We stared at each other silently. Martin hit his temple lightly with the heel of his palm. “Am I dreaming? Well, that’s wonderful. What a relief.” He leaned forward, taking both of my hands in his. “I’m so glad for you, sweetheart. I was going to ask if there was anything I could do to help, but…” His voice trailed off. “Who is this friend of Tariq’s who attacked you? What did your sister do to him, exactly?”

“I was too busy beating her up to ask,” I deadpanned.

“Her? How sexist of me. You don’t have to tell me I’m old. My son does it every day.” Martin smiled at me, but it was a fleeting expression. “Now, at least, I don’t need to worry about speaking ill of the dead.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. That was in poor taste on my part. But your sister’s exposed you to a seedy world.”

“Claudia has her issues,” I said, annoyed that he would bring them up now.

“She also has a way of dragging other people into them. Namely, you.” Martin went on when I started to protest. “I wasn’t sure whether I should mention this to you, Lily. I wanted to tell you something this morning, but I simply couldn’t when you said that Claudia was dead.”

“What?” I asked, annoyed and excited at the same time.

“I heard from your sister a few days ago.” Martin’s green eyes stared into mine without blinking.

“You—what?”

“She called me. A couple of days after Christmas. I think she called before it, too, but I was away on holiday. Ridley wanted to go somewhere sunny, so we went to St. Barts.”

“Why would my sister call you?” My voice was loud enough to make the doorman look our way.

“This is awkward,” said Martin, grimacing. “She made me promise I wouldn’t tell you.”

“She made you promise…”

“She called out of the blue and asked if she could borrow some money. Quite a lot of money, actually. She said she had to go to rehab, that she had to turn her life around once and for all.”

I pulled my hand out of his grasp. “She’s been to rehab before. Why would she ask you for money?”

“I don’t know, except she said she was desperate. I figured she had no one else to ask.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I asked if you knew she was calling me. She said yes. When I called you before New Year’s, I was trying to figure out what was going on. I was surprised when you said you hadn’t been in touch with Claudia for months.”

“You didn’t mention any of this before!”

“I’m sorry, Lily.” Martin looked contrite. “I thought there was some argument the two of you were in, and I didn’t want to make things worse.”