“Did they want to discuss the Pembroke or the sordid details of my personal life?”

Ira grinned. “There are no sordid details of your personal life.”

The man did grate.

When he didn’t get a rise out of her, he continued. “Both want in-depth interviews covering your professional and personal life in whatever detail they can get.” He waved a hand lightly. “They tried to bribe me for your dress size and brand of perfume, but I-”

“Are you like this with the guests?”

“I’m only cheeky with the people who sign my paychecks. A fatal flaw, I must admit. With guests I’m smooth as honey. Mind if I sit down?”

She motioned to a mission-style rocker she’d found in a dusty store off the beaten track in Maine. Ira groaned-she might have asked him to sit on a bed of nails. Her Pembroke office wasn’t nearly as weird as he liked to pretend. It was an odd-shaped room with twelve-foot ceilings and double-hung windows, its decor reflecting her unorthodox executive style. In addition to her chintz-covered couch and rocker, and maybe art deco table, she had a Shaker jam cupboard, two caned side chairs, a truly ugly brass plant stand in the shape of a screaming eagle and a turn-of-the-century Baldwin player piano she’d found squirreled away in the far reaches of the main house before she’d begun renovations. Since the house had sat empty for so long, she hadn’t been able to save all she’d have liked to, but what hadn’t succumbed to rot-structurally, cosmetically or in furnishings, or to termites, mice or plain disuse-had remained untouched virtually since Ulysses Pembroke’s day. Her architects had been delighted not to have to undo “improvements”-layers of paint, linoleum, wall-to-wall carpeting. Unfortunately that still hadn’t made their job easy or cheap.

“How was New York?” Ira asked.

“Fine.”

“None of my business, eh?” But his gray eyes had turned serious. “Look, Dani-”

“Out with it, Ira. What’s on your mind?”