"No," she whispered. "Please.
I haven't much time left.
Let me speak to Jonas."
I turned to look at the doctor.
"All right," he said. "But just for a moment."
I heard the door click behind me, then I looked down at Rina.
Her hand lifted slightly and stroked my cheek.
I caught her fingers and pressed them to my lips.
"I had to see you, Jonas."
"Why did you wait so long, Rina?"
"That's why I had to see you," she whispered. "To explain."
"What good are explanations now?"
"Please try to understand, Jonas.
I loved you from the moment I first saw you.
But I was afraid.
I've been a jinx to everyone who ever loved me.
My mother and my brother died because they loved me. My father died of a broken heart in prison."
"That wasn't your fault."
"I pushed Margaret down the stairs and killed her. I killed my baby even before it was born, stole Nevada's career from him, and Claude committed suicide because of what I was doing to him."
"Those things just happened. You weren't to blame."
"I was!" she insisted hoarsely.
"Look what I did to you, to your marriage.
I should never have come to your hotel that night."
"That was my fault. I made you."
"Nobody made me," she whispered. "I came because I wanted to.
When she came, I knew how wrong I was."
"Why?" I asked bitterly. "Just because she had a belly way out to here?
It wasn't even my child."
"What difference does that make?
What if she did sleep with someone else before she met you? You must have known it when you married her.
If it didn't matter then, why should it have mattered just because she was going to have his child?"
"It did matter," I insisted. "All she was interested in was my money.
What about the half-million-dollar settlement she got when the marriage was annulled?"
"That's not true," she whispered. "She loved you. I could tell from the hurt I saw in her eyes.
And if the money was so important to her, why did she give it all to her father?"
"I didn't know that."
"There's a lot you don't know," Rina whispered. "But I haven't time to tell you.
Only this.
I ruined your marriage. It's my fault that poor child is growing up without your name.
And I want to make it up to her somehow." She closed her eyes for a moment. "There may not be much left in my estate," she whispered. "I've never been much good with money, but I've left it all to her and appointed you my executor.
Promise me you'll see that she gets it."
I looked down at her.
"I promise."
She smiled slowly.
"Thank you, Jonas. I always could count on you."
"Now try to rest a little."
"What for?" she whispered. "So I can live another few days in the mad, crazy world that's running around in my head?
No, Jonas.
It hurts too much. I want to die.
But don't let me die here, locked up in this plastic tent. Take me out on the terrace.