“How do two people build a life together when they’ve both already built separate ones, completely different ones?” Lee demanded. “It isn’t just a matter of making more room in the closet or shifting furniture around.” The end of the paper clip broke off in her fingers as she rose. “Bryan, he lives in Arizona, in the canyon. I live in L.A.”

Lifting booted feet, Bryan rested them on Lee’s polished desk, crossing her ankles. “You’re not going to tell me it’s all a matter of geography.”

“It just shows how impossible it all is!” Angry, Lee whirled around. “We couldn’t be more different, almost opposites. I do things step-by-step, Hunter goes in leaps and bounds. Damn it, you should see his house. It’s like something out of a sophisticated fairy tale. His sister’s B. B. Smithers—” Before Bryan could fully register that, Lee was blurting out, “He has a daughter.”

“A daughter?” Her attention fully caught, Bryan dropped her feet again. “Hunter Brown has a child?”

Lee pressed her fingers to her eyes and waited for calm. True, it wouldn’t have come out if she hadn’t been so agitated, and she’d never discuss such personal agitations with anyone but Bryan, but now she had to deal with it. “Yes, a ten-year-old girl. It’s important that it not be publicized.”

“All right.”

Lee needed no promises from Bryan. Trying to calm herself, she took a quiet breath. “She’s bright, lovely and quite obviously the center of his life. I saw something in him when they were together, something incredibly beautiful. It scared the hell out of me.”

“Why?”

“Bryan, he’s capable of so much talent, brilliance, emotion. He’s put them together to make a complete success of himself, in all ways.”

“That bothers you?”

“I don’t know what I’m capable of. I only know I’m afraid I’d never be able to balance it all out, make it all work.”

Bryan said something short, quick and rude. “You won’t marry him because you don’t think you can juggle? You should know yourself better.”

“I thought I did.” Shaking her head, she took her seat again. “It’s ridiculous, in the first place,” she said more briskly. “Our lives are miles apart.”

Bryan glanced out the window at the tall, sleek building that was part of Lee’s view of the city. “So, he can move to L.A. and close the distance.”

“He won’t.” Swallowing, Lee looked at the pages on her desk. The article was finished, she knew it, just as she knew that if she didn’t let it go, she’d polish it to death. “He belongs there. He wants to raise his daughter there. I understand that.”

“So, you move to the canyon. Great scenery.”