Henrietta’s mouth twitched into a smile. After a long moment, she whispered, “Take care of…the rest…two of you.”

Derian’s eyebrows rose, and she glanced at Emily. “Don’t worry. We’ll have it all covered.”

Emily wasn’t sure what Henrietta intended by that, but nothing mattered now except Henrietta getting well. She wasn’t sure she could bear too many more days or nights in the hospital. She’d do anything for Henrietta, except stand vigil while she slipped away. She squeezed Henrietta’s arm. “It’s going to be all right. Derian will see to it. I love you.” She backed up, avoiding Derian’s gaze. “I’ll…be outside.”

Silently, Derian watched her go, wondering at what old wounds put such pain in her eyes.

Burns appeared at the end of the bed. “I have to chase you out now or the nurses will skin me.”

“Okay.” Derian leaned down and kissed Henrietta’s cheek. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry. I’ve got this. I love you.”

Henrietta didn’t respond, and Derian forced herself to step away. Henrietta would be okay, she had to be. Derian said quietly to Burns, “What now?”

“I don’t expect we’ll know much more until the CT guys have had a chance to review all the tests. I’ll call you, or whoever takes over from me will, when we have a plan.”

“I’m her legal next of kin,” Derian said. “I want to be sure I get the call.”

“I don’t actually know anything about that. That would be in her records.”

Derian nodded. “Who should I check with?”

“The nurses at the desk can pull up her admission forms.”

“Okay, thanks.” Derian held out her hand. “For everything.”

“She’s doing fine,” Burns said as he shook her hand. “Someone will call.”

Derian waited at the counter until an older woman with curly gray hair, in a pink scrub suit covered by a smock that looked like the kind of apron Derian’s grandmother used to wear, turned and noticed her. “Can I help you, honey?”

“I just wanted to check that you had my contact information, and to be sure you had me listed as next of kin for Henrietta Winfield.”

The woman’s brows drew down as she looked Derian over. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Sorry?”

“Derian Winfield. You race cars in Europe or something?”

“Ah, yeah, something like that. That’s me.”

“Huh. Imagine that.”

Derian didn’t bother to ask how she was recognized. She made it a point not to look at the celebrity rags that graced just about every newsstand in the world. There was nothing she could do about paparazzi. Money attracted them like chum on the ocean drew sharks. She’d learned to pretty much ignore what was written or said about her, since it was 99.9 percent fabricated to begin with. If she’d had as many women as the tabloids made it out she did, she’d never get any sleep. Every time she escorted anyone anywhere, the papers had them involved in some kind of hot and steamy romance. Sure, she slept with some of them. But definitely not all. But why bother to try to set the record straight. Who would care? And secretly, if it pissed off Martin, she didn’t half mind.

“Henrietta is my aunt.”

The woman, whose name tag said she was Penelope, tapped in some information on a tablet and scrolled with her finger. “Yup, right here. Next of kin, Derian Winfield. No contact number, though.” She glanced up. “You want to give me one?”

Derian read off her phone number.

“We’ve also got a copy of her living will and medical directives.”

Derian frowned. “You do?”

“Yes, it looks like someone was very thorough.”

Emily. Had to be her. She struck Derian as the organized, detail-oriented type. Surely it wasn’t Martin. Derian was definitely in her debt.

“Thanks,” Derian said, suddenly, now that she knew Henrietta was stable and being cared for, very much wanting to find Emily before she had a chance to slip away.

Chapter Five

Emily thought about leaving. She’d been at the hospital for twelve hours, and she was bone weary. The waiting, the worrying, the remembering had taken her back, and the old sorrow had surged anew. At first glance, this bustling, careworn city hospital seemed crude and unpolished compared to the luxury and near-grand-hotel opulence of Mount Elizabeth’s, but as she’d discovered after a few days’ vigil, hospitals were all the same beneath the veneer of civility—impersonal, often cold places. And wasn’t she just getting morose, when she’d long ago set that all aside. She gave herself a mental shake. She’d be fine after she slept. Maybe had a cup of tea and a package of those cookies she kept for emergencies.

The idea of curling up under a blanket on the sofa by the big front window of her third-floor apartment filled her with longing, but Derian had asked her to wait. Or at least, implied that she wanted her to. Really, would it be so rude to leave? Surely Derian Winfield was just being polite. And when had she started thinking of her as Derian, as if they were actually friends? How could they be anything but strangers—they’d met exactly once before. She remembered the moment quite clearly, when obviously Derian hadn’t.

To be fair, she had been so much younger then, not just in years, but in so many other ways. A newly minted master’s degree, the first few months on the job as a real employee, pulling down a paycheck, and not just an intern on temporary assignment—she’d made it, realized the dream that had seemed so far away only a few years before. Here she was, in the land of opportunity where she actually had carved out the life she wanted for herself—researching, studying, making contacts, pushing to be noticed.

Emily smiled, remembering the first emails she’d sent to Henrietta Winfield, someone who had no idea who she was and probably wouldn’t even be bothered to read the message. But Henrietta had read it, and had even emailed her back. Emily had been a college student then, an undergraduate at Harvard, double-majoring in English and creative writing, filling her résumé with everything she could think of that might make her more marketable in a world that could be viciously competitive behind the sedate and cultured façade. Positions in literary agencies were few and coveted, often passed along to those who had some kind of in—a friend or relation who knew someone who was part of the age-old world of New York publishing. She’d taken a chance and decided the only way to make an impression on someone who undoubtedly received hundreds of hopeful applications and queries every year was to demonstrate she understood what truly mattered. She hadn’t written to Henrietta about her qualifications or her potential value as an employee or even her desires and aspirations. She’d written instead about one of her favorite books from an author Henrietta had shepherded from obscurity to NY Times best-seller status, and what the book had meant to her and why. How better to make a connection than to share the same passion?

She hadn’t really expected a reply, but then it had come. Henrietta Winfield had actually emailed her. With the door open a tiny crack, she’d subtly, or so she’d thought, slipped her foot into it, and volunteered to do anything that would keep her in Henrietta’s sight. And so it had begun, a relationship that eventually flowered into a job and most surprisingly, wonderfully of all, into friendship.

When she’d gone to work for Henrietta, she’d quickly become immersed in the other side of the literary agency, the politics of acquisition and promotion and selling. She’d been trained to recognize good writing, poignant themes, popular tropes, but she hadn’t any experience negotiating the volatile waters of selling the manuscript to a publisher. Where were the best places to position a contemporary romance, a time-travel paranormal, a family saga? What was hot, and even more importantly, what would be hot next year? What were reasonable contract terms to expect for a first-time author, and what were the key items to be hammered out to the best advantage for her author clients? Those first few months she’d worked side by side with Henrietta and Ron, who’d been senior to her then and had graciously tutored her.

Part of her rapid-fire indoctrination had been in the art of networking, one of the things she’d liked the least at first. She preferred the quiet of her office and the solitude of her desk, immersed in manuscripts or making phone calls to authors—even contract review was better than face-to-face schmoozing with strangers. But she’d gone to the meetings and receptions, because Henrietta insisted she needed to. And there, at one of those very first too noisy, too crowded, and too false-friendly congregations, she’d first met Derian Winfield.

Even with dozens of people between them, Emily had recognized her right away. Derian was hard not to recognize. A few inches taller than most of the women, she’d stood out from the crowd precisely because she stood apart. She’d worn a suit, the dark jacket and pants well cut, not flashy, but superbly fit to her lanky form. Her hair had been fashionably layered to collar length, expertly setting off her chiseled features and accentuating the clean, crisp lines of her neck and shoulders. But it’d been her expression that had really defined her separateness. Unlike everyone else, she wasn’t smiling, she didn’t appear to be drinking the amber liquid in the short glass she held in her left hand, and she wasn’t talking to anyone.

“Come,” Henrietta had said, taking Emily’s elbow. “I’d like you to meet my niece.”

Henrietta had pulled her through the crowd, kissed Derian’s cheek, and introduced them. Derian’s expression had softened when she’d seen Henrietta coming, and after a few murmured words Emily couldn’t hear, she’d glanced briefly in Emily’s direction, nodded to her, and said something polite and totally impersonal.