“I think you may have dialed the wrong number. This is Samuel Cramer. We…well, bumped into each other in the airport yesterday.”

Eileen lifted her gaze from Samuel’s card in her hand and stared down the busy street at the press of cars fighting to make their way up the steeply sloping hill. After helping her during her drunken stupor, Samuel had given her his card yesterday. Shit. She closed her eyes.

“Is everything all right?” he asked her. “You sound upset. Do you need help?”

“No, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I meant to call someone else. I grabbed your card by mistake and didn’t look… I’m so sorry to bother you.”

“It’s no bother, really. Actually, I was hoping—”

“I can’t begin to imagine—” How could she be so stupid, so careless? She stared at the card in her hand: Samuel Cramer, Vice President, Global Connections. How hard was it to not make a complete and utter ass of herself in front of this man? In a rush of panic, she hung up.

She stared at her phone, acutely aware that she likely just made a merely embarrassing situation horrific by hanging up on a man who she would most certainly be sharing a soccer sideline with in the very near future. There would be no avoiding the man. The shame was tangible, a weighty blanket.

How hard would it have been to simply apologize and end the conversation with a cordial, and humanlike, “So sorry to bother you. Goodbye.”

“You are losing it, Eileen,” she said out loud to herself, then looked up and noticed the doorman inspecting her. She bit her lip and turned away from his prying eyes.

The card with Henry’s number ended up being in her back pocket, not her bag. After two rings, he picked up and promised he could be there to rescue her within fifteen minutes.

Back at the house, Clare’s publicist had already arrived with the funeral planner. They sat in the sun-drenched living room looking posh and well prepared, with open laptops, cell phones, and perfectly manicured fingers that flew through screens and schedules. Their expertly lined lips both consoled and explained to Simon, who still looked shell shocked and unwashed, what all the best options were, from the venue for the memorial to the florist talented and capable enough to pull off the large number of enormous, but tasteful, arrangements they would need.

“And we really should get this guest list finalized,” Eileen heard the woman with thick black hair spilling down her back say as she entered into their planning session from the mudroom off the garage. When they noticed her, both women turned on sympathetic expressions that fell just shy of genuine emotion. The woman whose flaming red hair was styled into a tight bob stood up first and extended a long, thin arm that ended in graceful fingers with heavy jewels.