Isobel Morgan you are a coward.

Sleep came in fits and spurts, stitched together with dreams that left her breathless and so god damn needy that when sunlight kissed the horizon, she was up and out of bed to work it off at the gym. Marco slept soundly, face down in the pillow. She'd left a note on the fridge, along with her contact numbers, and spare key at the entrance for the nurse to hold onto.

You should've stayed, a voice within her chided. At least long enough to greet the nurse and give Teresa an update, not that there would've been much to report. He'd kept to his room and Isobel stayed hidden in hers for the rest of the evening. She'd heard him shuffle once or twice to the bathroom in the middle of the night, but that was about it.

But instead she'd rushed out the door, and hit the elliptical with a singular focus that would've brought a tear of joy to her trainer's eyes.

Sore but still primed a ridiculous amount of untapped energy, Isobel clocked in at work a full hour ahead of her usual start time, and slunk behind her computer where she hoped to vanish. Emails poured out in front of her—a never-ending stream she was suddenly very, very grateful for.

Emails from viewers and Passivist Activists all around the world. This was the part she loved most. Sharing in their experiences and journeys, seeing different ways her program was touching and affecting lives—moving the youth of today to become globally conscious leaders of tomorrow.

Her bubble of joy didn't last long when her phone rang on her desk and Navid's name flashed across the narrow screen.

"Hi Navid," she said, answering the phone as cheerfully as possible.

"Are you busy?" he asked and over the line she could hear the click of the keys as he furiously typed something.

"Not particularly." Please don't ask me to come to your office.

"Good. Come to my office for a brief meeting. There's something I want to discuss with you."

"Of course." Dammit. Hanging up the receiver, Isobel rose from her desk and locked her screen, a standard code of practice in a bullpen office space. More than half the cubicles had filled up and before long this floor would be a hive of activity. She'd come to love the rush of it, the live news and variety of on-air production. So much more exhilarating then the small newspaper life at The Herald.

Isobel was careful to knock before entering, and Navid closed his laptop as she entered and shut the door behind her.

"Good, okay. Let's get the uncomfortable part of this out of the way," he said, gesturing to the seat before his desk, "We've had a complaint made recently that I want to discuss with you."

"A complaint?" Isobel sat down, her legs shaking. "About me?"

Navid steepled his fingers and leaned back into his chair. "About PA and, in part, about you—well, how you're seemingly given preferential treatment."

A startled laugh burst from her chest. "You can't be serious."

"Look, Isobel, I'm not going to pretend that I agree with this—but the facts are that more than one nose is out of joint over the fact you were given an exclusive pet project that has seen considerable production support. Flights and expenses paid for New York, LA and Montreal—"

"Those were all for major stories," Isobel interjected. "And you told me we had board approval."

"We did and still do," he agreed. "But that doesn't mean other members of our team aren't displeased. Some think you don't want to see PA expand because you're hogging the spot light for yourself."

Galled, Isobel shot straight in her seat. "Is that what you think?"

"Never."

"Well, then why can't you have this matter dismissed or...I don't know, what are we even here talking about it then?"

"Because what you need to understand is that news is a finicky business, and you had a pretty strong reaction at our last team meeting when Troy suggested livening up PA to include more diverse content."

"Celebrity gossip and headline chasing is not what PA is supposed to be about."

Navid flagged a hand. "Forgive me, Isobel, I know you're passionate about this and I appreciate that PA might've started out as your baby, but it has been nursed, coddled and brought out of diapers and into pull-ups by MTV. It's ours now, and PA will become whatever it is our Board of Directors feels it should be. You're going to have to learn how to...relent."

"I don't believe this."

"I understand this is upsetting."

"Upsetting?" Isobel shot out of her seat, hands shaking. "I was told this was going to be my project. That I would have control and authority here, and now after less than three months you want to cut my knees out from under me because Troy is pissed off I didn't agree with his Vice and Virtue pitch?"

"Isobel—"

"No," she sliced him off with her hand and her words. "No, I can't listen to this anymore." She swung away from him and shot towards the door, but Navid was up and out of his seat before she could wrench it open.

"Hold on, please—stop." He caught her by the shoulders and spun her gently around. "Isobel, we're all on the same side, okay? We all want the same thing—to see PA grow and thrive and continue to do great things, but that's not going to happen if we can't continue to boost numbers. Our ratings started us off at a phenomenal trajectory, superseding even what I had anticipated, but what happens when you strike high, is you gotta keep it there or soar higher. That's not possible if we don't consider shaking things up, and expanding the program's outreach." His fingers worked over her shoulders, kneading away the tension. "Besides, we discussed trying to find ways for you to scale back so you're not burning the candle at both ends. Taking on a co-host will help even out the workload."

He was right. On some small level Isobel knew it to her marrow, but it didn't make the reality sting any less. This had been hers, always been hers, since she started PA on a blog when she was a teenager in high school. She'd lived and breathed it with such longing and determination—to have come this far, only to have it stripped from her hands now felt...like another loss.

"Just think about it, okay? Because if we can get you on board there's a chance we can soothe Troy enough to drop this complaint."

"What do you mean a chance?"

Navid dropped his hands and worked his bottom lip between his teeth. "I'm not going to lie to you, there are some concerning remarks that Troy made about him being a minority and you receiving preferential treatment because you're..."

"White?"

"Yes."

Isobel crossed her arms. "Are you freaking kidding me?"

"I wish I was."

"Well then it might surprise you to know that my mother was Jamaican-Irish. She and my Da met in Dublin when she was an art major travelling through Europe connecting with her Irish roots."

"Well..." Navid swiped a hand over his thick, black waves of hair, and expelled a heavy breath, "I'm sorry I had no idea."

Isobel crossed her arms. "That's because I didn't think it was necessary to parade my identity like a passport to prove I deserve a spot in some minority club. My father raised me, not my mother, and I know when people look at me they see a white chick, but that doesn't change what's beneath my skin."

"I wasn't trying to imply—"

"Tell me if HR needs any blood work," she snarled, gripping the door knob, "in case taking my word for it isn't sufficient enough to prove I'm not racist white trash out to stomp another black man into the ground." Storming from Navid's office, Isobel made it as far as the staff kitchen before she took a beeline straight for Troy's desk.

She found him slunk back in his chair, grinning as she approached but in his eyes she saw him grinding an axe to a lethal edge.

"I want to speak with you."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Troy said as she stopped before his desk, hands on her hips. "Anything you have to say you can say to my face. Out in the open." He circled his pen in a loop, gesturing to all the faces around them pretending not to watch the spectacle.

"Fine." Isobel's hand shot up with an aggrieved gesture. "I've heard all about the insane complaint you filed against me, and I want you to know that it doesn't change how I feel and I won't be bullied into backing down by you or anyone."

"That all?"

"No," Isobel snarled, "that's not all. If you ever think to call me racist again—ever—I will sue you for deformation of character." And Isobel made a note to herself to call Priya to confirm this was in fact a liable offense. It had to be.

She felt violated. Dirty. Stained by his words and their implication.

"I know being a privileged member of society makes this hard to hear," Troy sat forward and pasted a fake sympathetic look on his smarmy face, "but all white people are racist."

Tears burned Isobel's throat, blazed the back of her eyes, and she had to cross her arms to hide their tremble. "Roz MacLean."

"Who's that and what does she have to do with anything?"

"An artist from Toronto. Really popular in the eighties. Look her up," Isobel answered, spinning on her heel. "Then talk to me about race and privilege."

#

She tried not to think about it, but his words rankled her for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Stopping by the grocery store, Isobel angrily flung produce and cans into her shopping cart, her cheeks burning with anger and shame.

God, how it hurt. When she was a kid, how many times she's had someone look at her sideways, seeing just enough in her features to know she wasn't quite right. Why did her fair skin tan so easily, why did her hair have that strange curling texture?

Mutt. The word seared across her nerves as she recalled the first time someone ever spat the word in her face. A woman—the mother of a couple of white kids she'd befriended one Sunday afternoon and was playing with outside.

They'd asked her to come over to their house and excited, Isobel had begged Da who agreed so long as it was okay with their parents. Gleefully, they raced across the street to the house their family had just moved into last Sunday—and the woman took one scathing look at Isobel with her rioting curls and all but shoved her back out onto the front step.

"My kids don't play with mutts," she'd said and slammed the door in her startled face.

Sobbing, Isobel raced home and into her father's arms. When she'd told him what happened, he'd shot over there in a rage. Isobel had never seen her father so angry—the way his meaty fists had beat on the door and the way his cheeks flushed red when he shouted all kinds of angry words she'd never heard him say before when the woman's husband answered.

The pair of them screaming and shouting with so much anger that Isobel could almost hear the words now ringing between her ears like a siren.

She'd never forget that afternoon as long as she lived. Or the way she'd sobbed herself to sleep thinking somehow she'd done something terrible. When she got old enough to straighten to her own hair, Isobel tried everything under the sun to banish every kink and curl and over the years brushed all the pain behind a locked door in her heart.

Paying for her items at the checkout, Isobel lugged her groceries home in the back of an uber and brought them inside just as Teresa was stepping out the front door.

"There you are," she said as Isobel came up the walkway. "Late day at work."

"And had to pick up some things," Isobel answered, wiggling her bags. "Thanks for emailing me that list, earlier."

"No problem." Teresa followed her inside and Isobel carted the bags into the kitchen. "Listen, I don't know if you've been paying much attention to international news lately—but words go out that Marco's sister is stepping in as interim. The press and the public aren't happy."

"Jesus," Isobel whispered, shaking out her numb fingers.

"It's a mess." Teresa crossed her arms. "Which means naturally press around the world are now looking to get Marco in their crosshairs for a statement, interview—something. We'll of course make a statement, in a week or two, but for now I'll have to keep the pretense alive that he's shacked up at the Hyatt in Yorkville."

Isobel's stomach plummeted with understanding. "Which means you won't be staying here with us."

Teresa shook an apologetic head. "Unfortunately no, I can't. Being here already is enough to draw more attention then we can risk. I'll have to keep a wide berth, and check-in remotely for the next little while until we sort out our next steps with the media. I'm sorry to do this to you, Isobel, I really am, but you're the only person I can trust to keep him safe."

"It's fine," she smiled, waving it away even though inside she was a terrified mess. One night alone with Marco was hell...

"Good. Alright, I've gotta go. Going to head out on foot and catch a cab a few blocks off just to be safe. If you need anything, call me day or night, otherwise I'll be in touch." Gathering her purse and coat, Teresa took off for the door and was gone.

Overhead, Isobel heard the rumble of movement and swallowed hard.

Marco trudged down the stairs, a hoodie drawn tight around his face and eyes blear y with sleep. He knuckled one eye as he stumbled into the kitchen. "What time is it?"

"Little after six," Isobel answered, packing groceries into the fridge. "I was just about to make dinner, are you hungry?"

He answered with a grunt, rifling through the packed bag in the living room before returning to the kitchen. "Where are the pain killers?"

Isobel lifted a pan down from the rack dangling over the large range stove. "Are you in pain?"

"Yes." The muscle in his jaw tensed, flickered and around the edges of the hoodie, drawn so tight it pressed into his cheeks, she could see the edges of gauze on his neck and left cheek.

"When was your last dose?"

"Dunno."

"Let me check the chart," she said, setting down the pan, wondering how she was going to get to the med stash without showing him where she and Teresa had elected to hide it. She'd already heard him twice last night, rummaging around trying to source them out. Thankfully, Isobel was well acquainted with prescription pain killers and the impact they could have on someone.

Da had quickly grown dependent on them in the early days of his injuries—popping OxyContin and Percocet like they were Tic Tacs, and Isobel had fought tooth and nail with him to ween him back on to his proper dosage.

"I picked up some fresh salmon," she said, hoping to redirect his attention. He didn't need pills—he needed food. Proper nutrition and rest, both of which he probably saw little of in a stateside hospital bed. "Or if you don't want that I can order in?"

Cupboards opened and slammed shut. "No."

"When did you last eat?"

"Dunno." He stalked across the kitchen from the pantry. "Why don't you check the damn chart?"

"Don't do that," she whispered, brittle as fractured glass. "Don't."

He stuttered to a stop at the burst of tears and the chocked sob she muffled with both hands. "Bel..."

She turned away, shaking. No, not now. Not here. Not in front of him. But she couldn't stop it. The flood gates crumbled inside of her and the tears she's swallowed down all damn day poured from her without relent.

Hands braced her shoulder. Drew her around into strong arms and the solid wall of chest.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "Please. Don't cry."

Face buried at his neck, she tried to speak but only sobs came out. Marco held her until they eased, hands gliding in circles across her back, his breath warm against her temple, whispering things she didn't understand. But the calming sound of his voice eased her heartsick pain until the storm inside her dulled to a trickle.

Carefully, he peeled her back, concerned blue eyes searching her face. "You're a mess."

"Thanks," she said through a watery laugh, dragging her hands over her cheeks. God, she'd made a mess of him two—his hoodie damp from where she'd sobbed in his arms like a pitiful child.

"Bel." His fingers captured her chin, angling her up to his gaze. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I...its just work." She struggled to breathe, to think. When was the last time they'd stood this close? Close enough for her to see the flecks of gold in the silvery blue, or the grain of stubble around his lips? Lips that she'd spent far too much time thinking about. Much like his hands, touching her. Holding her. And how she wanted them exploring her...

The line of his brows firmed and his fingers fell away. "Salmons fine," he said stepping back, his gaze as tense as his jaw. All flickers of tenderness and concern sealed away by stony indifference. "Forget about the pills."

She watched him stalk away and vanish up the stairs to the upper level, and didn't release a heavy breath until she heard the door to her room click shut.

**AN**

GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH I don't know about you guys but Isobel and Marco kill me. Who are you shipping most in Sisterhood Bk 2 so far???? And don't worry you Priya fans, I've got something lined up for our girl that is going to scorch the page.