Chapter One
Diana Barrett forced herself not to glance at the time on her computer. Logic told her not more than five minutes had passed since she’d last checked, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. It was worse than she thought.
Three minutes.
She took a deep breath, rolled her shoulders and tried to refocus on the list of wire transfers in front of her. It was always like this when she was meeting Leo, but that didn’t make it any less insane. She’d known him most of her life, since year five at St. Ives Primary when he’d helped her up from a game of tag that turned unexpectedly rough. She could still see him in her mind’s eye, a tall, gangly boy with soulful brown eyes and unkempt hair that fell over his forehead. On the outside, they couldn’t have been more different.
She liked him immediately.
She didn’t remember how they’d come to be friends, but one day she realized that it had been a very long time since she hadn’t sat with Leo at lunch, since he hadn’t been her companion in a game of conkers. Since seeing him hadn’t been the highlight of every day.
And then, all at once it seemed, he wasn’t lanky, awkward Leo anymore. He was tall and broad, with wide shoulders, a deep voice, and a fierce expression of protection wherever Diana was concerned. They were in their final year of high school when she noticed that he’d become a man, but by then it was too late to change the fact that he was her best friend. She went off to university. Leo took a series of entry level jobs that eventually led him to an executive position at Global Media. They spent summers together when she was home from school, falling back into their old patterns of long days on the beach, chowder on the waterfront when the sun went down, hours spent laying under an inky sky strung with stars.
He was a self made man, unlike Diana, who had every advantage, including worldly, attentive parents on the affluent side of middle class. But he was her Leo, and she thought about him every single day. Now they were adults, both with busy schedules that involved a lot of business travel, but still they managed to coordinate schedules to meet in cities all over the world.
And she got nervous every single time.
She dared a glance at the clock and was relieved to find that she’d spent fifteen minutes lost in her memories of Leo. She logged out of her computer — standard protocol at Abbott, a small but wealthy bank known for its discretion— and grabbed her bag, then rose from her chair and headed to the restroom.
Standing in front of the mirror, she tried to tame her wild curls, then gave up and let them have their way. Leo always said he liked her hair, and anyway, there was no help for it; she’d inherited the unruly mop from her mother’s ancestors. She touched up her makeup, grateful for her dark eyelashes and good bone structure. She had her father’s DNA and all its classic English features to thank for that one. She finished with a swipe of sheer berry lip stain, closed her bag, and headed back to her desk. She was halfway down the hall when she spotted Maggie’s open office door.
“You’re alive,” Diana said, poking her head into the plush office.
Maggie Kinsley had been Diana’s mentor since the day she’d plucked Maggie from an internship program during university. She was one of the smartest women Diana had ever known. Chic and formidable, she’d raised her seventeen-year-old son on her own and was the first woman to become a Vice President at Abbott. Diana didn’t know yet if she wanted a career at the bank, but it was nice to know she could have one, and even nicer to know Maggie would be there to guide her along the way, whatever life she chose for herself.
Maggie looked up from her computer with a tired smile. She was as thin as a school girl, with an open face and wide blue eyes. It wasn’t at all difficult to imagine her as an ambitious young woman making her way in the male-dominated banking industry of the 1990s.
“I know,” she said. “It’s ridiculous how busy I’ve been, isn’t it?”
Diana smiled. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”
“I suppose so.” She leaned back in her chair, narrowing her eyes as she took in Diana’s newly freshened appearance. “I take it you’re seeing Leo?”
“I’d ask how you know, but I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that you know everything.”
“Hardly.”
Any other day, the word would have been accompanied by laughter, but there was something resigned and tense in the way she said it now. It drew Diana’s attention to the dark circles under her friend’s eyes, the stern set of her jaw, usually reserved for business rivals.
“You okay, Mags?” Diana was careful about using the nickname at the office. She never wanted to overstep, or to use her friendship with Diana to unfairly further her career. And she definitely didn’t want anyone else in the office to become resentful of their relationship. But she couldn’t help herself. How long had Maggie looked this tired? Had Diana been so wrapped up in her own life that she hadn’t noticed Maggie needed a week on a tropical beach with an umbrella drink in hand?
“You look like you could use a holiday,” Diana said.
Something faltered on Maggie’s face, and for a split second, Diana thought she might actually confide in her. She didn’t do it often — she was a woman who prided herself on independence in all things — but every now and then she would open up to Diana about Evan, her son, her plans for the future, the loneliness that plagued her so rarely that it passed before she ever found the motivation to do anything about it.
It was gone a moment later, Maggie’s usual cool facade taking the place of the indecision Diana could have sworn she saw a moment before.
“Nonsense,” Maggie said. “There’s too much work for a holiday.”
“That’s what you always say.” Diana didn’t buy the change of subject, but the time wasn’t right for a long conversation about life. She would convince Maggie to go out for drinks soon, come clean about what was bothering her.
“Because it’s always true,” Maggie said. “And I have a birthday supper to cook for Evan this weekend. You will be there, won’t you?”
“With bells on,” Diana said. Evan was an unusually wise, witty kid who was currently number three in his class at Newton Prep. “I haven’t seen him since Christmas.”
“He’ll be happy to see you,” Maggie said, “although I’m beginning to suspect all this talk about me serves only to avoid talking about Leo.”
Diana smiled. “Nothing to say.”
Maggie raised an eyebrow. “At least be honest with yourself, my dear. Otherwise you might find thirty years of your life gone by. You might even go home to a cushy flat with no more company than a bottle of wine and a cat.”
Diana laughed. “Sounds lovely.”
It wasn’t entirely true. She wanted more than the bank, didn’t she? Someone to share her life? A home? Maybe children one day?
Someone like Leo?
“Liar.”
Diana waved, stepping out of the doorway. “See you after lunch.”
“We’re not done talking about this,” Maggie called after her.
Diana smiled as she made her way toward the elevators. She pressed the button, then stepped inside, taking a deep breath.
It’s just Leo. And we’re only friends. We’ll only ever be friends.