For All of Her Life by Heather Graham Page A

well as she had hoped, but she had managed to scrape together something of a campaign for one of her new authors. She hadn’t gotten any editing done nor had she read any proposals on books to be scheduled for publication, but despite her job title, she did do most of her editing at home.
    Except that she wasn’t going straight home. She left the office and headed for the gym, where Jeremy was at first all business, reminding her that she needed some warm-up time before working with the free weights, and that she’d been such a couch potato lately she deserved to start on the Stairmaster.
    This was fine with Kathy. The most wicked machine in the place was alienated in its own little area, leaving her free to talk to Jeremy while she worked. She explained to him that she had decided to go to Star Island, but that she wasn’t thrilled about doing it, that she was going to be very uncomfortable—and that she needed him.
    He listened, intrigued. But when she finished, he shook his head uneasily. “You’ve got to come with me!” Kathy said firmly. She marched hard on the Stairmaster, heedless for once of the pain shooting through her legs. She didn’t mind really working this evening because it was one way to get Jeremy’s complete and undivided attention. “Please!” she begged.
    “Kathy,” he said firmly, standing at her side, arms crossed over his chest as he stared at her, “it was one thing to pretend last night that we’re involved—that was a very sticky situation—but we’re all grown-ups here, and you can’t keep that kind of pretense up. Your daughters will know—”
    “My daughters will not say anything.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    She stopped, breathing heavily, leaning over the stair machine rail. “Because they’re daughters, Jeremy, girls. They understand pride and the like.”
    “I can’t get the time.”
    “You’re dying to see the Star Island estate, I know it.”
    She had him there. He shrugged, then snapped at her. “Don’t you dare stop stepping, you’ve got another ten minutes to go here!”
    “Jeremy—”
    “Kathy, will you listen to this? You want me to come to Florida with you and pretend that we’re having a hot and heavy affair so your ex-husband won’t worry about you!”
    “Ummm, something like that,” she said evasively.
    “Kathy—”
    “My mother’s coming, too,” she said.
    “You are in a sad situation!” he agreed.
    “She said to insist that you accompany me. She wanted you to know she thinks you should definitely come.”
    “Is that a bribe? She’ll start working out, too?”
    “I think so.”
    “Kathy—”
    “Jeremy, he’s dating a little kid!”
    “Ummm. Tara Hughes. Sexy little kid.”
    “My point exactly. She’s very young.”
    “She’s around thirty, I think.”
    “I’m at least fifteen years older.”
    “But very well preserved!” Jeremy said cheerfully. “No new decay today that I can see.”
    “You might not be looking closely enough,” Kathy murmured. She sighed deeply. “Please try to understand. She’ll be there. Hostess in what used to be my house.”
    “You left it,” he reminded her stubbornly.
    “Right. And I didn’t mean to go back to it.”
    “But you agreed to do so.” She nodded, stepping harder on the exercise machine and still not noticing the pain of such determined effort. Were she only this worried on a daily basis, she’d have the best thighs in all New York.
    “You told me I had to do it, remember?” she said to him. “‘The party of the century?’”
    “When do you ever listen to me?”
    “I feel I need to for some reason. Didn’t you notice, last night, Jeremy? He was tense; this whole thing really means a lot to him.”
    “He didn’t seem tense to me.”
    “That’s because you don’t know him.”
    “He was completely the gentleman. Not in the least tense. Even when the police had their guns in his face. I thought you said he had quite a temper.”
    “He does. On occasion. And