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“Mr. Crawford?” my assistant’s voice called from my office door. “I’m sorry for the interruption, but there’s another woman here to see you.”
Another woman?
I couldn’t think of any woman I’d met recently that would visit me at my office. The women I dated preferred to be wined and dined. But I was intrigued, especially since the last meeting secured me a date with the pretty bartender.
“By all means,” I said. “Send her in.”
The cocky grin on my face dropped when I recognized the woman who walked into my office.
I hadn’t seen her in more than ten years. But the grooves in her skin and the bags under her eyes made it seem much longer than that. She wore a scarf over her hair, so I couldn’t tell if she’d changed the coppery color.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, standing to close the door behind her. “I told you years ago that I never wanted to see you again.”
She ignored me. “Can I sit down?”
I ground my back teeth and motioned to the chair in front of my desk.
She slowly lowered herself onto the leather chair and crossed one pant leg over the other. Her clothes were probably expensive, but they hung on her as though she’d bought them at a second-hand store.
I didn’t waste any time on pleasantries. “What do you want? Money?”
She had the decency to flinch. Then she cleared her throat. “You wouldn’t answer my phone calls,” she said. My body recognized her voice and reacted instantly. The muscles in my back tensed and I straightened in my chair to ease them, steepling my fingers to hide my discomfort.
“So, you thought it best to accost me in my office? That I would listen to you here? You are mistaken. You should leave. Now.”
“I will leave. As soon as I’ve said my piece.”
I hated that a small part of me wanted to know. “Fine. Say it, so you can go.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Her fingers clutched her black designer purse so tightly that it made her pale skin nearly translucent.
“I’m dying, Ryan.”
I held my body still, pushing away any feelings that could rise to the surface. I kept them low, deep down where they belonged.
“Is it cancer?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. The meds destroyed one of my kidneys and I contracted hepatitis years ago from an infected needle. I don’t have much time.”
“How long?”
“Doctors say a couple of months, maybe even six.”
Two months to come to terms with the death of the woman who manipulated me and my brothers. I could do that.
“I’ll ask you again. What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
I laughed, but it sounded cynical even to my ears. “You’ve always wanted something from me, Catherine. Pick up your meds from the pharmacy down the street. To cover for you when you couldn’t get out of bed. There was always something. So come out with it.”
She winced, and I wasn’t sure if it was the harshness or the honesty of my words. It didn’t matter.
“I have no one.” The words broke on her lips. “I will have no one at my funeral. No one to mourn me. I wanted…”
She looked up at the ceiling, and tears pooled in her eyes. I looked away, but her voice reached my ears. “I want someone to miss me and maybe visit me in the hospital. Hold my hand when the time comes.”
I dropped my head and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. “You ask for too much,” I whispered. “You could have had that and more, if—”
