Sunday morning's surgery to reset her distal radius fracture—as Dr. Best-in-the-County described it—was a success. The five pins holding the broken pieces together were expected to make her recovery more painful and complicated, but the generous dose of painkillers she had received helped Ali not care as much.

Only when she learned that she wouldn't be discharged until Tuesday morning at the earliest did Ali panic. She had tons of daily meetings, not to mention deliverables that now couldn't get done. Without access to her laptop or cell phone—her father still refused to hand over either—she couldn't even prepare for the business trip to California she had later in the week. As the surgical anesthesia wore off and her body hurt more and more again, the added anxiety made her even sicker.

"Just give me her number and I'll call your assistant for you," Robert offered, turning away as she vomited bile into a plastic kidney-shaped dish. "What was her name again? Nora?"

Wiping her mouth on the sleeve of her hospital gown, Ali held out her hand. "Give it to me. I need to talk to her."

When Nora didn't answer, Ali was stuck with leaving a harried voice mail about having a medical emergency, but expecting to return to the office by Wednesday.

"Are you sure about that?" Robert looked skeptical when she handed his phone back. "Didn't the doc say to rest for at least a week or two?"

"I'm fine, Robert," Ali replied before hunching over the vomit pan again.

* * *

Against her mother's wishes, on Tuesday Ali headed back to Manhattan. Marco had graciously offered to drive her home, but apart from making a wisecrack about the color of the short arm cast running from the base of her elbow to the middle of her hand, his greeting was terse.

Like it was her fault someone in the operating room had decided to use neon-pink fiberglass on the accessory she'd be wearing for the next six weeks.

Ali sighed. The two-hour drive would be awkward, but she knew better than to pry her brother for conversation. It would probably circle back to how she'd ruined their parents' special weekend anyway. They had visited the hospital every day and insisted her well-being was their priority, but Ali worried they were quietly disappointed by her foolishness. How could they not have been, when even she couldn't forgive herself?

Marco's Range Rover hit a pothole, and Ali balanced the vase full of summer wildflowers on her lap so it wouldn't spill. The bouquet had officially come from Foxhall Investments, but Nora was more than likely responsible for the gesture. It was the only thing Ali took away from the hospital; she'd left the two-dozen red roses from Robert to brighten up the nurses' station.

When she finally arrived home, her fourteenth-floor Greenwich Village apartment felt emptier than ever. Dragging herself to the couch, she fired up her laptop for the first time in four days. She'd tried to make a dent in her 139 unread work emails in the car, but staring at the small phone screen had made her nauseated. Now she cleared half of the lot in an hour. But those were only the easy, "FYI" messages, and her recurring aches kept her from focusing much longer. Deciding the remainder would need to wait until tomorrow, Ali took some pills and went to bed.

Invigorated by the thought of getting back to her old routine, on Wednesday she was one of the first people in the Midtown office. Arriving early also helped her avoid the more curious looks and awkward quips about why she was wearing oversized sunglasses inside.

Because not even Estée Lauder makes foundation substantial enough to cover my shiner, Ali thought as she grimaced at the junior account manager who'd made the latest comment while she snuck into the ladies' room.

By the time Nora arrived, she had sorted the rest of her emails, which was no small feat given the almost uselessness of her dominant hand. Operating the computer mouse was nothing compared to having to peck at the keyboard, but writing something even remotely legible with a pen was impossible. Worse yet, she'd halved the recommended dose of pain meds, and the increasing throbbing in her wrist was making it harder and harder to concentrate on bond ratings and profit ratios. After a few hours, when the pain got so bad it made her eyes tear up during a colleague's presentation, Ali finally took another one of the small, round pills.

She probably should have eaten something first.

The opiates quickly blocked the pain, but they also made her uncontrollably drowsy. When lunchtime rolled around and Nora entered her corner office with an unsolicited chicken Caesar salad, she had to nudge Ali—sprawled across her keyboard—awake. She was respectful enough not to comment, but her face conveyed both sympathy and concern.

Less than an hour later, the phone on Ali's desk rang. It was an internal company number, but she didn't recognize the extension. Usually, most calls would come through her assistant, so it was a surprise when the director of human resources greeted her.

The woman on the other end of the line was polite yet firm. Word of Ali's hospitalization had reached her, and as per company policy, she needed a copy of Ali's medical clearance authorizing her return to work. Knowing her paperwork stated her return date to be next Monday, and even that was contingent on a follow-up, Ali had no choice but to head back home.

Luckily, no one had thought to remove her remote access. Still, although she was operating out of the relative comfort of her own home—including switching her Burberry suit for flannel pajamas—the afternoon didn't get much better. Alternating between painful distraction and sleepy restlessness, Ali managed to accidentally send a half-completed email to a new client and carry on a phone conversation for two minutes before realizing she'd called the wrong extension.

By Thursday, she had learned her lesson. No more work until Monday.

That vow lasted for approximately six hours.

She had taken a leisurely stroll through Central Park, gotten a manicure, and bought a new Dior scarf when her phone rang. It was the colleague who'd gone on the trip to San Francisco in her place. He had used her presentation with the potential investors, but they had questions he couldn't answer. As she stood in front of a Chelsea coffee shop staring at her pathetic reflection in the storefront—hair in a haphazard ponytail and wrist in the pink cast—Ali also couldn't recall why she had calculated potential first-year earnings based on the Nikkei index instead of the Nasdaq. Neither the clients nor the venture were Japanese, which would warrant the former, so why didn't she use the New York numbers?

There was always a solid reason for her methodology, but Ali's hand shook as she struggled to recall this instance. Knowing it was a key factor in determining financial viability and that it could stall the deal even before it began, she attempted one of her canned answers.

"Tell them the liquidity requirements for Nasdaq aren't favorable for IP-heavy start-ups. We're maximizing profit—"

"They've been in business eleven years," her colleague on the other end interrupted. "That's hardly a start-up."

She gritted her teeth at the error. "Well, I'm on sick leave, so I shouldn't even be talking to you right now. Just tell them to call me next week." Ali hung up the phone, scolding herself for the compound blunders. She'd never let down a colleague before like that, but making up stuff now would just lead to a bigger mess to clean up later. She'd have the proper answers on Monday after reviewing the files again.

But she never got the chance. Ali had only gotten halfway through her tall latte while catching up on the breaking news in the Financial Times when Nora stuck her head through the door. "Mr. Lassiter wants to see you."

Ali's heart rate skyrocketed. Aaron Lassiter was a big gun, one level above her direct supervisor. They'd only personally interacted twice before: when she was originally hired at Foxhall as part of the management trainee group and when she was eventually promoted to an assistant vice president. What did he want now?

Her palms sweated as she took the elevator up three floors. The executive assistant at the desk outside the executive office must have been expecting her, as she only gave a quiet nod for Ali to go inside. There—without offering her a seat or getting up from his own—Mr. Lassiter, in his impeccable suit and smart bow tie, proceeded to hand her a stack of papers and break into a monologue about procedures regarding employee well-being and mental health.

The exchange probably took less than five minutes, but it was the longest five minutes of Ali's life, in spite of the fact that she was staring at Lassiter's framed diploma for probably half of it. The object sat prominently above his head and directly in her sight line, and Ali briefly struggled to recall whether Howard University was in Atlanta or DC. She would have been better served by paying attention to what he was saying and she didn't even comprehend the impact of the one-sided conversation until she was back on her own floor, standing at Nora's desk.

"What happened?" The older woman rushed to her side, directing Ali to a nearby chair.

She stared straight ahead. "I've been put on a mandatory leave of absence."

Nora flinched. "On what grounds?"

"Medical. Apparently word spreads quickly when you make a few innocent mistakes," she whispered, thinking of her recent performance, but suspecting there was something more driving the decision. The senior vice president had actually brought up her unusually risk-averse recommendation to accept a domestic offer on a Vermont ski resort rather than bargain with an unreliable German partner who—unbeknownst to her—had a direct line to Lassiter's ear.

"Can he do that?" Nora asked, drawing back in surprise.

Ali blinked several times before answering, "Supposedly there's a federal regulation concerning the mental competency of individuals empowered to conduct high-liability transactions. Foxhall is legally obligated to verify whether a person in my position is able to do her job," she said with a sigh, recalling her data gaffes and general indecisiveness. "And I guess they don't think I can."

"What? That's preposterous," Nora said as she crouched beside her. "So they're just going to keep you away until they deem you fit again?"

"Not quite," Ali said, handing over the papers still in her hand. "They've been kind enough to book me a spot at this Pebble Creek Lodge place for the next thirty days." Her words dripped with sarcasm.

Nora glanced at the e-ticket. "You're leaving for Colorado Springs tomorrow?"

Ali sighed again. "Looks like it."

"A first-class inpatient rehabilitation program in the heart of the majestic Rocky Mountains," Nora read from the website printout. "Spa, stables, lakefront vistas, award-winning chefs, and highly trained therapists for a range of mental and physical needs."

She shrugged. "Horses are probably the last things you want to see for a while, but other than that, it actually doesn't sound too bad."

Ali scoffed. "Sure, if you're going there willingly. This isn't a vacation, Nora. They're having me sign forms to authorize my doctor to send this place my files, for god's sake."

"You're right," Nora said before standing up. "And you have no say in this?"

"Not if I want to keep my job." Ali shook her head. "Or career, for that matter. If they let me go and word gets out about why, no one else in the industry will hire me."

* * *

"You couldn't have come at a better time. The Rockies are magnificent during the summer," said the Lyft driver as Ali buckled herself into the back seat.

"So I've heard," she muttered, already having trouble breathing from the elevation. How she was going to manage a month of this, she had no idea.

The forced leave also came with other fun perks like no company credit cards and forbidding Ali from doing any work remotely. Without access to the Foxhall network, she thought she'd have trouble keeping distracted, but after about twenty minutes of watching the landscape go by, she was actually starting to relax.

Bam!

"What the hell was that?" she asked, her heart pounding in her chest from the unexpected sound that came out of nowhere. It was like thunder, but there wasn't a cloud for miles.

The driver laughed. "First time hearing a sonic boom, huh? You get used to them pretty quick around here," he said, pointing to the sky.

Ali was still confused. "Oh yeah? And why is that?"

The guy glanced back, his expression incredulous. "You seriously don't know where you are, lady? The Air Force Academy where they train all of them hot-shot pilots is just up the road a bit."

She nodded, feeling dumb at not having put two and two together. Of course she'd heard about that place. It was one of the best public colleges in the US and the cadets had some of the most badass uniforms of all the military branches. "Right. Thanks."

Luckily the driver didn't care about her embarrassment and they soon left the highway in renewed silence.

The nearby rocky peaks and the narrow road lined with tall pines meant that her mountainside retreat was likely nearby, and Ali felt herself becoming on edge again. Opening her purse, she looked at the various prescription bottles, but hesitated.

The last-minute travel and time zone change had totally messed up her dosage schedule, and while her wrist was now also tender, the pain pills had to be taken with food. Not feeling like she could wait with her anxiety medication, Ali quickly downed it dry and made a mental note to take everything else as soon as she could find something to eat.

No sooner had she gotten her stuff situated again did the car slow.

"Are we there yet?" she asked, unable to catch herself before the words of a ten-year-old on a family road trip left her mouth.

"Naw. Just some dumbass in the way," said the driver, motioning up ahead.

Craning her neck, Ali saw a black truck stopped in the lane in front of them. As the Lyft slowed to safely overtake, she caught a glimpse of a man in full cowboy getup—blue jeans, boots, plaid shirt and brimmed, felt hat—working on changing a flat tire. As if sensing being watched, he turned his head in her direction and for a moment, they locked eyes.

Ali gasped. She'd met a lot of different people both personally and professionally. In her world travels, she had seen faces from all walks of life. But this man, even from the brief glimpse she got as her car rolled by, was the most attractive bastard she had ever laid eyes on.

"Should we stop to help?" she asked, already getting a little wet at the thought of an introduction. Shameless? Sure. But wowza, he was really something.

But instead of slowing, her driver began to accelerate again. "I only offer bottled water and Bluetooth. Triple-a can come if he's having trouble."

Although it felt wrong, Ali couldn't help but smile at his casual indifference. And by the time Pebble Creek Lodge came into view a few miles later, however, she'd already forgotten about it.