“I’m afraid it might be a little more than
assistance, but I’ll try not to work you too hard.” Derian winced. “I’m going
to need a pretty intensive course in how things run around here.”
“Whatever you need,” Emily said.
Whatever
you need. Derian needed things she hadn’t even realized she wanted
until now. She wanted to prove to her father that she was capable, a word he
had always used to remind her she was less than what he wanted in a child, less
than the sycophants who followed him around, less than anyone. She wanted to
take care of Henrietta, and a big part of that was taking care of the agency
and securing Emily’s future there. She wanted Emily to look at her as she had a
few minutes ago when she’d first walked in—with a flush of pleasure and a quick
flash of desire. Everything she wanted was connected, and at the heart of it
all was Emily.
“How about we meet after lunch and go over
the calendar, so I can get some idea what I’ll be in for.”
“Two o’clock?”
“That sounds fine.” Derian rose. “I think I
might actually get to like this job.”
As she headed back toward her office, she
heard Emily’s soft laughter. The sound made her smile.
*
“You’re really serious about this?” Aud said
as the waiter at the Old Homestead slid steaks onto the table and misted away
as if he’d been incorporeal.
“Of course.”
“Dere,” Aud said with a mixture of affection
and exasperation, “despite the fact that Martin thinks of the agency as
Henrietta’s pet hobby, it’s a multimillion-dollar business. It’s not something
you can just pick up in a day or two.”
Derian cut into her filet and sipped her
Scarecrow cabernet. “You honestly think I don’t know that?”
“I know you enjoy irritating your father.”
Derian smiled. “Am I? Good.”
“Honestly, Dere. Are you still seventeen?”
“Is that a nice way of saying I’m being
juvenile and irresponsible?”
“No.” Aud sighed. “I may be one of the few
people who knows you’re neither of those things. But what are you really
doing?”
“Martin is taking advantage of Henrietta’s illness.”
Derian kept her rage on a tight leash. Aud wasn’t the enemy, but it was hard to
know she was in Martin’s camp all the same. “Don’t you find that just a little
bit reprehensible? Don’t you find it just a little bit hard to continue
carrying the standard for him, when he’s such a coldhearted bastard?”
“I’m not carrying his standard,” Aud said,
but she’d flushed and, for just an instant, had looked away.
“Then what?”
“My father has cancer,” she said quietly.
Derian put down her silverware and took Aud’s
hand. “Why didn’t you tell me?”