Breathing Room

discipline, and prayer, people can make their dreams come true.”

“If I wanted to hear all this, I’da bought a ticket to one of your lectures.”

“Yet here I am giving you my wisdom for free.”

“Lucky me. You done yet? ’Cause I got other offices to clean tonight.”

Isabel stepped down from the couch, handed over the dust cloth, then rearranged the cleaning bottles on the top of the cart so Carlota wouldn’t have to reach so far for the ones she needed. “Why did you ask about jeans?”

“Just trying to picture it in my mind.” Carlota popped the rest of the Snickers into her mouth. “All the time you look ritzy, like you don’t know what a toilet is, let alone how to clean one.”

“I have to maintain an image. I wrote Four Cornerstones of a Favorable Life when I was only twenty-eight. If I hadn’t dressed conservatively, no one would have taken me seriously.”

“You’re what, sixty-two now? You need jeans.”

“I just turned thirty-four, and you know it.”

“Jeans and a pretty red blouse, one of them tight ones to show off your boobs. And some really high heels.”

“Speaking of hookers, did I tell you those two ladies who hang out by the alley showed up at the new job program yesterday?”

“Those whores’ll be back on the street by next week. I don’ know why you waste your time with them.”

“Because I like them. They’re hard workers.” Isabel kicked back in her chair, forcing herself to concentrate on the positive instead of that humiliating newspaper article. “The Four Cornerstones work for everybody, from streetwalkers to saints, and I have thousands of testimonials to prove it.”

Carlota snorted and turned on the vacuum, effectively ending their conversation. Isabel shoved the newspaper in the trash, then gazed toward the lighted niche in the wall to her right. It held a magnificent Lalique crystal vase etched with four interlocking squares, the distinctive logo of Isabel Favor Enterprises. Each square represented one of the Four Cornerstones of a Favorable Life:

Healthy Relationships

Professional Pride Financial Responsibility

Spiritual Dedication

Her critics attacked the Four Cornerstones as too simplistic, and she’d been accused more than once of being both smug and sanctimonious, but she didn’t take anything she’d earned for granted, so she’d never felt smug. As for being sanctimonious, she was no charlatan. She’d built her company and her life by applying those principles, and it gratified her to know that her work was making a difference in people’s lives. She had four books to her credit, with a fifth coming out in a few weeks; a dozen audiotapes; lecture tours scheduled through next year; and a hefty bank account. Not bad for a mousy little girl who’d grown up in emotional chaos.

She gazed at the tidy piles on her desk. She also had a fiance, a wedding that she’d been promising to plan for a year, and paperwork she needed to attack before she could go home for the night.

She waved good-bye as Carlota wheeled away her cart, then picked up a thick envelope from the Internal Revenue Service. It should have gone to Tom Reynolds, her accountant and business manager, but he’d called in sick yesterday, and she didn’t like letting things pile up.

Which didn’t mean that she was driven, demanding, or difficult.

She slit the envelope with a monogrammed letter opener. The press had been calling all day for her comments on the newspaper article, but she’d taken the high road and refused to respond. Still, the negative publicity made her uneasy. Her business was built on both the respect and affection of her fans, which was why she tried her hardest to live an exemplary life. An image was a fragile thing, and this article would damage hers. The question was, how badly?

She pulled out the letter and began to read. Halfway through, her eyebrows shot up, and she reached for her telephone. Just when she’d thought her day couldn’t get worse, now she had a screw-up with the IRS. And it looked like a doozy-a bill for $1.2 million in back taxes.

She was scrupulously honest with her taxes, so she knew that it was one of their maddening computer errors, which didn’t mean it would be simple to straighten out. She hated to pester Tom when he was sick, but he’d need to attend to this first thing in the morning.

“Marilyn, it’s Isabel. I need to speak with Tom.”

“Tom?” Her business manager’s wife’s speech was slurred, as if she’d been drinking. Isabel’s parents used to sound like that. “Tom’s not here.”

“I’m glad he’s feeling better. When do you expect him back? I’m afraid we have an emergency.”

Marilyn sniffed. “I-I should have called you earlier, but…” She burst into tears. “But I-I couldn’t…”

“What’s wrong? Tell me.”

“It’s T-Tom. He’s-he’s-” Her sobs caught in her throat like a jackhammer stuck in blacktop. “He’s r-r-run off to South America with m-m-my s-sister!”

And, as Isabel discovered less than twenty-four hours later, all of Isabel’s money.

Michael Sheridan stayed with Isabel while she dealt with the police and endured a long series of painful meetings with the IRS. He wasn’t just Isabel’s attorney but the man she loved, and she’d never been more grateful to have him in her life. Yet even his presence wasn’t enough to avert disaster, and by the end of May, two months after she’d received that damning letter, her worst fears had been confirmed.

“I’m going to lose everything.” She rubbed her eyes, then dropped her purse onto the Queen Anne chair in the living room of her Upper East Side brownstone. The room’s warm cherry paneling and oriental rugs glowed in the soft light of her Frederick Cooper lamps. She knew that earthly possessions were fleeting, but she hadn’t expected them to be this fleeting.

“I’ll have to sell this place-my furniture, my jewelry, all my antiques.” Then there was the disbanding of her charitable foundation, which had been doing so much good at a grassroots level. Everything gone.

She wasn’t telling Michael anything he didn’t know, just trying to make it real so she could cope, and when he didn’t respond, she regarded him apologetically. “You’ve been quiet all night. I’ve exhausted you with my complaining, haven’t I?”

He turned away from the window where he’d been gazing down on the park. “You’re not a complainer, Isabel. You’re just trying to reorient yourself.”

“Tactful, as always.” She gave him a rueful smile and straightened a tapestry pillow on the sofa.

She and Michael weren’t living together-Isabel didn’t believe in that-but sometimes she wished they were. Living apart meant they saw too little of each other. Lately they’d been lucky to manage their weekly Saturday-night dinner date. As for sex… She couldn’t remember how long it had been since either of them had felt the urge.

The moment Isabel had met Michael Sheridan, she’d known he was her soul mate. They’d both grown up in dysfunctional families and worked hard to put themselves through school. He was intelligent and ambitious, as orderly as she was, and just as dedicated to his career. He’d been her sounding board as she’d refined her lectures on the Four Cornerstones, and two years ago, when she’d written a book about the Healthy Relationship Cornerstone, he’d contributed a chapter offering the male point of view. Her fans knew all about their relationship and were always asking when they were getting married.

She also found comfort in his pleasant, unassuming looks. He had a thin, narrow face and neatly trimmed brown hair. He was only a little over five feet nine, so he didn’t tower above her, something that made her uneasy. He was even-tempered and logical. Most of all, he was contained. With Michael there were no dark mood swings or unexpected outbursts. He was familiar and dear, a little stuffy in the best possible way, and perfect for her. They should have been married a year ago, but they’d both been too busy, and they got along so well that she’d seen no need to rush. Marriage couldn’t help but be chaotic, even those that had been well thought out.

“I got the sales report on my new book today.” She tried hard not to give in to the bitterness that kept trying to worm its way to the surface.

“It was just bad timing.”

“I’m a joke on Letterman. While I was writing about the Financial Responsibility Cornerstone, my business manager was embezzling my money.” She kicked off her shoes, then pushed them under the chair to keep from tripping over them. If only her publisher had been able to stop shipment, she could at least have been spared this final public humiliation. Her last book had spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, but this one was sitting unread on bookstore shelves. “I’ve sold, what, a hundred