Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter One

      She’s hanging on by a thread.

      Dillon Maguire ground his teeth. He stood alone in the bay window alcove, a little apart from the others, his intense gaze fixed on his sister-in-law.

      Sitting on one of the twin living room sofas flanking the fireplace with her hands folded in her lap, Emily Collins Maguire stared into the middle distance at nothing. For the most part she seemed oblivious to the other mourners crowded into her posh, northwest Houston home. Whenever someone approached her, she raised stricken eyes and murmured a few words, even attempted a watery smile, but as soon as the person moved away she withdrew again into her own private hell.

      Dammit, it was barbaric to put her through this, Dillon silently raged. And for what? To honor a man who, in dying, had revealed himself to be without honor?

      Dillon glanced around at the other people milling through the impressive house. The fierceness of his gaze caused several of those nearby to regard him with alarm and retreat a few paces.

      Just look at them, he thought with disgust. Look at them! Swilling wine and devouring the buffet meal. They huddled together in little groups, chatting among themselves, even laughing discreetly, all the while casting sidelong glances at the widow and whispering behind their hands.

      Some were neighbors and friends. A few were family, but most of these people had been Keith’s colleagues at St. John’s General Hospital. Did they see so much death and human agony that they were inured to Emily’s pain? To the humiliation she was suffering?

      Oh sure, the doctors and nurses and other hospital staff had all been shocked by the unexpected death of one of their own, and no doubt Dr. Keith Wesley Maguire would be missed. However, Dillon suspected that a lot of these people had come to the funeral, and now the wake, not so much to show respect or to grieve, but out of a sick desire to see how the widow was holding up.

      And, of course, to rehash and relish this juicy scandal.

      Keith himself had often laughed about what a hotbed of gossip St. John’s was. And it wasn’t every day, after all, that one of the medical community’s most esteemed oncologists died in bed with his mistress.

      Though the firemen had managed to put out the blaze before it reached Keith and his lover, the pair had died in their sleep of asphyxiation, wrapped in each other’s arms, naked. Later it had been revealed that the mortgage on the apartment was in Keith’s name.

      Dillon’s gaze went back to Emily, and his mouth tightened. On the surface she appeared to be hanging in there, but she was pale as bleached flour. And so tense and fragile she looked as though she might shatter into a million pieces at any moment. Like brittle glass.

      No small wonder.

      That Emily had received the most joyous news of her life only hours earlier had made Keith’s death doubly devastating. In the space of just a few hours she had gone from euphoria to the depths of despair.

      Dillon could not even imagine how she must feel. His own grief was a crushing, hollow ache in his chest, as though someone had cut out his heart with a dull knife. He didn’t know which was worse—the pain of losing his brother, or the anger that threatened to consume him.

      A tiny muscle rippled in Dillon’s cheek as his jaw clenched tighter. Damn you, Keith. Damn you! How could you do this to her?

      His heart pounded against his ribs, but it was only when the rattle of china drew his gaze downward that he realized he was shaking with fury. He stared at the cup, dancing in its saucer, the quivering, shiny surface of the coffee that he hadn’t touched, surprised that he still held it.

      “You’re