Duchess by Susan May Warren Page A

talked to Dash two days ago. He seemed fine, if not angry. Typical Dashielle Parks, just wanting his own way. Are you sure this wasn’t some crazy accident?”
    Fletcher looked up at her, nonplussed. “Please don’t tell me that the events of the last few days mean nothing to you?”
    She frowned at him. Even Dash didn’t know about the baby—she put her hand to her empty womb. “Of course they do. Do you think me heartless?”
    It might be true, however, that she hadn’t given enough thought about the child she’d lost. Dash’s child. Her child. Someone with Dash’s dark eyes, rogue good looks. A scamp of a little boy, or a darling, sassy girl.
    Oh. She sank down onto the bench beside him. Maybe Dash had cared for her—and just didn’t know how to show it. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so unkind, so angry with him. “I—I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know, Fletcher. And then it all happened so fast.” She folded her gloved hands together. “I never expected him to care.”
    â€œNot care? How does one not care about losing two million dollars?”
    She stilled. Looked at him. “Two—million—dollars?”
    â€œMaybe more.” Fletcher ran his hand into his thinning hair. “He told me he’d invested the studio funds, but he didn’t tell me how much until the market fell on Friday. Then, this morning, when he got the news of last night’s market crash—”
    â€œWhat crash?”
    â€œ What crash ? Do you not follow the news at all, Roxy?” Fletcher stared at her as if she might be a child. “The stock market in New York City. It crashed this week. First on Friday, and then—well, Dash put everything Palace Studios had into the market, hoping to revive us.”
    â€œI know things were bad—that’s why Dash loaned me out to Rooney. But I thought—”
    â€œThey’re worse than bad. We have nothing left.” Fletcher sighed, covered his face with his hands. “I don’t blame him for trying to escape it all.”
    Escape? She stared at Fletcher, something hot rising inside. “Well, I do.” She stood up. “I think he has a lot of nerve. He’s not the only one with something at stake here. We were supposed to build the studio together. That’s why we—” She closed her mouth. Glanced over her shoulder. Yes, press congregated at the end of the hall, near the nurses’ station, probably tuning to her every word.
    She turned and marched to the swinging doors.
    â€œYou can’t go in there—”
    â€œWatch me.”
    The scent of ammonia and iodine smarted her eyes as she entered the room. A nun rose from her station, but Rosie held up her hand. “I’m his wife,” she snapped and headed toward Dash.
    â€œVisiting hours aren’t—”
    â€œI won’t be long,” she said, beginning to tremble.
    Dash lay in a metal-framed bed, an oxygen cannula under his nose, tubes connecting him to fluids being pumped into his body. A white cotton blanket outlined his strong, lean body. He’d only grown more handsome over the years, with those high, regal cheekbones, his dark hair that simply wouldn’t behave, the five o’clock shadow of a bona fide playboy. No wonder she’d fallen in love with him, over and over.
    Why she still loved him now, really.
    He didn’t look like himself today, the dashing and dark studio executive. Or even the college boy she’d met and fallen for in Paris.
    She didn’t know this man, gray and broken, too many bandages and tubes to be Dashielle Parks.
    She pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes blurry. No, this couldn’t be Dash. Dash laughed and teased and made her feel beautiful.
    Dashielle Parks didn’t give up. He took the world by the tail, tamed it, made it his own. He lived by his Technicolor dreams, believing in the