“Formally?” Emily asked.
“I don’t know. I never had any reason to ask.
What’s she been doing so far?”
Emily grimaced. “She’s settled into
Henrietta’s office, and as of this morning, plans to take over all the major
decisions.”
“Dammit,” Derian said. “The last thing
Henrietta’s going to need while she’s recovering is some kind of fight over
who’s in charge at the agency.”
“Maybe it won’t come to that.”
“Nothing Martin and Donatella might do could
be good.” Derian balled up her cashew wrapper and stuffed it in her pocket.
“Aud might know what’s going on, if she’ll tell me. She doesn’t handle the
agency’s legal business, since Henrietta was smart enough to see that as a
conflict of interest, but all the Enterprises attorneys know one another.”
“I’m sorry to drag you into this.”
“Henrietta would want you to run things in
her place.”
“I don’t know—”
“I do,” Derian said with conviction. “And
we’ll need to see that that happens. I’ll call Aud later today.”
“You’ve got more than enough to worry about.
At least let it wait until—”
Derian touched a finger to Emily’s lips. “Let
me do this for you. It’s nothing compared to what your being here means to me.”
Emily’s heart raced as her eyes met Derian’s.
“Would it do me any good to argue?”
Derian’s thumb whispered over her lips.
“None at all.”
Chapter Fifteen
Dr. Carter Armstrong sauntered into the waiting
room a little before noon, looking as polished and superior in a set of rumpled
scrubs as he would have in a ten-thousand-dollar suit. His coal-black hair with
just the slightest hint of white at the temples was perfectly in place, showing
no signs of the surgical cap he’d been wearing when Derian had talked to him
right before Henrietta had been taken to the operating room. He zeroed in on
her and flashed a practiced smile. “We’re done. She’s fine.”
Derian impulsively wrapped an arm around
Emily and pulled her close. After a second of head-spinning relief, she met the
surgeon in the middle of the room. “Where is she?”
“In a recovery room, right now. We like to
keep the patients close to the OR for a few minutes after we close, just in
case—although I don’t expect any problems.”
“Can you tell me what you did?”
He gave her a look as if she might not
understand what his greatness had accomplished, but he lifted a shoulder and
acquiesced. “As I explained earlier, her coronaries showed multiple levels of
blockage, probably as a result of some long-term hyperlipidemia—abnormal fat
metabolism—and hypertension. We jumped four grafts to reperfuse the cardiac
muscle. Her signs all look great right now.”