“She’s making lots of money.”

“That’s the idea.”

“Why doesn’t she know you’ve done this for her? It’s clear as day.”

“You raised her not to be cynical. She’s remarkably innocent despite her intellectual accomplishments. It’s one of her great charms.”

“Hmmph. From an arch cynic.”

“I didn’t have the advantage of her upbringing. She was fortunate.”

“So you’re saying money doesn’t buy happiness.”

“Pretty much.”

“And you’re wondering if she can fill that void for you.”

“I don’t know. It’s more than that. But she’s on my mind a lot. I thought I’d come and see how she was doing, that’s all. I should go. I’ve taken up enough of your time.” He came to his feet.

“I won’t ask you to promise me you won’t pester her because I can see that you will. But she’s like her grandpa. You mess with her, she fights back.”

He smiled faintly. “I’m aware of that.”

“You mess with her and I’ll make trouble for you. Roy came back from Nam a little bit crazy and some of it rubbed off. Just so you know.”

“I have no intention of hurting her.”

Nana softly exhaled. “I don’t envy you. You don’t know exactly what you want.”

His smile was sweetly boyish. “I’m trying to figure it out. Or maybe I need to understand how to get it.” He pointed at the bottle on the table. “If you ever want to go into business, let me know. Your vodka is first class. I’m always looking for new investments.”

She smiled. “You trying to buy your way to my granddaughter?”

He laughed. “I’m not so foolish. Katherine doesn’t care about money. I’m assuming she learned that from you.”

Nana met his gaze. “Life’s about almost everything but money. I’m not saying you don’t need enough to keep a roof over your head, but after that”—she shrugged—“it’s about the people you love. That’s what makes life worth living. Sorry about the lecture. I’m an old school teacher. It’s in the blood.”

“I don’t mind. And let me know what more you need for the school. I mean it. My educational foundation is one of my pet projects. Let me give you my cell phone number.”

“I already have it.”

Dominic’s brows shot up.

“Where do you think my baby girl learned to love computers? There’s no privacy left in the world. I don’t have to tell you that.”

Dominic laughed. “In that case, give me a call if you need something.”

“Or if I hear something from Katie?”

Kate would have recognized that small startle reflex. “I’d like that,” Dominic said a moment later. “I like to know how she’s doing. Thanks for the drink and conversation.”

Nana stood on the porch and watched the wealthy young man walk through the snow in his sandals, get into his rental car, and drive away.

She’d never met anyone so alone, she thought.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Their separation wasn’t any easier for Kate. Dominic had married another woman. And there was no question in her mind, no matter how she dissected and reviewed their last conversation, that he’d been lying through his teeth. I have to marry her. Bullshit. A man like Dominic, who controlled everything as far as the eye could see and beyond? As if he could be coerced into marriage. He didn’t want her; he just wanted someone else.

So get over it.

But she must have been reading the wrong Cosmo articles. Because getting over someone wasn’t supposed to blacken out the sun, shut out the music from the world, bring down the curtain on one’s life, or as Gramps would have said, “Make you fire off that last round.”

Gramps had always said that like it was a good thing. Like it was time to move on. So she tried.

She dealt with her misery by burying herself in work; she put in long hours, audited source codes and cleaned them up, wrote programming script to stave off cyber attacks, developed new code to keep the site from collapsing under an overload, closed one after another vulnerability on the bank’s website. And after Dominic left, she started helping a fellow contractor on weekends in a small office on Bond Street. Together, she and Joanna pounded keyboards and crunched numbers and codes and when Kate was finally ready to collapse, she’d go home and try to sleep. But she wasn’t sleeping well, she wasn’t eating well, she was trying to distract herself from a cloud of despair that wouldn’t lift.

Dominic was in the habit of checking on Katherine’s location a dozen times a day, the GPS on her cell phone his personal surveillance, his lifeline to hope, to better times and rosier prospects. When the three months were over, when his divorce was rubber-stamped, he was going to do whatever he had to do to win her back.

There was no question in his mind.

And if she’d ever talked to him, he would have told her that.

He’d also had Max set up security teams to watch Katherine in the event Gora went off the deep end. Each evening, Max reported to Dominic, but his account never varied. “All she does is work. We’re running eight-hour surveillance shifts but she isn’t. She barely sleeps. CX Capital is getting their money’s worth. Her new partner apparently doesn’t eat or sleep either.”

And so things continued through March and April.