Derian dropped her head back and closed her
eyes.
When she woke, the last red-gold rays of a
brilliant sunset slanted across the ocean and draped her body in fiery shadows.
She had to be at the sponsor’s reception in half an hour. She took another
shower and, after the cold water drove the alcohol fumes from her brain,
dressed and joined the familiar crowd in the ballroom on the mezzanine. The
room was exactly like a hundred others she’d been in—huge gleaming chandeliers,
tall columns flanking both sides, ornately painted ceilings, and an army of
waiters with silver trays and a thousand flutes of champagne. Plus the bars
discreetly spaced at intervals around the perimeter.
Derian took a glass of champagne she wasn’t
interested in drinking and made a mental note of the time. An hour was about
all she could take. Ming nodded to her from across the room. Derian made the
rounds, shook all the right hands, and made her business manager happy by
wooing potential new partners. As soon as she could, she slipped away and
ordered a car to take her to a hotel in a less popular part of the city.
Gambling was illegal in Brazil, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any. You just
needed to know where. She settled at the baccarat table and played all night.
When she returned to the Copa at noon the
next day and finally fell asleep, she still couldn’t leave Emily behind. Her
dreams were a dark chaotic tangle of lost opportunity and fruitless searching
for something just beyond reach.
*
“Okay, thank you, everybody.” Emily grabbed
her iPad, quickly rose as the rest of the staff gathered up their things, and
escaped into the hall. She’d barely reached her desk when Ron slipped in behind
her and closed her office door.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were
a ghost,” he said in way of greeting.
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking
about.”
“How about you’ve been hiding out here for
the last week, and avoiding me.”
“I haven’t been hiding or avoiding,” Emily
said, although she doubted she sounded convincing. She was terrible at lying.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s
too bad,” Ron said. “Because whatever it is, I can tell you’re miserable.”
“I’m not miserable,” Emily lied again. She
dropped into her chair and tried to ignore her iPad and the picture she’d seen
just that morning on Flipboard of Derian and a beautiful woman getting into a
limo outside the Copacabana Palace. A minute passed and she straightened up.
Ron was still in the same place, hands on his hips, the look on his face
suggesting he wasn’t leaving anytime soon.