Actually, she was lucky to not need sleeping pills every night, as well as antidepressants every day to elevate her mood. Many people with fibro were basically disabled by the disease and lived lives of endless misery. She credited her diet and exercise habits, along with a lot of luck, for escaping that fate.

So far. She reminded herself that, just because she'd managed to continue working and having a somewhat-normal life for two and a half years, she wouldn't necessarily be that fortunate long-term. And if that ever happened, she'd realize darn quick how shallow all this worrying about her affair with Bill was.

It wouldn't be permanent, and there was no point wishing it would be. He'd get tired of her disease, and realistically, she had to wonder if s.e.x was something she'd have either the strength or interest for in five or ten years.

No. The only sensible thing was to enjoy the time she had with him, and to store up memories of what it was like to have a lover.

Bill couldn't stand feeling helpless. That's what had been the worst as a kid. He'd lain there in the darkness of the room he shared with George, whimpering after being beaten despite his best efforts to be quiet, knowing that Pop would take his anger out on Ma next. And knowing he couldn't do anything tostop it.

He was helpless again. This fibro-whatchamacallit of Nik's wasn't simply an impediment to fully enjoying being with her. It was his past thumbing its nose at him, saying, "You think you're so hot. You think you've left your childhood traumas behind. Fat chance! Let's see you deal with this!"

He made it through Monday night somehow. When he drove into the lot at work on Tuesday, he checked for Nik's car. It wasn't there, but he was early, so he refused to worry. At nine- thirty, he decided to walk to the convenience store, knowing that if her car wasn't in the lot, he'd end up at her house.

Her car was there, but that didn't tell him how she felt today. He'd stop by her office on the way back to his. Maybe he could pick up something at the store for her - but what? Even when she was feeling okay, she didn't eat the sugary and salty snacks they sold there. But how about bottled water?

Forget it. If he couldn't take her something more exciting than bottled water, he wouldn't take her anything. In fact, forget the whole trip to the stupid store. It had only been an excuse, in the first place.

He went straight back to his office. Every few minutes all day, he thought about calling her. Or sending her email. Or coming up with an excuse to go see her, or someone on her hall.

But, really, Nik wasn't his responsibility. She knew how to take care of herself at times like this, and there was no point pretending they had a future together.

Nik gripped the handles of the exercise bike a little harder. Just two more minutes. She could do it. She wasn't even using any resistance tonight!

Darn good thing. Each push of the pedals made her pant with exertion, and she wasn't entirely sure she could last. But it wasn't two minutes any longer - only about ninety seconds. She'd make it. She'd made it through work today, after all - a little better than she'd expected, actually.

And if she lasted the full five minutes she'd a.s.signed herself tonight, she could have her after-dinner treat.

A normal person might not think a one-inch square piece of chocolate was a big deal, but Nik was not a normal person. Her life was so full of things she couldn't do, and others that she had to and didn't want to, that she'd long since decided she needed a tiny indulgence on a regular basis. A square of chocolate - really good chocolate - or a spoonful of sinfully rich ice cream was her indulgence. She only had it on nights when she'd eaten right all day and done her bike riding.

The chocolate would be particularly appreciated tonight. She still resented missing time with Bill because of this d.a.m.n disease, and while a tiny piece of chocolate was no match for a night spent in his arms, it was at least something. Maybe she'd save it to enjoy just before bedtime.

Beep, beep, beep! That was the timer - she'd done it! She sagged on the bike for a few seconds to catch her breath, then stood for her cool-down stretching. She just did the minimum number of all the stretches tonight, then wrapped a big towel around herself and lay on the mat to rest. She set the timer for five minutes, knowing she might otherwise fall asleep.

When it went off, she went to the kitchen and filled a mug with soup. As she was zapping it in the microwave, she noticed the message light blinking on her answering machine. She pushed the Play b.u.t.ton, wondering where her mind had gone. She should have remembered that Neal would be checking in, since she hadn't called him in several days. But it wasn't Neal. "Hi, Nik. This is Bill. I've been worrying about you today, and I hope you're feeling better than last night. I - uh, well, you probably don't feel like talking, but it would be great if you'd call."

He paused and she thought maybe he'd hung up without saying goodbye, but then he continued, "No pressure or anything. I'd just like to know how you are." Another pause, followed by, "Bye for now."

She stared at the answering machine, suddenly emotional. It was so sweet of him to call! He couldn't know how awful it was to be a freak like this, and yet he was being amazingly supportive about everything. Maybe he wasn't as shallow as his reputation said he was.

Or maybe he just wanted to keep on her good side, and figured that pretending to value her as a human being was a good way to do that. He was a smart guy. He'd know she didn't exactly have guys lined up waiting to take his place as her lover. He could tell that fibro was the dominant thing in her life, and he'd know that if he acted concerned, she'd eat it right up.

He wouldn't have to keep the act up for long, anyway. From what she could tell from office gossip, it sounded like two weeks was about as long as he ever lasted with a woman. So he was probably looking for one more weekend before he moved on to greener pastures.

d.a.m.n him. And d.a.m.n her stupid diet, too. She ate her mug of soup, then took the carefully-wrapped bar of chocolate out of the refrigerator and into the living room with her. She ripped the paper off the bar and glared at it. How dare it be more than half-gone? Well, no matter. It was still a lot more than the paltry square she allowed herself to have.

She broke off a square precisely and placed it on her tongue. It melted slowly, filling her mouth with a rich creamy sweetness that wouldn't be here today and gone next week. When she'd eaten that square, she popped the next one into her mouth. And then another and another, even though the taste of chocolate became overwhelming. By the time she ate the last square, she was ready to swear she'd never want a piece of chocolate again in her life.

If only it was possible to overdose on Bill!

Bill was ticked off. He'd stayed home all evening, waiting for Nik to call - but had she? Not even a two-second thanks-for- calling-I'm-okay call.

The b.i.t.c.h was home, too - and perfectly capable of talking on the phone. He knew that because he'd gotten a busy signal when he called back. He called back twice, actually.

Okay then. She'd shot her allotment of phone calls and messages not returned. Bill Adams didn't waste time on women who couldn't be bothered to call him back. He didn't have to.

Come to think of it, Nik had been trying to dump him from before the beginning. She tried that ice-b.i.t.c.h act, and when it became apparent her bloodstream was more molten lava than ice- water, she switched to playing the sickie. She got to call all the shots because of her health.

What a load of bull! He guessed she really did have this fibro-thing and it was probably pretty unpleasant, but she'd been active enough in bed over the weekend. Not like Jade, of course. Jade thought s.e.x didn't count unless you ended up with a couple of sore muscles the next day from all the weird positions she dreamed up. Nik wasn't like that, but she wasn't one of the lie-there-and-think-of-England types, either.

But if she didn't want to be with him, that was just fine with him. He'd been nice up to now, figuringmaybe he owed her something from before, but no more. He'd go his way, and she could go hers.

By Thursday morning, Nik knew she was going to be okay. She just needed to flush the remains of last night's sleeping pill out of her system, and then she'd be pretty much back to normal.

She finished her email about nine-thirty, and got up for her first short break of the day. She took the pitcher from her office to the kitchen to fill it with water from the cooler. The cooler was one of the little features she liked so much about A- W. DesignTek was a much bigger company and was well-known for caring about its employees, but the only drinks they supplied were coffee and tea. Water was much healthier.

Two AA's were already there, whispering and giggling at one of the tables. Phyllis, the a.s.sistant who covered Nik's group, waved her over. "Nik, come here for a sec. You've got to hear this."

The other one, Abby, looked a little dubious, but Phyllis said, "It's okay. Nik knows about Bill." When Abby didn't speak, she said, "Tell Nik what you told me."

Abby said, "Well, you know how perfectly groomed Bill always is? And how polite?" Nik nodded, and Abby continued, "He sure isn't either today! I was just over in the other building doing this big copying and collating job for Mr. Worthington. On the way back, I was in the middle of the courtyard with this big stack in my arms when Bill burst in the door from the parking lot. He ran right smack into me, and he didn't even stop. He just kind of staggered a couple of steps and took off toward his office - no apology, no helping me with all the copies I dropped, no nothing."

"He was just getting in? It's nine-thirty." A-W had flexible work hours, but virtually everyone got in by nine.

Abby nodded. "And that's not all - it looked like he'd shaved in the dark, and he didn't smell so great."

She wrinkled her nose, remembering. "That same cologne he always wears, but way more of it than normal, and I think liquor under that."

"You're right. That doesn't sound like Bill." If he smelled like he'd just left another woman's bed, she wouldn't have been surprised - hurt, yes, but not surprised.

Phyllis smiled in a sly way, reminding Nik that Bill had never approached her. "He obviously got drunker than usual last night, and I'll bet he's been puking his guts out all morning. I still wonder why Mr.

Worthington promoted him..."

Abby jumped to his defense. Nik was ashamed of a.s.suming that was because Abby was still hopeful of getting his attention someday. "He's very good technically and his presentations are nearly as good as Scott's, and he's only been doing them a couple of months." With a little less a.s.surance, she added, "And maybe it wasn't liquor I smelled. Maybe he has the flu - you know how the engineers drag themselves in to work when any three-year-old would know they should stay in bed."

Phyllis smiled in a superior way. "Bill's a three-year- old, all right - a three-year-old with an adolescent's fixation on s.e.x. Any woman who goes out with him should have her head examined." She sailed out of the room.

Nik knew she was right. Even so, she couldn't help hoping he wasn't through with her yet.

** Bill jerked his head up off his desk. It would be just his luck for Scott to come waltzing in while he was dying like this. The dweeb'd almost certainly never been hung over in his whole pathetic life, and he'd just love to find Bill splatted all over his desk like this.

Not that the guy would do anything about it. That was part of what p.i.s.sed Bill off about him so much. He was so reasonable, so businesslike, so d.a.m.n nice all the time. Even when Bill'd gone way over the line that time last summer, Scott was reasonable. He'd pushed back, but then he'd had to. And ever since, it was like all that hadn't happened, like it was like it had been before, when they just couldn't stand each other. How could he be so cool about what Bill had done?

Oh, geez. Using his brain made him feel like throwing up again. Why hadn't he died already? Part of the problem was that he'd started out drinking scotch, and when he emptied that bottle, he'd switched to rum. The rest of the problem was that he'd had at least a half-dozen drinks, and he doubted that any of them was as small as a drink in a bar would have been.

And the thing was, he couldn't remember why he'd poured that first drink. He'd been on the way out, trying to decide which of the women he used to date to drop in on first. The odds were pretty good he could find a willing woman without much trouble, and he was sure a night with any one of them would take care of this lingering thing he had for Nik.

Instead, he'd spent the rest of the night in his apartment, pacing and tossing back liquor. He hadn't been this hung over in years.

Was this the way Nik felt all the time? She'd compared fibro to a bad case of flu or a monster hangover, after all.

No. She couldn't feel like this all the time and still be alive. But maybe this was how she'd been feeling on Monday.

Maybe on Tuesday, too. Maybe that's why she hadn't called back.

If that was the case, he shouldn't just write her off. She'd said it would take her a few days to get back to normal. Tomorrow was Friday, so she'd had her few days.

He reached for the phone and punched in her extension. When she answered, he said, "I'm coming over tomorrow night."

She was quiet a couple of seconds and his head started pounding harder. If she said no - She said, "Okay."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Nik was waiting for Bill by five-forty-five on Friday. She'd done her stretching, eaten her soup, and showered. He probably wouldn't be here anytime soon, but she hadn't asked him what time and was unreasonably paranoid about him catching her in her ratty leotard.

He arrived five minutes later, carrying a leather duffel bag. "I didn't go to the store because I wasn't sure what you'd want to eat. I figured you'd probably eaten already and I'd wait and go in the morning."

He talked like he was moving in! She focused on the safer part of his comment. "I have plenty of food."

a.s.suming that oodles of the same few ingredients were all anyone wanted.

He checked out her body from top to bottom critically, not like he had a lot of interest in touching it. "Areyou okay? You're still a little pale."

"I'm fine. As fine as I get, anyway." She practically mumbled the last part, hating to say it, but knowing they both had to keep it in mind. When was he going to kiss her? He wouldn't be here with plans to stay overnight if he'd been seriously put off by her fibro flaring up.

"We should sit down," he said abruptly. "Standing must tire you out."

She led the way to the living room, reminding herself that he was trying to be considerate. She sat on the sofa, hoping he'd sit next to her. He didn't. He perched on the straight chair with the embroidered seat cushion. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had sat there. What was going on?

All of a sudden, he looked straight at her and blurted, "So is there some limit on how many times we make love, or is it more that I've got to let you get a bunch of sleep, or - I don't know - maybe only do certain positions, or what?"

She stopped her laugh just in time. He wouldn't like her laughing at him, but it was such a relief to know what was bothering him. "Is that what's worrying you?"

He nodded. "I don't want you getting sick again, and I know you'll probably say I should just settle for seeing you once in a while, but that's no good. So what I figure is that if you tell me what's cool and what's not, we can stay within your limits and I can still be with you every night."

"Every night?" As ridiculous as the idea was, she felt a jolt of pleasure deep inside. "There's no way I can handle every night."

He didn't challenge her, just said, "The weekends, then." Like it wasn't negotiable. Like this was only one of many weekends to come.

She'd pretend along with him for now. It felt great, even when she knew it was just pretense. "Only two nights. You leave Sunday when I go to church."

He nodded. "But what about the rest of it?"

He wanted her to say how many times they should have s.e.x? Try a couple of million or so. She shook her head. "Sorry, I can't give you an answer on that. It's all going to depend on how I feel - just like everything else in my life. Fibro's not like a piece of software, where you plug in the same data and you get the same answer back every time. It's more like a pseudo-random number generator. You know there's an algorithm creating the numbers, so they're not truly random, but you can't tell what it is."

"But that doesn't make any sense! You do all that special stuff - it must have some effect!"

It was no surprise that he didn't understand. She barely did. "Of course it has an effect. If I ate the kind of things I like all the time, I'd be a lot worse. But I never know ahead of time how I'll feel on any particular day - and even sometimes when I think I'm okay, I get exhausted all of a sudden. So we just have to wait and see how it goes."

He frowned. "But you might end up getting sick again."

"I might. But if we're sensible about things and I take it easy on Sunday, I ought to be okay." She hoped.

Anyway, it was her health she was putting at risk, so it was her business.

"You've got to promise to tell me if something I do's too much." This sitting across the room from each other deal was getting to her. "You'd have to do something before it could be too much." His eyebrows went sky-high. "Seriously, I should be fine, and I'll tell you if I'm not." She'd never thought she'd need to be forward with Bill, but apparently she did. "There are better things we could be doing right now, if you ask me."

The next second, before she even realized he'd moved, he stood in front of her and offered her his hand.

"Then let's do them."

Bill was having a perfectly lovely dream when he became aware of the noise. The dream was about Nik, and some of the things they'd done last night, and some of the other ones they hadn't had time for. The noise was nowhere near as pleasant - a scritchy sc.r.a.ping sound that wasn't rhythmic enough to be machinery, but likewise wasn't a natural part of the environment.

Where was it coming from? He sat up and looked around the darkened room, but he already knew it was farther away than that. Maybe outside? He slipped out of bed and pulled a corner of the shade out just far enough to peek.

Ah-ha! Neal was out there raking! And it was full daylight already, not somewhere around dawn, like he'd guessed. He'd slept later than usual - at least later than when he hadn't been drinking the night before.

He glanced back at the bed. Nik was deeply asleep, and no way would he bother her. He'd had a chance last night to notice her sleeping pattern, and he understood more now what she meant about not sleeping well. She'd sleep lightly for half an hour or an hour, then wake up and not fall back asleep for a considerable period of time.

He had to admit he'd thought that was convenient, early in the night. He didn't have to feel guilty about waking her, yet he had the benefit of extra chances to play. But he'd eventually gotten tired and gone to sleep himself, and he remembered just enough of the rest of the night to know that she'd continued in her restless pattern for several hours at least.

So, he'd get dressed and help Neal with the yard work while Nik slept. Neal greeted him with no surprise whatsoever. "Hey, Bill. Saw your car out front."

"I heard you raking," he replied. "What can I do to help?"

He shrugged. "Nothing that I know of. Nik's only got one rake, and raking's all I was planning to do today." For a second, he looked like he was going to make a smart remark about what Bill had obviously been doing earlier, but he got embarra.s.sed suddenly and stared down at the ground.

Geez, he guessed it would be kind of weird to think about your sister in bed with some guy. It had been weird to think about George with a woman, too, but that was a different kind of weird. He'd always found it hard to believe that George could ever act that human.

He looked around the yard, hoping to notice something he could offer to do. There were several small piles of leaves scattered around the lawn. "What happens with the leaves? Put them in trash bags or something?"

Neal looked relieved to make it past the awkwardness. "Yeah. You could get some out. They're in the garage, on a shelf near the furnace."