“I got rid of Donatella. As of tomorrow,
she’s gone.” Derian pulled on her trousers but didn’t bother to button her
shirt.
Derian was so damn casual about her body,
about everything, and Emily had always known that too, hadn’t she? Sex was just
another form of conversation for Derian. Nothing wrong with that at all. And
she’d given Emily something precious, something far beyond pleasure. Derian had
given her the knowledge of what she’d been living without, and what she refused
to do without someday. Someday, when she could bear the hunger again.
“How did she take it?” Emily asked, amazed at
how easily she could talk about something that mattered not at all while
everything that did slipped away.
Derian grinned and poured wine from the open
bottle on Emily’s kitchen island into the glasses Emily’d left on the counter.
She handed one to Emily. “I told her she’d had enough time with the numbers.
I’d gone over the books myself in the last couple of days, and there was
nothing there to find. Winfield’s bottom line was far more than acceptable.”
“That’s great news.” Emily sipped the wine,
found it tasteless.
Derian leaned against the counter, drinking
wine and looking completely composed, not bothered in the least that she’d soon
be leaving. “I don’t think she expected me to understand any of the numbers,
but when I made it clear that I did, she pretty much ran out of ammunition. Her
slings and arrows bounced off at that point.”
“I owe you a great debt,” Emily said.
Derian shook her head. “No, you don’t. If I’d
been in the picture all along, my father probably wouldn’t have tried to take
over as soon as Henrietta gave him an opening.”
“Nevertheless, everyone at the agency
appreciates everything you’ve done.”
“I’ve enjoyed it. Working with you was a
special bonus.” Derian set her glass down. “Henrietta has agreed, at least for
now, not to fight her rehab regimen. It’ll be a few weeks before she can even
work part-time. I’ll be back—”
“We’ll be fine,” Emily said. “You’ve
interrupted your schedule, your life, for all of us, not just Henrietta. You’ve
done enough.”
Emily tried to slip by her to hide in the
kitchen. Just putting a counter between them would help, but she didn’t make
it. Derian pulled her closer until she was almost standing between Derian’s
legs. She couldn’t be this close to her and not put her hands on her. She
clenched her fists at her sides. Please, she needed a little bit of distance,
just so she could think again.
“There’s something else I wanted to talk to
you about,” Derian said.