Ravi and Sora travelled to the doctor's office together in companionable silence, each preoccupied with their phones. Sam was giving her a continual byplay of the Himura subversion plot. How many negative. How many positive. Who and when. Sora's vision blurred from staring at the ultra-bright screen.

Upon pulling up outside the medical center, Sora cut off her phone out of habit.

"You don't have to sit with me, Ravi. This probably won't be much fun for you."

There was paperwork to complete, a checkup, the inevitable intrusive questions. Will he want to come in? Am I ready to share that much of my life with him?

He hoisted a shoulder in a lack of concern. "I'm where I want to be."

"You're supposed to be pitching your new line today, not sitting in a doctor's office with me."

"Imogen and Gia can handle it. It's a done deal. This is just a first concept get-together."

This was ineffective at allaying Sora's concern.

"That sounds important."

"I left my sketches in their capable hands. Defiant is a-go."

"Where did you come up with that name? You didn't have one last month."

"The models walked the first dozen sample ensembles yesterday. It was a perfect run-through. I couldn't have asked for better. They all looked cool and calm and confident. They had attitude, had a bit of give 'em hell in them. They reminded me of you."

Sora's ensuing chuckle was joyless.

"You can't be serious. I don't give anybody hell."

"You gave Evelyn three kinds on Yelena's behalf and Anthony the same on your own. You're capable of it." Evelyn and Yelena were step-sisters with all the rivalry and backstabbing that frequently came with it. But Yelena was her niece, a Gallegos; Sora raised hell for her own.

Sora swallowed, ill at ease.

"The entire Evelyn affair was far from my finest hour." In back of her mind, she kept a running tally of what topics she simply could not discuss and Evelyn with Anthony was on it, forget the Evelyn and Sam affair. Evelyn had claimed to love father and son and taken sadistic pleasure in bringing both to their knees. The ripples of all her machinations lingered, further tying their families together by creeping vines, each strangling the other out of habit with no regard for decency anymore. "I doubt it was hers either."

"Nobody came out of that smelling of roses. Love, lust, family loyalty—all of it will make you crazy if you let it."

"Is that what this feeling is? That explains everything about me."

"Not the best parts of you. That's just how you're artfully made."

"That's a line if I've ever heard one. You make it all sound real."

"I'll confess it's a line, that doesn't mean it's not real. The meaning's as real as you or me."

Just sometimes, I wonder. Sora touched his chest.

"I want to share all of this with you," she waved toward the building and the car where they sat. "My health, my odds, all of what I live with every day. But I don't think I'm there yet. There are things I haven't wrapped my head around yet, and I'm not quite ready to share it all with anyone."

"Okay."

"That doesn't mean I don't love you."

"That thought never crossed my mind." He caught her hand where it rested over his heart. "There's stuff I'm keeping close, too. That's not a lack of love. Sometimes, it's love that makes us hold more back. That's fine. That's yours. Someday, it'll be mine, too."

"I really do love you."

"I love you, more than life itself."

What made the progress of their love unnerving was that these words rung true. Sora, whose very ears had been honed by deception, could not detect any. She didn't question the presence of love; she questioned how long it would remain.

"Wait with me?"

"It would be my pleasure."

Sora exited the car first with Ravi right behind her. They walked into the doctor's office hand in hand, and that was the way they left two hours later.

...

...

After saying goodbye to Ravi, Sora picked up Tommy from the Himura daycare center and headed home for another afternoon of quality time with her favorite boy. Something about a clean bill of health made her want to roll around on the playmat having tickle fights with her son.

Dinner was SpaghettiOs for the young sir and chicken carbonara, delivered from Bombay Osteria, for her. She and her baby boy toasted her good health with wine and apple juice, respectively, and then settled in for an early night of Baby Einstein and the Bloomberg Report. They were both dozing well before Tommy's scheduled bedtime.

Once Tommy was down for the count, Sora resigned to bed with a stack of articles Sam and Cristina had messengered to the house covering the last two quarters of her tenure.

'Progress or Pipedream? Is Himura's New CEO Tackling Too Much Too Soon?'

In an economy rife with layoffs and cutbacks, industry insiders are asking whether Himura Media Group's new head is taking the right stance against falling profits. Reducing layoffs that cut wide swaths in the Himura workforce to save families and reduce unemployment is enough to bring a tear to any American voter's eye, but is it enough to save a business in jeopardy that might not be were it in more ruthless hands? Say the hands of one Anthony 'King Anthony' Himura, Jr., the disgraced but not forgotten former CEO and heir to the Himura empire.

Experts say that Himura must make a quick turnaround or risk a capital freefall from which the media conglomerate may not recover and not even a man called King can fix. Are the experts right or are they just 'crying wolf'?

Only time, and the bottom line, will tell.'

Sora swished her mouthful of Merlot. That was her third article so far. The previous two had focused on the public progress of her friendship with Ravi to the exclusion of her business interests, which was a problem, if not one she was overly concerned of. This heelturn was problematic.

Sora tossed back her sheets and made for the kitchen. She was going to need more wine.

'Is this Feminism financially fatal?'

Babies in the workplaces. Playpen in the corner office. Is this the sort of example we want to set for working mothers to come? If you ask Sora Gallegos Himura, the new reigning CEO of the Himura Media Group, the answer is 'hell yes.' Gallegos Himura is doing her level best to have it all; the big chair, the baby, and the handsome new lover, but can she handle it?

Trusted insiders within the multimedia giant say no. Gallegos Himura isn't suited for the brutal chore of taking the sickest of the Himura herd to the woodshed to be put out of their misery—in the words of one source.

Her predecessor and former husband Anthony Himura, Jr. is well-known for his no-nonsense approach to profiteering. This includes a relentless, unwritten policy of terminating longstanding employees just before their pensions are to be a paid and issuing ironclad employee contracts that preclude legal recourse in the event of allegations of wrongful termination. Though unpopular moves, these initiatives have kept Himura Media Group as the foremost earning in the publishing industry for the last decade. Until Sora Gallegos Himura's appointment to the position.

The addition of a fully-equipped childcare to the headquarters of Himura Media Group's Los Angeles branch has caused more than one raised eyebrow among her professional peers. Watercooler chatter seems to imply that Gallegos Himura has bitten off more than she can chew between her young son, her impetuous beau, and questionable health status, and the proof is in the profit margin. Where other corporate working mothers of the industry should be rallying behind her, there's been an ominous silence, leading some to question whether Gallegos Himura is being set up as a martyr to the cause of modern feminists the world over.

Some women can do everything a man does backwards and in heels and some cannot. Which one is Sora?

Sora tossed the entire pile onto the empty side of the bed. The gist of the media narrative was becoming clear to her; this was a takedown that hit where it hurt. She could acknowledge that she was spread thin. She didn't see as much of Tommy as she'd like. She didn't get as much time to sleep or to eat or to see Ravi and Dhiren as would have been ideal. Those were sacrifices she was willing to accept in exchange for doing a job that made her proud to go to work. Failing didn't make her feel proud, though that was all interpretation and those were all fouled up as evidenced by each of these thinly-veiled criticisms of her performance.

I've done well. I've done the best I can. I'll make them see that, and if it's my last act as chief executive of this company, so be it. Sora held back tears of frustration. She could bear failing; it was being cut off at the knees that got her. It's never enough.

Sure that sleep would be impossible in this mood, Sora put in a call to the one person capable of easing her mind.

It's still early.

The phone got off half a ring before he answered.

"Hi."

Ravi let out a voracious yawn.

"Hey."

"Are you at home?"

"Working late. How was your night in?"

"Therapeutic and then some."

Sora covered those articles with the unused pillow on the other side of the bed.

"I'm jealous," he sniffed, a chair creaking in the background.

She was reminded of how drawn he'd looked behind that flirtatious smile of his.

"You sound beat. How have you been sleeping?"

"Not as well as I'd be sleeping with you next to me."

Sora curled up with her pillow, wishing it were him. One of his hugs would have gone a long way to clearing the dark clouds hanging over her.

"Nice save. Answer the question."

"I'm not sleeping. There's no time. We're working around the clock to update Yelena's Truth line for winter, and I've got my hands full prepping for awards season next year. That's not counting the Defiant line we've gotta get up and running for the buyers by next month."

Sora thought back to a wheedling text her niece had sent earlier in the day.

"You need to take care of yourself. Imogen told me about you nodding off in a meeting earlier this week. I thought you were sleeping okay."

"There aren't enough hours in the day. Now that I'm sharing the vice presidency with Hana, I'm burning the midnight oil to keep her from blocking every other item on my agenda."

Sora remained of two minds about Ravi and Hana working together. On the one hand, she was glad Ravi had fessed up about Manendra's terms instead of hiding them for fear of her reaction. On the other, she might have slept a tad easier not knowing. The price of honesty was the truth, and tonight it was costing her sleep.

"Sounds like a day in my life at Himura. If I'm not putting out fires with the department heads, I'm on the phone with our partners, or Tommy's nanny, or the Board, or Anthony himself on a bad day. For someone who no longer works here, he has an opinion on everything."

"I respect that. That's how I feel about Misra whenever Narsi makes a decision I disagree with. You can hear my unsolicited opinions from the next county and I only have a 20% stake."

"Your green eyes are showing."

"I'm green all over, honey."

Sora hauled her wildly protesting waking mind from the gutter.

"You've gone and made me curious."

"Don't make me drive over there."

"You're too tired to drive and I'm wearing reindeer pajamas I got as a gag gift at Christmas. Can you handle that amount of sexy on so little sleep?"

"I'd be more than willing to give it try." His ensuing yawn was not as convincing. "Betrayed by my own body once again. I tell you, aging is hell."

"You've got wisdom in every grey hair."

"You mean like the ones you're covering up every three months?"

"Don't start. Those are brown roots. It's maintenance."

"Keeping telling yourself that. You're not that young compared to me."

Sora reflected balefully on fortieth birthday.

"I'm young at heart."

"I like how that sounds. Forget what my driver's license says. When I'm with you, I might as well be twenty-five."

"Love's funny like that."

"Love with you."

Sora hugged her pillow closer and wished once again he was beside her. She'd be wishing long into the night.