“For a second, I thought you were sleeping,
but your eyes were open.” Ron came in and dropped into his usual pose in the
chair, elbow on knee, chin in his hand, studying her. “Tell me everything about
last night.”
Emily’s face flamed. “Last night? Weren’t you
there?”
Ron made a pfft
sound. “I don’t mean the awards. What about all the rest—insider gossip, you
know, the good stuff. You must have gotten something juicy.”
“Oh,” Emily said, struggling furiously to
focus. “Yes. No. I mean, yes, I went. But you know how it is. The usual
suspects, the usual topics of discussion. Nothing really new.”
“How disappointing.” Ron flopped back and
sighed. “Not much surprise with the winners either. I don’t know why I keep
hoping every once in a while they’ll actually pick the best book instead of the
most politically advantageous one.”
Emily laughed. “Yes, well, we’ll probably
have world peace at any moment too.”
Ron snorted. “How did Derian behave?”
“Derian?”
“Yes, you know the one I mean, Derian
Winfield, our boss? The woman glued to your side all night long?”
“Oh, Derian. She was fine.”
“I think you’d better elaborate,” Ron said
slowly, his eyes narrowing. “Because something obviously happened. You seem a
little dazed and confused.”
Emily glanced at the open door. She didn’t
want to have a personal conversation about Derian in the office, and she didn’t
want to tell Ron she’d slept with her either. She wasn’t falling back on false
modesty, she wasn’t that precious. But Derian was their boss, even if just
temporarily, and it didn’t look good for either one of them if people knew. She
wasn’t as concerned about her own reputation as much as she wanted to protect
Derian’s. She already knew most people thought Derian was a self-absorbed
player, and she knew that was far from the truth. Unfortunately, false
impressions were often the hardest to change. She looked at Ron. “Derian was
absolutely fine.”
“And that’s it?”
Emily smiled. “That pretty much covers it.”
“You’ll tell me the rest one day soon,
right?” Ron asked knowingly.
“When the time is right,” Emily promised,
although she had no idea when that might be. Or even how she would know. She’d
vowed not to think beyond the moment, which twenty-four hours ago had seemed
like a reasonable decision, but that was a promise she was finding harder to
keep by the moment. Any relationship with Derian could only be temporary. Now
all she had to do was convince herself of that.
Chapter Twenty-five
Derian settled onto a couch in the family area
adjoining the gym, replete with treadmills, exercise benches, workout mats, and
stationary bikes, where Henrietta was starting her rehab program. She could see
HW, decked out in matching sweatpants and sweatshirt with NYU emblazoned in big
bold letters, through the windows that spanned the top half of the wall
separating the two rooms. Compared to many, no,