“It’s a good thing you didn’t buy the red mink jacket, she would have hated that more.”

“It was too expensive.”

“Yes, it was,” Theo agreed. “It’s overpriced.”

“I still have the purse if you want it.”

“Never mind. I know exactly the right one for her. What did you give her instead?”

“Nothing. It wasn’t her birthday.”

“You lied to me about your sister’s birthday? Oh my God, you are a liar. She’s right!” Theo was laughing and he grinned.

“Maybe introducing the two of you was a mistake. I’m starting to think so, if you’re going to gang up on me.” He kissed her then, and was dying to get her into bed in a serious way.

“Remember what the doctor said,” she warned him. “Two more weeks!”

“I hate you,” but the way he kissed her said otherwise. It had been a fun evening for all three of them. Fiona texted him as she rode back to the Village on the subway.

“She’s terrific. Marry her,” was all it said.

Theo sent a quick email to her office before they went to bed. Two days later the package arrived of what she ordered that night after meeting Fiona. It was the Balenciaga City bag with multicolored graffiti all over it, and it was perfect for her. She showed it to Mike and he grinned when he saw it. It looked like it had been made for her or that she’d made it herself. Theo sent it to her address by messenger, with a note hoping to see her soon, and Fiona was bowled over. She sent Mike another text after that. “If you don’t marry her, I will. Best purse I ever had.”

“It’s complicated,” he responded to his sister.

“She’s already married?”

“Widowed. A year ago. Bad story.”

“I’m sorry. I love her,” Fiona wrote back.

“Me too,” Mike wrote to his sister.

The meeting between the woman he loved and his sister had been a resounding success.

Chapter 16

Theo spent another week with Mike at the hotel in New York, and then she had to get back to work. She had been gone for four weeks to see him through his recovery, and he was going to take another month off, but couldn’t travel. She had to catch up on all the things she hadn’t done while she was in New York, but they were closer than ever when she left. Her standing by him while he hovered between life and death had created a bond between them that deepened their relationship immeasurably, the way nothing else could have. They had been through the worst together.