It surprised her that she wanted to. She hadn’t been able to talk to her mother. Margerite would only be baffled. Channing—that was a joke. Sydney doubted that any of her friends would understand how she had become so attached to Hayward in such a short time.

“There really isn’t any point,” she decided, and started toward her waiting car and driver.

Did she think he would let her walk away, with that worry line between her brows and the tension knotted tight in her shoulders?

“How about a lift home?”

She glanced back. The ride home from her mother’s party was still a raw memory. But he was smiling at her in an easy, friendly fashion. Nonthreatening? No, he would never be that with those dark looks and untamed aura. But they had agreed on a truce, and it was only a few blocks.

“Sure. We’ll drop Mr. Stanislaski off in Soho, Donald.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She took the precaution of sliding, casually, she hoped, all the way over to the far window. “Mrs. Wolburg looks amazingly well, considering,” she began.

“She’s strong.” It was Mozart this time, he noted, low and sweet through the car speakers.

“The doctor says she’ll be able to go home with her son soon.”

“And you’ve arranged for the therapist to visit.” Sydney stopped passing the rose from hand to hand and looked at him. “She told me,” he explained. “Also that when she is ready to go home again, there will be a nurse to stay with her, until she is well enough to be on her own.”

“I’m not playing Samaritan,” Sydney mumbled. “I’m just trying to do what’s right.”

“I realize that. I realize, too, that you’re concerned for her. But there’s something more on your mind. Is it the papers and the television news?”

Her eyes went from troubled to frigid. “I didn’t assume responsibility for Mrs. Wolburg’s medical expenses for publicity, good or bad. And I don’t—”

“I know you didn’t.” He cupped a hand over one of her clenched ones. “Remember, I was there. I saw you with her.”

Sydney drew a deep breath. She had to. She’d very nearly had a tirade, and a lost temper was hardly the answer. “The point is,” she said more calmly, “an elderly woman was seriously injured. Her pain shouldn’t become company politics or journalistic fodder. What I did, I did because I knew it was right. I just want to make sure the right thing continues to be done.”

“You are president of Hayward.”

“For the moment.” She turned to look out the window as they pulled up in front of the apartment building. “I see we’re making progress on the roof.”