Until You

"Well?" Thurston asked, when the men's eyes met.

"I'm going to kill the piece of shit who wrote this," Conor said. His voice was calm, as if they were discussing nothing more urgent than the weather, but a vein had risen in his forehead and pulsed visibly just beneath his skin.

Thurston's lips curved in what might have been a smile.

"I take it you're back on board, then?"

"Call Langley. I want a plane waiting at Charlottesville to fly me to New York."

Thurston pulled a cell phone from his pocket. "Done. What else?"

"I get carte blanche. No idiocy with filling out forms in triplicate, no wasting time getting court orders if I need to do something that's not quite kosher."

"Of course."

"And you'd better make sure the Committee understands that I'll do whatever it takes to protect the girl, even if it means the President ends up with dirt on his shoes."

"My dear boy, presidents never end up with dirt on anything."

"Nixon did."

Thurston's smile flickered on again. "Ah, but Nixon didn't have the Committee. Do whatever you must. Just clean up this mess, once and for all."

Conor pulled on his jacket. "You're all heart, Harry, did anybody ever tell you that?"

"Having a heart never meant a thing in this business, O'Neil. When you come down to it, having one's a liability. You, of all people, should know that."

Conor nodded. He had not only known it, he had lived by it. And he would, again, when this was over.

* * *

Boring, Miranda thought, bor-ing!

Why had she let herself be talked into attending this party?

Eva had told her it was a charity function. Papillon, she'd said, believed in supporting good works. What she'd neglected to mention was that the purpose of this particular good work was to raise monies to provide works of art for homeless shelters around the city.

Art? For people who needed roofs over their heads and, probably, food in their bellies?

It was a concept that was totally Eva. There she was now, holding court across the room, her hairdo impeccable, her makeup perfect, her gown the latest creation from Donna Karan. Hoyt was beside her, resplendent in his tuxedo, looking for all the world like the perfect ambassador though he wasn't an ambassador. Not yet.

To hear Eva tell it, that was her fault.

"Those dreadful notes surely originated with someone of your acquaintance," she'd said at dinner the first night Miranda was back in the States. "Please be sure you keep better friends, so long as you remain in this city—which we shall help you do, by having you live here, with us."

Miranda had sat there, smiling politely. The next morning, she'd gone apartment-hunting, subletting the first place that was acceptable. Then she'd made some phone calls to people she knew. Hi, she'd said, wasn't it cool? She was in town and hey, where did people go to have fun?

The next day, she was living in her new apartment and the day after that, she'd made both The Huffington Post and Page Six, her name splashed in heavy black print beneath photos of her snapped on the dance floor at a hot little club in the meatpacking district where she'd probably been the only person in the place who didn't have a tongue full of gold studs.

Eva had phoned, voice icy with disapproval.

"The Papillon image is not well-served by such publicity," she'd snapped, and Miranda had said that if Eva preferred, she could find so

meone else to be the Chrysalis girl.

Eva had made it clear that personal preference had little to do with the situation. Using Miranda as the Chrysalis model was the story she and Hoyt had concocted to explain her return. Miranda had almost laughed. She'd thought of pointing out that people who knew them also knew that mother and daughter had barely spoken to each other in the past eight years, but she'd simply repeated, politely, that the choice was Eva's.

She would conduct her personal life as she saw fit.