The Billionaire's Christmas Wish. Tina Beckett

effort to do so. The little girl’s struggle poured an icy dose of reality over her. Madison tensed, resisting the urge to offer help, and when Theo looked like he might intervene, she spoke up. “She can do it. Let her.”

      “Yeah, Daddy, I can do it.” She carefully separated her cards, fumbling a little and dropping one of them in the process. There was silence as she recovered and picked it up again.

      “Player to the left of the dealer goes first.” She would have had Ivy go first, no matter which side she’d been on.

      The girl’s eyes swiveled between the two of them before focusing on her father. “Do you have any threes, Daddy?”

      Theo handed over a card. “I have one.”

      Ivy’s grin lit up the room. “I knew it.” She asked for another card, this time from Madison, who didn’t have the requested item. Then it was Theo’s turn.

      “Madison, do you have any aces?”

      “Go fish.”

      He didn’t move for a second. “How about up your sleeve? Do you have any there?”

      She froze as his eyes finally met hers. Nerve endings crackled as she stared back at him.

      “Daddy! That would be cheating, and Madison doesn’t do that.”

      Madison snapped her gaze back to her cards, none of the numbers coming into focus.

      She would cheat in a heartbeat if it meant outsmarting whatever was going on inside Ivy’s small body.

      It took them fifteen minutes to declare Theo the winner, and to Madison it seemed like an eternity. All she wanted to do was retreat to the safety of her office, lay her head down on her desk and try to come up with some kind of answer. For Ivy. And, heaven help her, for her father.

      Especially after seeing slivers of change in Ivy over the course of the game. Her cards appeared to get heavier and heavier, the young girl having to set them down in between hands. But her mind was as sharp as ever. In fact, she seemed to make up for her deteriorating condition by memorizing what was in her hand. And when she said, “Go fish,” without even looking, neither Madison nor Theo challenged her. By the end the girl was yawning, even though it was only six in the early evening.

      “Tired, kiddo?” she asked.

      “No.”

      Theo gathered the cards into a neat stack then leaned over to kiss his daughter’s head. “Why don’t you rest for a little while, and I’ll help Dr. Archer put these away, okay?”

      “Will you tell me a story later?”

      “Of course.”

      Ivy lay back against her pillows, her face pale, the muscles in her thin arms lax and still. She made no move to hug her dad. Or wave goodbye. For a child who was normally so affectionate, it struck a chord of fear in Madison.

      If she felt it, then that chord had to be a million clanging gongs going off in Theo’s head.

      God, why couldn’t she figure this out?

      A hot wave of nausea seared up her esophagus as she pictured Theo tucked in next to his child, reading her a bedtime story.

      How many stories did she have until that bed was empty? Just like Pablo’s.

      Twenty? Ten?

      Two?

      The pain grew, engulfing her with a terrible sense of responsibility.

      She needed to fix a picture of that bed in her head and stare at it. Force herself to get to grips with the reality that this was life or death.

      Wasted time can’t be recaptured. Hadn’t she just said that not very long ago? Yes, and it was true. It couldn’t.

      Neither could lost opportunities.

      She straightened her backbone. So she needed to do something about it. Needed to work faster. Harder.

      Theo led the way from the room and handed her the rest of the cards. “I gather there was a reason for that. Quite clever, actually.”

      It took her a few seconds to realize he hadn’t read her thoughts but was talking about the game.

      She drew a careful breath, trying to tamp down the chaotic emotions that had been racing through her a few seconds ago. “I wondered if you would figure it out.”

      “Only after I caught those eagle eyes studying Ivy as she played. After the third or fourth time it hit me that you were monitoring her.” He sighed. “She’s getting tired more quickly.”

      “Yes.”

      “What else?”

      “Theo...”

      He shook his head. “I want to know.”

      And he deserved to. She just didn’t want to be the one to tell him. But she owed it to him to be honest.

      “Her arms have developed a tremor when holding them in front of her.” Muscle wasting from lack of use. The problem was, no one had any idea what was causing them to atrophy. “By the time we were ready to leave the room she was completely spent. I have a feeling she forced herself to keep going. For you.”

      “Hell.”

      Theo put his hands behind his neck and stretched his arms out to the side. A pop sounded in one of his joints, the sharp sound making her flinch slightly.

      “Sorry. Bad habit.”

      She could understand that. She had her little quirks as well. But they were more along the lines of insomnia when she was dealing with a puzzling case. She’d had more than her share of nights doodling symptoms on a whiteboard and looking for something that would ring a bell. Ivy’s symptoms were plastered on a board she’d propped in the dining room of her apartment. And she had definitely spent more than one sleepless night searching for a clue.

      “Her treatment team wants to do more blood tests,” he said.

      “I know. I asked that the report be sent down. The list of what it’s not is growing longer, which is good in that the list of what it could be is getting shorter.”

      “Is it?” His arms went back to his sides. “How long can she go on like this? At some point it’s going to reach a point of no return.”

      Hadn’t she thought something very similar moments earlier?

      Fighting through the catch in her throat, she turned toward him, wrapping her fingers tightly around his wrist. She wasn’t sure if she was clutching him to reassure herself or to lend weight to what she was about to say.

      “Hey. We’re not there yet. She’s still breathing.” Not the best way to word it. She hurried to add, “The weakness is only in her limbs and hips at the moment.”

      “Thank God for that.” The second he reached up to cover her hand with his, she knew touching him had been a big mistake. The heat from his skin was electric, unseen calluses scraping across her nerve endings and bringing them to life.

      She should move. Tug her hand free. But since she’d initiated the contact, she had no one to blame but herself.

      “I’ll take as many of those ‘at the moments’ as I can get,” he murmured. “Until we can figure this out.”

      The hallway was completely empty. There were fewer people staying in this section over the holidays, since everyone who could go home to be with their families did.

      Ivy could probably have a great team of caregivers if she went home as well, but Theo wanted her here. Near him. They had an amazing bond. One she’d never had, growing up.

      A tightness in her chest warned her that her emotions were venturing far too close to the surface.

      She glanced up and caught him staring at her. She wanted to promise him miracles and happy endings