Page 27 of Dancing in the Rain

“Of course I’m okay.”

Her chin lowered. “Huh.”

She didn’t believe him. And he didn’t blame her. He was drunk at five o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, taking his clothes off to answer the door, reneging on a promise he’d made to his daughter—the first promise he’d ever made her and he’d let her down. Already.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I guess I got a little freaked out by everything.”

“You’re not the only one.” She leaned her head back against the chair. “Believe me, you’re not the only one.”

“How are you doing this?” he asked. “How are you keeping your shit together? You seem pretty composed.”

“Ha. I’m a mess.”

“You don’t look like a mess.”You look pretty damn gorgeous. Yeah, that was appropriate.Not.

“My boss is pissed at me for being away from work right now. I’m doing some work remotely, talking to clients, working on strategies for a new client. I’m getting stuff done, but it’s not good enough for him.”

“What do you do?”

She smiled. “You don’t know?”

“I didn’t investigate you. Just Sara.”

“Ah. Right. I work for Sentinel. We’re an online reputation management company. I’m a Director of Customer Success, and I work with a number of corporate clients.”

“Reputation management? Is that what it sounds like?”

“Yes. Our customers range from individuals to Fortune 500 companies. We’re kind of part PR gurus, part tech experts. Our services are designed to help people build and maintain a positive image online. We hunt down defamatory and unflattering web content and drive it off the first pages of web searches and replace it with positive information. Our company does even more than that, by helping our clients build relationships with their clients, monitoring online activity, and training them to be able to respond to negative comments and build positive content.”

“Sounds cool.”

“I love it. I moved to New York to take this job with Sentinel, one of the biggest reputation management companies. It hasn’t gone quite like I expected, but I love my job and I’m getting great experience. Anyway, I’m here because Sara and Chloe need me, and I’m trying to help out. Meanwhile, I’m up till midnight answering emails and trying to keep my boss from having a myocardial infarction and stop our clients from panicking or deserting us. And my sister is dying.” She rolled her lips inward briefly and closed her eyes. “You know all those stages of grief?”

“Yeah.”

“They don’t happen linearly. I thought I was past the denial stage, but I keep going back there. I keep thinking this isn’t really happening. She isn’t really going to die. It’s just not possible. She’s a young, healthy woman with so much life ahead of her.” Her voice broke. “It’s just not possible.”

Drew’s heart constricted.

“I’m trying to be strong and not fall apart for Sara’s sake. But it’s fucking killing me.”

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“Chloe’s stressed, too. She knows what’s happening. Her mom is dying. She has to be terrified. I need to be there for her, so she knows she won’t be alone.”

“Will you have her? After…?”

“Yes. I’m her guardian. I see Chloe changing, losing some of her usual spirit. She loves to dance, and they got her signed up for all her usual classes, but she’s talking about quitting. I know she wants to be with her mom.”

“Understandable.”

“Yes, totally. But after…we’ll need to get her back into a routine.”

“You live in a different city.”

“I know.” Her breasts rose and fell with her deep intake of air. He shouldn’t be looking at her chest. But it was hard not to. “I haven’t figured everything out yet.”

“Moving to another city is a big change for someone whose mother just died.”

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