Flawless (45 page)

The biggest thorn in his side, however, continued to be Brogan. Not content with destroying his business and refusing to give Diana a divorce, now he was playing the sympathy card, to devastatingly good effect. Last night Danny had slept on the couch in high dudgeon after Diana floated the idea of visiting Brogan in hospital.

“Those cancer wards are terrible places,” she said, putting the finishing touches to an embroidered blanket for the baby. “I remember when my Aunt Maud was in one. The entire floor smelled of death.” She shuddered. “But at least she had us. Brogan has no close friends, no family to comfort him.”

“Well, whose fault is that?” said Danny, incredulous. “He doesn’t have any friends because he’s an asshole, Di. Besides, he won’t be on a cancer ward. He’ll be in some private suite that probably costs more per night than a year’s rent on this dump. Which, by the way, we are only living in because your darling husband is continuing to rob us blind.”

“I know, but—”

“But nothing,” Danny snapped. “You’re not going to see him and that’s final.”

Well, the “firm hand” approach had turned out to be an error, hadn’t it? Jesus, she’d flown at him like a banshee, a one-woman ball of fury powered by pregnancy hormones. How dare he speak to her like that! He called Brogan a bully, but was he, Danny, any better? He didn’t own her…In the end he’d given up trying to apologize—why did he always have to be in the wrong, anyway?—and skulked off to the couch. When he woke up this morning, with a crick in his neck worthy of a hospital bed of its own, Diana had already gone out. She knew about today’s meeting with Wentworth. Clearly finishing up her damn divorce wasn’t top of her priority list this morning.

“Why don’t I give you a brief summary of where things stand?” said the lawyer, sensing Danny’s darkening mood. “You can fill Diana in later. There is
some
good news you know, Mr. Meyer.”

“Has he died?” asked Danny, deadpan.

“Not yet.” Wentworth grinned so wickedly even Danny had to laugh. “But you never know your luck. In the meantime, it seems he’s decided not to contest Diana’s latest financial statements.”

“Which means?”

“We could be back to arbitration as soon as next month,” said Wentworth brightly.

“
Arbitration
?” Danny seemed less thrilled by this prospect than the lawyer. “What, again? When do we get to
court
is what I wanna know. When can we finish this thing?”

Wentworth gave him a puzzled frown.

“We can go to court as soon as you like. Didn’t Diana tell you?”

Danny looked blank. “Tell me what?”

“Brogan agreed to sign the papers before the holidays,” said Wentworth, somewhat awkwardly. “It’s Diana who’s been holding off. She wanted to go back to roundtable discussions.”

“She wanted what?” Now it was Danny’s turn to look puzzled. “But…why? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Wentworth shrugged. “She told me she wanted to make some changes to her financial statements. Very minor points, but they seemed important to her.”

Danny said nothing. He didn’t have to.

Diana was having second thoughts about going through with it. All these delays were just excuses. She’d changed her mind and been too scared to tell him.

“I think,” said Wentworth gently, “this is something that you and she need to discuss between yourselves. I can help, but only if you both agree on what you want. I wouldn’t want to charge you for wasted hours.”

“No,” said Danny bleakly, getting up to leave. “Thank you. I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

“Talk to her,” Wentworth counseled him. “Divorce is never an easy thing, even when it’s the right thing.”

But Danny’s head was pounding so loudly he could barely hear him.

Diana watched the numbers climb on the red elevator LCD—five, six, seven—and felt her stomach lurch with each additional floor.

Danny had been right about the private room. The duty nurse downstairs informed her that Brogan was on the fourteenth floor (the penthouse, naturally) in a suite of rooms usually reserved for visiting royalty, major hospital donors and their families, or Hollywood stars. But a cancer hospital was still a cancer hospital. However upscale, the walls still dripped with pain. Even the smooth, chrome elevator seemed to echo with sadness and fear as Diana made her slow, nervous way up through the heart of the building.

What was she doing here, really? Was she proving a point to Danny or herself? Was this about making her own choices? About compassion for a man she’d once loved? Or was it something much less noble than that? An escape, perhaps, from the doubts and uncertainties besetting her on all sides. She wanted so desperately to make a new start with Danny, to raise their child together, to leave the past behind. And yet the past kept calling to her, tugging at her heartstrings, playing on her guilt. And all the while Dan seemed so utterly, utterly unhappy. If this was true love, all she could say was that it wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be.

“Mrs. O’Donnell?”

The elevator doors opened. Diana stepped out into what looked for all the world like a hotel lobby. Certainly the
uniformed man who greeted her looked more like a concierge than an oncology nurse.

“That’s right,” she whispered. She didn’t know why, but hospitals always gave her the urge to whisper. “Is he, erm…is he well enough for a visit?”

“Oh yes.” The man smiled. “He’s wide awake. And expecting you. Please, follow me.”

She walked into a room flooded with sunlight. In front of the window was a huge vase of sweetly scented freesias, perched on an antique walnut table. Adjacent to this was a desk, another gorgeous piece of furniture and quite decidedly not hospital standard-issue, on top of which lay Brogan’s laptop, open at the Bloomberg pages. His BlackBerry flashed green beside it while it charged, and papers and memos littered the remaining available surface. Clearly he’d been up and working already this morning.

“I see some things never change,” she said, walking over to the bed where he sat propped up with pillows, a
Wall Street Journal
spread across his lap. “You should be resting. Keeping your strength up, remember?”

“I am.” He grinned, making no attempt to hide his delight at seeing her. “I slept in until six. You look wonderful.”

“I look fat,” said Diana, blushing and patting the small mound of her pregnant belly awkwardly. For some reason she felt crippled with nerves, seeing him again. To her relief, he didn’t yet
look
like a cancer patient. He still had his hair, and apart from minor weight loss looked much the same as she remembered. Even so, she struggled to meet his eye.

“Not at all. You’re glowing. Pregnancy suits you.”

“Thank you.”

She jumped at the sound of the door closing as the concierge/nurse left the room.

“It’s all right,” said Brogan. “You’re quite safe. I’m in no condition to do anyone any harm.”

“It’s not that,” she mumbled. “It’s…odd, that’s all. Me being here. I didn’t know if you’d want to see me. You know, under the circumstances.”

“What circumstances are those?” said Brogan. “Me dying, or you being knocked up with another man’s child?”

Diana looked up, horrified.

“Stop it. You’re not dying,” she said seriously, before noticing the wry smile on his face. “Oh, for God’s sake Brogan, don’t joke!”

“Why not?” Laughing openly now, he reached for her hand and pulled her closer to the bed. “Things can’t get much worse, can they? Does Danny Boy know you’re here?”

Diana hesitated. She should have told him to mind his own business—she didn’t want to talk about Danny—but the way he was stroking the inside of her wrist was distracting, and she couldn’t seem to find the words.

“He doesn’t, does he?” Brogan couldn’t keep the triumph out of his voice.

“I didn’t want to worry him,” she said lamely, belatedly withdrawing her hand. “He has a lot on his plate right now.”

“Does he? My heart bleeds,” sneered Brogan. “So, tell me. Why
did
you come?”

“I…” Diana stumbled. It was the question she’d been asking herself all morning. Looking into Brogan’s eyes, his gaze so searing, so unrelenting, she was painfully aware that she still didn’t have a satisfactory answer. “It seemed like the right thing to do,” she said eventually. “I still…I care about you, all right? We were married a long time.”

“We’re still married,” said Brogan.

He wasn’t about to let her off the hook now. Clearly, all was not well between her and Meyer. Just when he’d been about to give up hope of a reconciliation, his cancer had opened up a window, the slimmest crack, a glimpse of daylight, a chance to win her back. If it was the last thing he did—and at this point, it very
well might be—he intended to wedge his fingers into that tiny gap and pull and pull until he could drag her through it.

“You know what I think?” he said, seizing on her silence. “I think you still love me.”

“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t.”

“That’s why you held up the divorce,” he pressed on mercilessly. “That’s why you came here today, behind lover boy’s back.”

“It wasn’t behind his back,” she said. “It wasn’t like that. You’re twisting things.”

“Bullshit,” said Brogan. “I’m calling a spade a spade. You think it’s too late, but it isn’t.”

“It is.” Up to this point she’d been staring firmly at her shoes, but now she looked up at him, her expression pleading, her eyes brimming with tears. “The baby…” she began.

“
I’ll
bring up the baby,” said Brogan. “You think I wouldn’t love any child of yours? Christ, honey, I pushed you into all this; I know that now. I don’t blame you. But you can’t stay with this guy just because you’re pregnant. You don’t love him.”

“I
do
,” she insisted, sobbing. “I
do
love him.”

“Not like you love me.” Reaching forward, he put a hand on the back of her neck and pressed his lips against hers. For a moment she resisted, her back and shoulders stiff, her mouth unyielding, rigid with shock. But then to his joy and surprise, she started to kiss him back, a desperate, longing, searching kiss, fueled by guilt, by need, by the embers of the early passion they’d once shared, back before life had become so complicated.

Releasing her at last, he whispered in her ear. “Come back to me. Come back to me, my darling. Please. I need you now more than ever.”

Diana opened her mouth to speak, but no sound emerged. Instead she shook her head, turned, and ran from the room, not stopping until she reached the elevator. Frenziedly hammering on the “close doors” button, she felt her heart race so fast it made her nauseous.

What had she done?

What in God’s name had she just done?

Back at their apartment later that evening, Danny poured himself his third whiskey and stared mindlessly at the TV screen. How the fuck had
Antiques Roadshow
transformed itself into one of the most successful global formats for a TV show? Who wanted to watch a bunch of greedy retirees salivating over a renaissance harpsichord stand?

After leaving Wentworth’s office this morning, he’d spent the rest of the day mooching aimlessly around the city, intermittently calling Diana’s cell, which had remained resolutely switched off, and going around and around in circles in his head. He knew he ought to talk to Jake about quitting Solomon Stones—for months now he’d been nothing but a drain on their joint finances, and with a baby on the way he had to start thinking about finding himself some sort of paid employment—but he hadn’t the courage nor the energy to start that conversation today. Besides, until he knew where he stood with Diana—where he
really
stood—he couldn’t focus on anything else. He loved her so fucking much. How had everything gone so wrong? How had he played it all so badly?

When she finally walked through the door at eight o’clock, wet and tired, he was torn between relief at seeing her and anger about what Wentworth had told him this morning. What the hell was she playing at, stalling the divorce? And where had she been all day?

“I tried to call you,” he said grumpily, without either standing up or switching off the TV. “About a hundred times.”