Fire on Fire

17. Wait for me

"Of course, not." She sighed, once again rolling her eyes. "She will come back to New York to bargain on his behalf."

"Bargain with ... who?"

"Me, of course." The woman sneered, eyes on the city's skyline. "Once she realizes what's at stake for him, she'll come begging me to free him from our contract."

"You're assuming that he'll tell her about it."

"Oh, please. Of course, he will. He'll feel bound to tell her everything just to convince her they are meant for each other and blah, blah, blah." Nancy scoffed. "She'll feel obliged to save him, because she's such a nice girl ..." She ignored Daniel's dirty look as she sneered. "As I was saying, she'll come begging me to free him from our contract."

"You'll deny her?"

"Obviously." Nancy pursed her lips. "So ...?"

"So ... she'll come to me?"

"Bingo." The woman grinned.

Daniel shook his head. "You don't know her like I do, Nancy. She'd rather starve than ask for help, my help especially." He sighed, dropping back onto his chair. "I should have taken the chance to make amends when she came for the interview," he scolded himself as he relented his tie, "I should have crawled to her feet instead of acting like the asshole she used to know."

Nancy rolled her eyes, feeling nauseous at the sound of those lovesick regrets. "Look, I don't have time to listen to you crying over spilt milk," she glanced at her watch, "I need to make sure everything is ready for the wedding."

"Wedding? What wedding?"

She shrugged. "Ideally, it would happen in about 3 months, but I might need to rush it a little bit ... my groom has a case of the wedding jitters, you see."

Daniel arched an eyebrow at her. "If I didn't know you any better, I'd say you're in love with this guy. You're going out of your way to keep him by your side ..."

"Ahhh, Danny," she laughed wryly, pinching his cheek, "you know what's your biggest problem? You never see the bigger picture."

He frowned, dumbfounded. "If you're not doing this out of love, then what ..."

"There are more important and greater things than love, Danny."

"Seems to me you're way more involved than you'd like to admit." Daniel argued. "You pretty much put your career on the line to overturn this guy's sentence, and then you even got in a relationship with him ... you laugh at me for doing all this to get Alli-I mean ... Emma back, yet you're moving mountains to chain Alex to you."

"You make me sound so cliché." She smirked.

"Maybe that's all it is."

Nancy laughed loudly – as wickedly as a woman that's about to make fur coats out of Dalmatian puppies –, truly amused. "Like I said, you always fail to see the bigger picture, Danny." She glanced at her watch. "I have to go now. You do what I said, and the lost kitten will be yours." Then, she made her theatrical exit.

Once she was gone, Daniel sighed, slumping against his chair. For a slight moment, he wondered whether Nancy was right. He and Allison – ugh, Emma, her name was Emma now, he reminded himself – had loved each other once, they'd been inseparable. Maybe not all was lost, maybe he could still make amends and start over with her ... if only he could wipe away all the hatred she nurtured towards him.

Emma Hudson may have been more compliant, but the Allison Healy he knew was a spitfire that would never accept anything from the man that was responsible for her ending up in jail, consequently ruining her life for good.