours of the endless day and previous sleepless night settled into her bones with a soul-sapping weariness. Nothing new, really. Just another stopover on the merry-go-round of her life, aimlessly moving, never slowing, never stopping, not even when she was in one place. Some days, she had to concentrate to remember where she’d just been—the glaring casino lights, the roar of the crowds pressing close to the track, the urgent whispers in the dark of women she barely touched and remembered even less blurred and faded into indistinguishable links on a chain, tugging her along. And here she was, back at the beginning, like an ouroboros, a snake chasing its own tail while consuming itself in its never-ending rush to escape its fate.

“Man,” she muttered, “I must be tired.”

Straightening with an aggravated snort, she reached blindly for the shampoo, finding it where she’d left it who knew how long ago. She wondered idly as she soaped her body and washed her hair if the cleaning people replaced the products on a regular basis. She suspected they did. One of those little things she rarely gave any thought to. She was so used to living in hotels that her own home felt like one and was maintained in the same way as all the other elegant places she frequented. The Dakota, for all its history and charm, exuded the same careful attention to detail as a five-star hotel, and with the exception of the few employees like Ralph, was nearly as impersonal. Somehow she had stripped her life of all personal connections—valets delivered her car, bellmen picked up her laundry, porters and other attendants carried her luggage and delivered her food. Women almost as impersonal—charming and momentarily entertaining, but all the same, near strangers—satisfied her need for human contact where sex was a by-product, but not the goal. She was never one to foist responsibility for her situation onto others. She’d made her life what she wanted it to be, one of no attachments, no duties, and no obligations beyond the financial, the easiest of all for her to manage. She had no reason to complain in these odd moments when she found herself alone and the awareness registered, the isolation so intense the pain was palpable.

Vehemently, she twisted off the taps and stepped from the shower into the steamy room. She saw herself as only a wavy outline in the cloudy mirror. Even when the mirrors were crystal clear, she rarely glanced at herself. Maybe she was hoping to avoid seeing her reflection disappear along with the substance of her life.

“And aren’t we just getting existential,” she muttered, vigorously toweling her hair in an effort to restore a little sanity to the brain beneath. Wallowing in self-pity was not her style, and truthfully, she rarely even thought about herself or where she was headed. The only ones offended by her nomadic lifestyle were Martin and possibly Aud, although she’d never said so outright. Henrietta’s sudden life-threatening illness had dragged her out of her complacency and shattered the lethal ennui, reminding her that life could still kick her in the gut, no matter how carefully she distanced herself from anything that might touch her. She hadn’t counted on Henrietta disturbing the touchstone of her life by almost dying. Henrietta was just HW, like the Atlantic was always the Atlantic. Wherever Derian roamed, she knew where her center rested. Henrietta was the force that kept her connected to the world in any real way. Now she felt like a balloon on a fraying tether, in danger of floating off completely.

“HW is not going anywhere. You’re going to make damn sure of it.” Derian tossed the towel into the laundry chute, found the half-empty glass of champagne on the vanity, and downed it in a swift gulp. Enough already. What she needed was a meal to restore her strength, which Ralph could arrange with a quick phone call, and a woman to take her thoughts off her own pointless musings. And she certainly had that. Emily May was far more interesting than any woman she’d spent time with in recent memory. Everything she needed was only a few minutes away.

“Are you doing okay?” Derian called as she left the bathroom and headed toward her bedroom.

Emily materialized at the other end of the hall and stopped as abruptly as if she’d run into a stone wall. “Oh! Sorry.”

“You know, you say that a lot.” Derian stopped, cocked her head. “Is it just me that makes you uncomfortable, or everyone?”

“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. I’m not. Uncomfortable. Usually,” Emily snapped, turning her head away.

“Then it’s me. Why?”

“You have to ask?” Emily pointed one arm in Derian’s direction. “Have you noticed that you’re naked?”

Derian glanced down. “Oh, that. Should I apologize, then?”

“No. I’m fine. Apology not needed.” Emily kept her gaze averted, but she hadn’t blanked her vision fast enough to obliterate the impression of Derian’s naked form, now firmly impregnated in her brain cells. Lean, toned, tanned, with enticing sleek lines sweeping from compact breasts down a long abdomen to the faint swell of hips and muscular thighs. Derian was as brutally elegant as the race cars she appeared to love, a perfect machine in human form, feminine in grace, masculine in power. Beautiful. Emily swallowed. “I’ll be in the living room. Please, take your time.”

She heard Derian laugh as she hurried away. A door closed behind her, and she breathed a sigh of relief at having a few moments to collect herself. She so needed to find her balance around Derian, a new and confounding experience. She appreciated beautiful women for the aesthetics, who didn’t? The female form was such a fierce combination of delicacy and strength—the female face endlessly captivating. Why else would museums be filled with centuries of effort trying to capture the mystery of woman? Derian shouldn’t have any more effect on her than an exquisite painting or a spectacular sculpture, but she kept losing her breath when she looked at her. And now she had the image of her nude emblazoned in her memory.