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“These are special circumstances,” he reminded her. “I’ll only stay for a couple of days.” Mentally, he went over his calendar and knew he had a few appointments that he shouldn’t reschedule, but he could definitely work around them. “Please.”

“I want to say no...”

“No, you don’t,” he replied softly. “Go and I’ll text you what time I’ll be getting in. I’ll come to your office and get the key to your house and then you won’t see me again until you get home, okay?”

“Mick...”

“Michael.”

That made her laugh. “Thank you.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, beautiful. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

****

She hadn’t slept.

Not that it was anything new, she hadn’t slept well since she got back home. But last night—between her emotions over her friend and then worrying about Mick coming—had kept her awake.

Studying her reflection in the mirror, she groaned. “I don’t think there’s enough concealer to cover these dark circles.”

Still, she did the best she could.

After making the bed, Sienna went through the rest of her boring routine and had a cup of yogurt, put her coffee in a travel mug, and left for work. According to the last text she got from Mick, he was scheduled to land around ten and then had a car picking him up to take him to her office. She had argued that she would come and pick him up and how getting a car wasn’t necessary, but he had insisted that he wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible.

Right now, she wished he was being a little more obtrusive.

Hell, she wanted that bossy, control-taking part of him to swoop in and make everything alright.

But, just as she had told him last night, in this situation, there wasn’t anything he could do.

Walking down the hall to her office felt a little like an out-of-body experience. She’d been doing this for years and never really thought about it, but suddenly it felt foreign to her. There was no comfort in being here, and she wasn’t looking forward to doing any aspect of her job. For now, she chalked it up to still easing back into things after her vacation, and her emotions over Eleanor, and the fact that Mick was going to come crashing into her world in a matter of hours.

“I’m definitely going to need more coffee,” she murmured and made sure that was her first stop before going to her desk. There were a few emails she needed to respond to as well as a couple of calls she needed to return, but once that was all taken care of and she was ready to pull up her notes for the project she was currently working on, her cell phone rang. Not recognizing the number, she let it go to voicemail.

A minute later, her phone dinged with an incoming text. Figuring it was Mick, she took a few minutes to finish getting her files open. She gave them a quick glance before reaching for her phone.

Eleanor: Hi, Sienna. This is Debbie, I’m one of Eleanor’s hospice nurses

Her stomach clenched hard and she felt her breakfast rising in her throat.

Eleanor: I just tried calling you. She had a bad night and...

Sienna didn’t read more, she simply swiped the screen and pulled up Debbie’s number and called her back.

“Hey, Sienna,” Debbie said softly.

But there was a tone.

She’d been dreading that tone.

Swallowing hard, she asked, “Is she...?”

“You should come. Soon. I don’t think she’s going to make it through the day.”

Tears instantly fell as she nodded. “I’m on my way.”