“Just that I shouldn’t give up my position? Is that it? Will I be less in your eyes if I decide to stay at home and take care of my husband?” With a shaky laugh, she slashed a hand through the air, her rosary beads whipping around her wrist. “Will I be wasting my life, is that what you think? Because heaven knows you seem to think you’ll be wasting yours if you dare to let my brother be a part of it.”

Maybe it was the sleep still clouding her mind, but that did not seem like the next logical step in the argument. “Why are we talking about Drake?”

Dot stared at her. Glared at her. “Honestly? You ask that? Don’t you know how he feels about you, or are you too wrapped up in your own little world of numbers to even care?”

Margot gripped the edge of the admiral’s desk. “Of course I know how he feels.”

“It means nothing to you, then? Because it doesn’t fit into the plans you had mapped out for your life?” Dot shook her head. “Go back to sleep, Margot. Get up and solve your puzzles, write out your numbers. I’m going to go home and plan my wedding. Don’t feel obligated to drop in, it would only bore you.”

Margot opened her mouth, but she didn’t know which thing to rebut first. The spoken accusations, or the unspoken one? Dot had obviously never entertained the notion that Margot did love Drake. That was apparently unfathomable. Oblivion or scoffing, those seemed to be the options her best friend had considered for her.

Dot had her hand on the doorknob, and enough panicked energy probably fired her veins to carry her out and home without a moment’s thought.

And Margot didn’t know what to say. None of the answers she could give would mean a thing to her friend just now.

But maybe a question would. “Dot.”

She paused with the door open, glaring over her shoulder. Furious. Hurting. Scared.

Drake had been right. Having courage didn’t mean the fear wasn’t always there, ready to pounce. She swallowed. “Will you want to marry him any less tomorrow? Must you make a decision today?”

The door slammed behind her.

Margot sighed and sank back onto the couch. Wrong question, apparently. She buried her fingers in her already-mussed hair and knotted them there. Why was she so miserable at this? She hadn’t had such troubles with Claudette when they were girls. She got on fine with Willa and her sisters. She’d thought she and Dot had established a solid friendship too. The kind that could stand a few tests and trials. The kind that would be there through the storms. The kind that tried to understand, not to judge.